-: SJC-13365
Hume Lake Christian Camps, Inc.
v The Planning Board of Monterey.
-: Okay, attorney Brewer, whenever you're ready.
-: Chief Justice, Fellow Justices.
My name is Donna Brewer
and I'm here representing the Planning Board of Monterey.
I wanna give you a little bit of background.
Monterey is a small town in Southern Berkshire.
It is very close to the Connecticut border,
and it has the last census, 2020 census a 1,000 people.
Hume Lake Christian Camps has about 400 acres in Monterey.
In 2019, it filed an application for site plan review
and approval for an RV trailer park.
That application was denied on July 25th, 2019
by the Planning Board.
At the outset I wanna note that Monterey
has no hostility to or prejudice against
Hume's religious beliefs.
That's not why we're here.
Much of Hume's arguments
address the faith of the safe staff and the attendees.
That is not the issue,
nor is it the question that the volunteers do valuable work
or that the seasonal staff do valuable work.
Rather the issue is as to the RV park
as I'm paraphrasing from Regis College case,
there's a two-pronged test
that's going to be applied to this RV park.
One, the youth must have as its bonafide goal,
something that can be reasonably described
as religiously significant.
And two, the religiously significant goal
must be the dominant or primary purpose
for which the land or the structures will be used.
-: Now can I ask you,
why do you rely on that one
rather than the Laslett case right now?
-: Well, I'll get to the Laslett case,
which I think is more of an accessory use case
in the sense that,
I think the Laslett case actually helps us.
It is not against what the Planning Board's decision is.
There's been a lot of talk in the briefs
about the maintenance shed
and whether the maintenance shed is a religious use.
I'd say that goes to the accessory use.
But the reason why it's different
is that the maintenance shed
specifically and directly is holding religious artifacts.
The lights for the festival of lights they talk about.
But here the distinction is
the volunteers are what are important
for the operation of the camp,
not where those volunteers are housed.
We're talking about an RV camp
that they're putting there for housing
when there is no finding that this housing as an RV camp
is necessary for the support of the religious activity.
-: What if they put the campers in the RV camp?
-: If they put the campers? -: Yeah.
-: That may not be it either. -: Why not?
-: Because what you're talking about,
the use of the property
and the use of the property in that case is housing.
They're gonna be sleeping there.
Maybe they'll be eating there,
but they're not having prayer sessions there.
-: But if dorm in a college, right?
Is a dorm in a college
is gonna be part of the college, right?
We said that the dorm is not protected as under Dover.
I assume we say it is protected, right?
-: Well, so in that instance, there is a,
in the educational context,
we're talking about a full panoply of programs
and experiences, and we're talking about-
-: An overnight camp.
I mean, it's a camp where people come for weeks at a time,
they need to sleep and they need enough places to sleep
and they need to both sleep their staff
and sleep their kids, right?
I follow the judge's reasoning all the way up
until she started dividing up who was using the RVs.
Then I started saying, "I've never seen a case
where we do it so granularly, okay?
-: We have in the cases
discussed the specific uses of the property.
So for example, in the Tufts College case
where talking about the parking garage,
you're talking about the parking garage
and its connection to the library.
-: How did we rule in the parking garage?
I've forgotten what the ultimate,
that's a hard case to follow, but what-
-: Yeah, curiously enough.
So the parking garage case, the Tufts College case involved,
it wasn't permitted in the specific district,
the garage itself.
But what's curious is that you did allow
the application of the side yard setbacks.
So the college said, "We only need 30 feet,
or we only want 30 feet for our side yard setback."
The Medford said, "No, you need 50."
What was curious in that case is that the court said,
"There was no showing that there was a financial reason,
a cost that interfered with the use of the property
for education and therefore if the 50 yard setback
was applied, and therefore the 50 yard setback applied."
In this case, we've had a trial.
And the court found evidence that the primary and dominant
purpose of this RV par park was to save money.
-: No she doesn't do that.
She finds the primary purpose for,
she divides it into three things at the end.
Donna: Yeah.
-: And she finds that two of them are religious based,
two of them are part of the mission and one isn't.
But that just doesn't work, does it?
It's gotta be all three,
or it's gotta be one way or the other.
Either it's a financial move or it's a religious move.
It it can't be two thirds religious
and one third financial can it?
That's gotta be wrong for the reasons
that Reba states, right?
-: First the finding was different.
She found that the use of the property to house volunteers
was not religious.
That was financial.
Secondly, she found that the housing of seasonal staff
at the RV park was financial, not religious.
