The Fee-as-Tax Test: Indiana's Suit Was Evansville's, and No Lakeville Instance Stands

2002–2006 at court-record strength · Nagy v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp., 844 N.E.2d 481 (Ind. 2006), read in this section; Union-North's record searched for a local instance

Indiana's textbook-and-fee fight exists, it is documented to its settlement course, and it is not Lakeville's — the test now prints whole so this section's silence on the item is a finding, not an omission. The state's case: for 2002–03 the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation imposed a mandatory $20 student services fee on every K–12 student, including students qualifying for free and reduced lunch and textbook programmes, the proceeds going to the general fund. Parents sued in October 2002 on behalf of a class, claiming the fee violated Article 8, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution — the clause requiring a system of free common schools, tuition without charge — and the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court split the claims; the Court of Appeals held the fee unconstitutional (808 N.E.2d 1221, 2004); and on 30 March 2006 the Indiana Supreme Court agreed, holding the student services fee inconsistent with Article 8, Section 1 because it charged for what amounts to tuition — while expressly not extending that holding to textbook rental fees, which the constitution does not prohibit charging. That distinction is the fee-as-tax line for every Indiana corporation, Union-North included: a general student fee of the Evansville class is unconstitutional; a textbook rental fee is not, on the state's highest court's own words. The leg closes the item as a tested negative at court-record strength for the state course and searched strength for the local instance; its settler for record strength on the local limb is the corporation's minute books read for a fee adoption of the Evansville class.