03-YU-Contemporary-I
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Page 1 IN THE REGULAR DIVISION OF THE OREGON TAX COURT (Property Tax) ) YU CONTEMPORARY, INC. ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) vs. ) ) DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, STATE OF ) OREGON, ) ) Defendants, ) CASE NO. TC 5245 ) and ) ) MULTNOMAH COUNTY ASSESSOR, ) ) Intervenor. ) _________________________________________________________________ VERBATIM REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS _________________________________________________________________ April 5, 2016 Before the HONORABLE HENRY C. BREITHAUPT TRANSCRIBED BY: Kaedra Ray Wakenshaw, CCR, RPR, CRR CCR No. 1900 Page 2 1 A P P E A R A N C E S 2 FOR THE PLAINTIFF: 3 Jeffrey G. Bradford 4 Tonkon Torp L.L.P. 1600 Pioneer Tower 5 888 SW Fifth Avenue Portland, Oregon 97204 6 Michael J. Millender 7 Tonkon Torp L.L.P. 1600 Pioneer Tower 8 888 SW Fifth Avenue Portland, Oregon 97204 9 10 FOR THE DEFENDANT: 11 Daniel Paul Assistant Attorney General 12 Department of Justice 1162 Court Street NE 13 Salem, Oregon 97301 14 FOR THE INTERVENOR: 15 Carlos Rasch 16 Assistant County Counsel Multnomah County Attorney's Office 17 501 SE Hawthorne Boulevard Suite 500 18 Portland, Oregon 97214 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Page 3 1 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 2 3 PROCEEDINGS PAGE 4 Opening Statement (Plaintiff)........................ 10 Opening Statement (Defense).......................... 20 5 6 TESTIMONY PAGE 7 JENNIFER L. MARTIN 8 Direct Examination..............................32 Cross-Examination...............................106 9 Redirect Examination............................152 Recross-Examination.............................160 10 AARON F. JAMISON 11 Direct Examination..............................162 Cross-Examination...............................203 12 Redirect Examination............................217 13 BELINDA M. DEGLOW Direct Examination..............................221 14 Cross-Examination...............................249 15 KARLA HARTENBERGER Direct Examination..............................263 16 JENNIFER L. MARTIN 17 Rebuttal Examination............................267 18 19 EXHIBITS PAGE 20 (None admitted) 21 22 23 24 25 Page 4 1 BE IT REMEMBERED that on April 5, 2016, the 2 above-captioned cause came on duly for hearing before the 3 HONORABLE HENRY C. BREITHAUPT, Judge of the Regular Division of 4 the Oregon Tax Court (Property Tax); whereupon, the following 5 proceedings were had, to wit: 6 7 <<<<<< >>>>>> 8 9 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: Thank you. Please be 10 seated. 11 Good morning, everyone. 12 MR. BRADFORD: Good morning, Your Honor. 13 MR. RASCH: Good morning, Your Honor. 14 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: This is the time for oral 15 argument in -- no. It's not oral argument. It's trial. 16 That's why. Well, I have lots of stipulations. So I beg 17 your pardon -- time for trial in Yu Contemporary, Y-U 18 Contemporary, Inc., vs. Department of Revenue and Multnomah 19 County Assessor. 20 If counsel would introduce themselves, please. 21 MR. BRADFORD: Good morning, Your Honor. Jeff 22 Bradford and Michael Millender from Tonkon Torp for 23 plaintiff, Yale Union. 24 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: Thank you. 25 MR. RASCH: Your Honor, Carlos Rasch, on behalf Page 5 1 of the Assessor's Office. 2 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: Welcome. 3 MR. PAUL: Daniel Paul for the State, for the 4 Department. 5 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: Thank you. 6 You can see that these gentlemen and Mr. Rasch are 7 unaware of the housekeeping rule, which is you do not need 8 to stand unless you wish to at any point, but you're 9 welcome to stand if you wish to. 10 And so today we have, I would say, an interesting case 11 involving the scope of the property tax exemption statutes 12 in Oregon. As I've read your papers, the taxpayer draws 13 quite a distinction between what I'm going to call -- well, 14 first of all, draws my -- our attention to the fact that 15 there is an ownership requirement found in one statute, and 16 then there is a use requirement which follows and in -- and 17 in the view of the taxpayer has a differential application 18 depending on what kind of organization you are. 19 MR. RASCH: That's correct. 20 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: And I will say not 21 surprising in some ways because, for example, I had a case 22 last year or the year before involving the Elk's Club in 23 Oregon City, which has -- fraternal organizations have -- 24 and the issue in that case was the application of exemption 25 statutes to a fraternal organization, which was a Page 6 1 separate -- seemed to have a separate history and 2 development. 