-: No, She finds two of them meet the requirements.
Right, I mean, I had trouble figuring out exactly
what she did at the end,
but she finds two of them are basically necessary
to run this religious mission camp.
The housing your students there and housing your staff there
are fine.
It's the volunteers she decides is purely financial.
-: It's trial-
Kafker: And she doesn't even do that, you know?
-: Trial court finding 47, paragraph 47,
"The primary purpose of the volunteer component
to the RV campus to save money."
-: I agree with that.
Donna: Then trial court-
-: How about the other two parts?
-: Trial court finding paragraph 49,
"The primary purpose of the seasonal staff component
of the RV campus to save money."
-: But then doesn't she go on and say that
it's necessary because they're losing money
and therefore it's part of the religious mission?
-: No, your Honor.
In fact, What she's talking about,
she accepts that the volunteers provide a service.
The volunteers, again,
let's go back to these volunteers have no obligation
to take part in any religious activity at the camp.
They are not required to sign any statement of belief.
They are not required to have any religious belief at all.
What they are doing for the camp
is building Adirondack chairs and doing raking and planting.
-: Well, can I ask you?
As we're looking at this, what our factual predicate is
because the argument on the other side
that it's not financial, but that it's religious
relates to financial, which is to run these overnight camps
cost a fortune and they can't do their religious mission
without the volunteers.
There'll be no camp without them.
So first of all,
how does that relate to what happened at trial and findings?
How does that fit in with their argument?
-: So there's two different aspects
that I want us to keep in mind here.
One of which is the necessity of volunteers,
and the other is the necessity of housing those volunteers.
-: They say it's inextricably intertwined
because it, I'm not saying that they're right,
but let's let 'em have their,
and I'm not saying what happened at the trial reflects us,
but they're saying it's inextricably intertwined.
We can't afford to get the volunteers.
And also this is why they come. It works for them.
This attracts volunteers
and it gives us a chance to preach to them about conversion.
So why is that wrong?
Based on the trial and based on the argument.
-: Couple of things if I can address the second one first.
Which is yes, they can proselytize to non-believers
who are the volunteers.
That doesn't mean that's the primary or dominant purpose
of the RV camp.
Second, there was absolutely no evidence at the trial
that the RV park was necessary to obtain volunteers.
To the contrary, Mr. Sablowski testified
that he has lots of people who wanna volunteer.
That has not been an impediment to the institution,
to this camp existing.
-: I asked you, I'm sorry to interrupt.
I know you're in the middle of answering question,
but back to justice Kafka's question,
which I think he may have had backwards.
I think two parts of the RV camp were financial.
One part was actually religious, the family camp.
So how, as a practical matter is that to be implemented?
-: You can look at it one of two ways.
One of which is you look at it collectively
as I think the justice was alluding to.
Collectively the prominent and the primary and dominant
portion of this RV camp is to provide housing to anybody,
whether it's the seasonal staff, the volunteers, or people-
-: So let's just say we disagree with you
and we agree with the finder of fact who said,
"At least for the family camp,
the primary purpose is religious."
Then what do we do?
-: Then you can look collectively
at the primary and dominant purpose
of the RV camp altogether.
Remember what they're gonna be-
-: But two outta three means no dice.
-: Two outta three means no dice.
-: Why?
-: I would say, because that's therefore
not the primary and dominant purpose of the RV camp.
-: This is 6% of the residents are financially based.
And a third is for the families
who wanna practice the religion as a family.
-: That is not different from the judgment
that this court has made
and other appellate courts have made
when looking at the use of property for religious purposes,
they make a distinction in the cases.
The Collins case, although it's not an appellate case,
is one indeed where they're looking
at any financial benefit.
If you take your reasoning,
any financial benefit to a religious institution
would be entitled protection under the Dover Amendment.
That is not what the case is saying.
-: Well, that's not necessarily true
because in those other cases,
you have instances where you have third parties
that are operating things that we talk about
that there's no oversight from the religious organization
to members is operating
the whatever's generating the income.
But this is different. This is different.
They're operating this and I'm still struggling with,
I think Reba makes a very good point here,
but if we zoom out here and look collectively
at the RV park, they've already testified
that they don't generate enough income to run the thing.
They've gotta get some support
from the National Hume organization.
You've already told us about that.
There are very few residents in Monterey.
So they have all of these things now
where they're trying to run this park
that is predicated on the religious experience with nature
integrating the two.
So now they've devised this plan
to have people come to this RV parks, whether it's families
or volunteers to help the overarching
overall mission of Hume.
