Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch upbraided Fredericksburg, Virginia, for denying a tax exemption to two church leaders living in a church-owned house, after the city determined that the church’s own governing documents undermined its claim that the leaders were entitled to a tax exemption.
Gorsuch was the sole dissenter from the Supreme Court’s Jan. 18 decision not to take up the case known as Trustees of the New Life in Christ Church v. City of Fredericksburg, court file 21-164, an appeal from a March 3, 2021, decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia. There was no indication of how many justices voted to steer clear of the appeal. At least four of the nine justices would have had to vote to hear the case in order for the high court to have accepted it.