3 Now, you have -- and I thank you for this -- provided 4 a substantial stipulation of matters that, it appears to 5 me, would be difficult to contest. And I thank you for 6 that. 7 Let me ask by way of again housekeeping or 8 organization a couple of things. Number one -- and I -- in 9 asking the question, I do not mean to suggest that I have 10 an answer that I would prefer to hear, but I just want to 11 know, given the scope of the stipulation, what do you think 12 the probability is that we will need more than one day of 13 trial? 14 And I would ask, I suppose, counsel for taxpayer 15 first. 16 MR. BRADFORD: Your Honor, our hope is that we 17 can get through matters today. We would hope to put on two 18 of our witnesses this morning, and then you'll define the 19 afternoon. We'll see, I guess, how things go with 20 cross-examination and the like, but our hope would be that 21 tomorrow's spillover is just that, just in case we don't 22 get through. But after talking it through with counsel, 23 our hope is that we'll be through today. 24 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: And, Mr. Paul, should I be 25 looking primarily at Mr. Rasch for the answer to this Page 7 1 question? 2 MR. PAUL: Yes, Your Honor. The State will not 3 be putting on any witnesses. 4 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: All right. Mr. Rasch? 5 MR. RASCH: Agreed, Your Honor. We -- like 6 counsel said, we spoke this morning. Our hope is that we 7 can get it done today. We also discussed doing written 8 closings as well, and we're in agreement with that if the 9 Court is. 10 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: Yes. And, frankly, that was 11 my next question. But first of all, thank you for -- let's 12 try to get done today. 13 And one of the reasons I say that is that if we were 14 to go into tomorrow, especially if we were to go towards 15 the noon hour, I have a conference call at 1 o'clock 16 Pacific Time with a bunch of folks, believe it or not, a 17 tax court judges annual conference. There is such a thing. 18 Everyone -- you know, I only thought that it was in 19 Germany that every particular group had a conference and a 20 publication. It comes over to America. We have this 21 conference, and I'm responsible to help organize it. 22 So we would need to adjust -- in effect, adjust our 23 feedbag time tomorrow because of the 1 o'clock, if we 24 needed that time. So we'll try to get through today. 25 And the second point was -- and I don't mean, Page 8 1 Mr. Rasch, in any way, or Mr. Paul, too, by comparing to 2 criticize or even comment particularly on your trial 3 memorandum, but Mr. -- but the taxpayer's trial memorandum 4 looked to me very much like what could be, with some 5 adjustments, a closing brief; that is, it was rather 6 thorough. I'm not suggesting yours wasn't thorough, but I 7 was wondering today, "Well, are we -- are people 8 anticipating some closing arguments?" You are, in writing. 9 And I would hope you would address -- I will just say 10 I would hope, for the benefit of the Court, that counsel 11 for the County and the State would address the points 12 regarding, for example, legislative history that I wouldn't 13 find typically -- wouldn't find them in trial memoranda. 14 But I don't mind that they're there. They help frame what 15 the discussion is going to be about. 16 MR. RASCH: Sure. 17 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: But you'll have an 18 opportunity to respond to those in the closings. 19 Okay. So unless there are other housekeeping matters, 20 I will say that I believe, from reading your papers, that I 21 understand your basic positions. If you'd like to have a 22 brief opening comment, you may. Otherwise, we can proceed 23 to presentation of evidence. 24 MR. BRADFORD: Your Honor, just a few 25 housekeeping matters. Page 9 1 In the stipulations, the parties agreed that the 2 exhibits that we identified in advance of trial were both 3 authentic and admissible. And we've also agreed that with 4 your approval we will go ahead and submit those into 5 evidence, our exhibits into evidence. 6 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: All right. Very well. 7 Thank you. 8 MR. BRADFORD: And with that, we have a copy 9 for the judge. Would you prefer me to hand that to the 10 clerk or directly to you? 11 JUDGE BREITHAUPT: I'll take it. 12 MR. RASCH: And are those just plaintiff's 13 exhibits? 14 MR. BRADFORD: That's right. 15 MR. RASCH: Okay. 16 MR. BRADFORD: Yeah. 17 MR. RASCH: I have a copy as well, but it 18 contains both, so I don't know if that might be more 19 beneficial. 20 MR. BRADFORD: Oh, of both sets? 21 MR.