How is that not protected?
-: A couple of things, I wanna make it clear.
It doesn't matter who is operating the RV park
or as it was suggested in the amicus brief,
which I think is just absolutely off base.
Look at the Christian communications case
where you're talking about they were operating
a radio tower and four hours
was going to be directed to religious proselytizing
18 hours total.
And the court said in that case,
"No, that is not predominantly, primarily a religious use."
Let's look at.
-: But La Salle, right? How about La Salle?
-: So La Salle was interesting.
It does indeed find that it looks at all of the particular
uses of the property,
whether it's the welcome center or the safe house
or the maintenance shed.
It does indeed look granularly at the use of the property
to determine what is religiously based,
what is predominantly religiously based and what isn't.
And what's curious in that case,
is they did not find that everything,
because it's owned property by the religious institution,
that therefore it's all gonna be religious.
They did say, "No, some of this you're allowing to use
for secular uses."
Perhaps it would've qualified under a different clause
for tax exemption, but it doesn't fall under Clause 11.
One of the cases that you might-
-: I thought La Salle was the university case
where they consider it more to be a nursing home
or something.
-: Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking of Laslett.
I was mixing them up.
-: Because in that case, in La Salle,
they analyze things as a whole and they said,
"Okay, this really isn't an educational institution.
It's really a nursing home or whatever
-: Exactly. -: an elderly housing area."
-: Exactly, and you can look
and go back to your Regis college case.
-: But isn't that what we're supposed to do here?
-: Well, no, because you're looking specifically at the use.
Again, to go back to the Tufts College case,
we agree Tufts College is an educational institution.
They looked at the parking garage
specifically because that is the structure
that was not permitted under zoning
and had certain setbacks that had to be met.
Here, it's not the camp itself that is in question.
It is the-
-: But you can't have a camp without housing
and you don't have enough housing in the camp.
So it's a chicken and egg thing.
-: Well, that wasn't actually found and that was the basis.
-: Whether that's true or not,
that's not backed up in the record.
That's what you said in response to my question about-
-: It's not in the record. Correct.
The court that you will find that as Hume's argument
and that is what they put in their application
to the planning board.
But that is not what was found by the trial court.
The trial court found that in fact,
this was for financial reasons.
You're going to put the volunteers there
in this quid pro quo, which you've heard about today
in a whole different context.
But the fact is there are more than enough volunteers
there already.
There is no finding that this is necessary
in order to get volunteers.
It is the volunteers that are necessary
for running the camp.
-: But counsel to the extent we have to examine that
or examine that in the future,
or you have to examine that in the future.
Aren't we unnecessarily getting entangled at this point
with decisions of the religious organization?
-: Boy, you know, unfortunately I think that is hard
to avoid in any of these cases.
Let's look at the Timothy Hill case,
the trial court case that found that a Christian camp
was indeed a religious use.
Here, what's curious in that case
in which I struggled with when I read it,
is it talked about the camp
is also used by secular organizations.
What was missing in that analysis
is the weighing between the two.
How much are they renting out for weddings
and family gatherings in order to get money
for the religious group
as opposed to using it for a religious care.
-: So you're saying they didn't do the balancing there
and so how did they come out?
I forget.
-: Yeah, in that case, they just said,
"Yes, this is a Christian camp. It's religious."
They didn't have any issue in there about an RV camp.
And again, we're back
to what is it that is the primary and dominant purpose
of this RV camp.
I submit that the court was right
to find that it was primarily financial.
That is, you have Mr. Sablowski, sorry, and Mr. Harris,
the two witnesses both saying we're doing this
and in return we get all these free services
that we'd otherwise have to pay for.
-: But that would make sense to me if the RV camp was,
they created an RV camp and they didn't have,
they didn't use it for anything related
to the religious mission.
They just said, "Okay, I got all this extra space out there.
Monterey is a beautiful place.
We're gonna have a lot of people touring it.
Let's have an RV camp there,
will collect the money from that.
Those people don't work here. They don't house our kids.
They just generate money for us."
That to me, yes, you're right.
That's primarily financial,
but that isn't what this RV camp does.
Anybody who uses that RV camp is working or residing
or volunteering in this place.
So I find it hard to separate
it out from the religious mission there.
Again, if we're an RV camp to generate money
because they're losing money
and the people didn't have to live there or work there,
but that rather they toured the Berkshires
and they went to all the great places out in the Berkshire.
That's primarily financial.
But this is different, it's integrated into the mission.
-: What's integrated into the mission
are the volunteers themselves, not the RV park.
The RV park is simply being used
for sleeping, eating, relaxing.
That's where these volunteers will go the campers.
-: Well, how's that different than a coffee shop at Laslett?
-: So the difference for,
actually it's actually not that different
except for the fact that the coffee shop
is integrated into the programmatic LaSalle offerings.
The it's in the same
-: Year and all that
-: As of that as the video welcoming,
telling them all about our Lady of Laslett.
The here, there's no religious activity taking place
for all that you're saying that the family camp
is going to use this for contemplation,
coming back after lunch by the family.
There's in fact no evidence to that.
There is no evidence.
-: How is that different from a college dorm though?
-: Again, so a college dorm,
you're going to have college activities in dorms.
It just they all have common rooms,
they all have activities that take place here.
We don't have that in an RV park.
What we have is housing for these people who will go
and engage in religious activities perhaps
not the volunteers, but the other two will say
engage in religious activities at the camp,
not in the RV park.
Again, to go back to Regis College, what it tells us,
we look at, and McClain says the same thing.
You look at the primary and dominant purpose of the RV park,
not the people.
I'm, again, we're not challenging the faith.
What we're looking at is the primary dominant
use of this RV park, and it is not religious.
It has no religious programming in it.
The camp is operating fine.
There is no finding that this is necessary
providing this housing is necessary
in order for the religious camp to survive.
-: When you say that, do you mean that
if the camp wasn't there, where would the people be?
Where would they go? Where would they sleep?
Where would they stay?
-: If the camp weren't there or the RV park?
-: The RV park.
-: Yeah, the camp's been there for 40 years.
They've never had an RV park.
-: Okay. -: I see my time is well over.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
-: Good afternoon, Your Honors.
-: Oh, great.
-: May I please the court?
Alexandra Glover for Hume Lake Christian Camps Inc.
-: Attorney Glover, I hate to interrupt you
before I know you're gonna begin,
but one question I don't want you to leave
without answering is,
assume for the sake of argument we agree with you.
What do we do with the land court judge's decision?
Do we just make the call and say that it issues
and you can go away.
What do we do with it?
-: Thank you your Honor.
In this particular case,
under these facts and on this record,
I think this court can, and I'd suggest should
affirm the trial court as to all but,
and then reverse the trial court on the primary purpose
of the housing of the volunteers
and the housing of the seasonal staff to be financial,
reverse the court on that position.
-: Is that a question of fact or a question of law?
Is it supported in the record?
Is there a finding to that effect?
-: Well, your honor, the question of the primary purpose,
the land is a well established as a question of law
for the court.
The subsidiary fact, this is very mixed,
so it's hard to separate out.
So it is a question of law.
I will just diverge from this for a moment.
-: With just following up on that.
So you have, again, I may have it backwards.
So two-thirds of it, she finds one way
and one third of it, she find two-thirds of it.
She finds primarily financial
and one third primarily religious or the other way around.
But how then we can say,
"Okay, even if she found two-thirds of it financial,
we could still rule that it's primarily financial based."
-: You absolutely can, your Honor,
because it's a question of laws.
So the what what the court found was,
and I agree with the court's findings, application of law,
all the way till we hit the point that I'll point out.
The court found the primary purpose was cost.
It is a question of law in both the religious
and the educational cases under the Dover Amendment
as to what the primary purpose is.
So this court on this record can see the primary purpose
is not cost and here's why.
The question before the court was,
what is the use of the RV park?
Parenthetically, it's not just an RV park.
That's what we've been calling it for shorthand.
It's temporary seasonal housing
it would include temporary trailers.
It's not just RVs coming and going.
The camp's not gonna buy 12 RVs
and house their seasonal staff in it.
The real purpose of the RV park
and clear in the record is seasonal housing
for participants at programs
and for workers at the camp period.
That is undisputed.
That's what the RV park is for.
-: What the workers at the camp as a subsidiary finding mean.
Does that include the volunteers?
-: I'm sorry, your Honor, I didn't hear the first.
-: That include the volunteers.
You said Anne workers at the king?
-: It does, yes, your Honor.
And there is no meaningful distinction for Dover Amendment
purposes between the seasonal staff that's hired
and the temporary seasonal staff that volunteers.
To go back, the Dover, excuse me,
the Martin case made it clear there's this inquiry,
what is the purpose of, in that case,
it's a portion of the structure.
The answer is it's part of the church.
It's part of the church where worship takes place.
And Martin said, "No further inquiry was warranted."
I'd suggest here that's the right answer.
And that's where the court should have stopped
for the court then that the line the court has
in the decision is each use is materially different.
That's where the court went
out of the Dover Amendment analysis.
The word necessary has been used here today.
Martin specifically strikes the word necessary
from a religious Dover Amendment analysis.
The question is not whether the use is necessary,
it's whether it is related to or in furtherance of.
-: Well, it's primarily, there's the word primarily.
-: Yes, your Honor.
Which is different-
-: That primarily something
has to be either primarily financial
or primarily religious, right?
-: And under the Dover Amendment,
the question is whether the primary use of the land
or structure is religious.
The answer here is just like a maintenance shed
that's housing vehicles in the Laslett case,
the primary purpose of the use of the land
is the Christian ministry through the camp.
The housing of people who are related
to the work of that Christian ministry at the camp.
Both people attending programs
and people working at the camp that is the primary purpose.
They are related to the primary purpose of the land,
so much more so than maintenance vehicles and Laslett.
I wanna point out it wasn't just religious
decorations for Christmas that were housed
in the maintenance shed.
The court actually spent a lot of time talking about
the fact that there were vehicles
that were used by the staff.
I'd say in this case that there's a side point
that should be a significant concern.
If the logic of the land court is followed through,
then how can any non-profit,
let's say religious organization,
rely on the use of volunteers
if to do so is going to in any way implicate
a local municipal regulation?
If the court found, so the court split here and said,
"Well, for the seasonal workers, the ones that are hired,
the primary purpose of the use of the RV park
is cost savings because you don't wanna build
a whole building."
As to volunteers, what the court said is,
"The primary purpose is cost
because you don't wanna pay seasonal staff."
Volunteers don't only come in RVs,
so volunteers come in their own cars as well.
Some come in RVs and that's a nice perk
that the camp would like to use to attract them
and also to accommodate them.
You can't just park an RV behind the building.
Hume's gonna comply with the law
and will not have recreational vehicles
on the campus if they're not permitted to do so.
But if the court's logic is followed through,
why can the volunteers stay in a building
that only exists under Dover Amendment protection?
Every structure on the Hume campus in Monterey,
all the new structures are there
under the auspices of the Dover Amendment,
pursuant to site plan review
under the Monterey zoning bylaw for religious uses.
There is no zoning distinction
between the permanent buildings that are built
and the temporary seasonal housing.
I'd say something else about the temporary nature,
there are other facts
supporting the reason why an RV park and not a building.
Now, I don't think the court should ask that question.
I think that is granular.
How does Hume Lake best fulfill its mission?
And that extends not only
to how does it teach Christianity
through a camping ministry
down to how is it going to sort of on a practical level
promote its and support its mission?
In the record there is evidence
and this is addressing your honor's question about
what should this court do?
Not just that this argument that there's cost savings
from these people.
There's evidence that this is seasonal, temporary housing.
The camp doesn't need a permanent building at this time.
This is for seasonal overflow.
It is, and in fact, if I may, Mr. Jablowski,
who's the camping director at the time,
testified that in answer on cross-examination,
isn't this all about money?
It's not just about finances, it's about the mission.
What what's the effectiveness of our mission
with the number of people we have going through camp.
There's all kind of issues
that would ultimately determine your growth
and the pace of it.
It's actually programmatic.
How big are they going to get?
How many people can the camp accommodate?
They don't need the permanent building.
Now that's not just about cost,
it's actually about substance.
And then the other issue of course,
is that to support the volunteers, you want to have
the capability of them to use the RV hookups.
The type of particularized inquiry that the gland court
did in this case is exactly the type of inquiry.
And that's the language particularized inquiry
that was rejected in Laslett
and it was in direct rejected in Martin.
I think to make the distinction,
I don't wanna talk about Tufts for a minute
because there are two parking cases that I think,
I dunno what it is about parking,
but there are two parking cases
that I think really make this jux-
-: They make a lot of money that's why.
-: Yeah, that's what it's the first is Tufts parking garage.
There's two parts to that case
is it pertains to the parking garage.
What's relevant to us here is that the parking garage
was permitted as a component
or part of the educational purpose.
No one, by the way in the record said,
"Who's gonna be parking that parking garage?
Is it volunteers? Is it the general public?
Is Tufts making money?
It really wasn't the question.
You have a large campus, you need a parking garage.
The second part of that case
where the court talked about cost
was a completely different question.
That was, once you assume or decide
that this is an educational purpose,
you come to the next point.
Is there a reasonable dimensional regulation at issue?
Yes, a front setback.
Then you get to the balancing.
Is it too expensive? Is the only issue cost?
Is there a legitimate municipal inquiry
as to whether or not there's a setback?
I mean, in that case, cars were gonna cue
out into the street, people would die.
So it certainly was a leg legit legitimate concern
of the town.
Contrast to that parking garage.
And no one cares who parks in there.
At least it's not on the record with Collins,
which is a land court case.
And in Collins, what the court held
was the church has a parking lot,
but they have rented it out
to a completely unrelated entity, a hospital.
The hospital is busing their employees back and forth.
They have financial incentives,
they have parking stickers that is completely different,
has nothing to do with the religious nature
of the church in Collins, so-
-: Let me ask you if you can respond to the argument
in response to my question,
I said, well, isn't the volunteers necessary
for the camp to be financially successful
and the RV park is a way to attract volunteers?
Alexandra: Absolutely.
-: And and the response to that was
there's nothing to support that in the record.
What do you say in response to that?
-: I say two things.
The first thing I would say
is that that's not an inquiry
the trial court should have made.
Do you need the volunteers?
Are they necessary? That is not-
-: Well primary purpose.
-: the question, right?
Primary purpose is to work at the camp.
What's their motivation?
That's entirely relevant, irrelevant.
Maybe they just want exercise.
That's not the issue.
But to answer specifically, there is support in the record.
The volunteers perform a much needed surface.
In fact, one of the stipulated facts is in retrospect,
but I contributed to that language,
but was it volunteers are a critical
part of the financial operation of the camp.
-: Yeah they're saying that you don't need the RV park
to accomplish what you need for volunteers
to be able to have the camp function.
-: That's correct. That's correct, your Honor.
You do not require an RV park.
Again, this is a park of seasonal or temporary housing.
It would include RVs and the record
is also temporary trailers
and other types of temporary housing.
Yeah, you don't need the volunteers to come in RVs,
but a lot of them do.
These are seniors who are retired and travel around
in the summer and do volunteer at this camp
and in other religious camps,
and I assume other locations as well.
But they come in RVs
it would be nice to have an RV hookup for them,
and it's an attraction.
The flip side is if you have a volunteer in an RV
and you don't have a hookup
and you're not permitted to have RVs on campus,
then that would exclude those volunteers.
What are they gonna do with their RV?
They can't come volunteer.
Does that answer your honor's question?
I just in terms for a moment about the volunteer's
motivation for being there
and whether or not it makes any difference whatsoever,
whether they are subscribing
to Hume's religious creed and doctrine,
its statement of belief,
whether they are a different type of religion
or whether in fact, again,
they're just there for exercise and they don't care at all.
I don't think that matters at all to the inquiry
as to whether the primary purpose of the temporary housing
is to support and further the mission of the church,
including its oper, excuse me,
the camp including its operation.
They're there to work at the camp,
and the court found that there's a factual finding
that volunteers are at Hume, the court says,
"For a day, a week or more while they are working at Hume."
That's a specific finding that the court made.
The court did in one small place engage
in what can only in my mind be described
as complete speculation.
And specifically what was said was,
"Who knows the volunteers
could even be there just for sightseeing
and maybe it's just a farce or something that they come
and they park up at Hume and then go,
I don't know, go to Tanglewood or something."
Not only is there no evidence whatsoever
in the record for that,
but there is evidence to the contrary,
when asked that question, Mr. Jablowski testified
that he has never heard or observed of a volunteer
faking coming to work at the camp
and instead going to all of the gorgeous attractions
that are in Southern Berkshire County.
So I have no idea where that that came from,
but it apparently was significant to the court.
I don't think there's evidence is contrary to that point.
If Your Honors have no more questions,
I could talk about this all day,
(Your Honors laughing)
but if Your Honors have no more questions on that point.
-: No, thank you.
-: I'd like to just address the other question
and the question that this court posed that,
at least from my perspective,
was not part of the trial because it was stipulated,
and not only was it stipulated,
but the court then made very specific, extensive findings
about why Hume qualifies
for Dover Amendment protection at all.
First of all, as your Honor knows,
there's two parts for Dover Amendment protection
for a religious entity.
-: Sure you don't wanna rely on your brief on that one.
You won that one already.
-: Thank you, your Honor.
If the courts wanna discuss sector denomination at all.
-: I know you wanna tell us things.
-: Then I will rest on my brief on that point.