Quest Diagnostics, Inc. v. Director, Division of Taxation

21 N.J. Tax 484
CourtNew Jersey Tax Court
DecidedSeptember 9, 2004
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 21 N.J. Tax 484 (Quest Diagnostics, Inc. v. Director, Division of Taxation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Tax Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Quest Diagnostics, Inc. v. Director, Division of Taxation, 21 N.J. Tax 484 (N.J. Super. Ct. 2004).

Opinion

KUSKIN, J.T.C.

Plaintiff Quest Diagnostics, Inc. appeals the denial by defendant Director of the New Jersey Division of Taxation (Director) of plaintiffs refund claim as to $1,073,232 of sales tax paid for the period April 1, 1996 to December 31, 2000. The tax related to plaintiffs purchases of vacutainers (small test tubes sealed with stoppers and used to collect human blood specimens). Plaintiff contends that the vacutainers are wrapping supplies exempt from tax under N.J.S.A. 54:32B-8.15, a provision of the Sales and Use Tax Act, N.J.S.A. 54:32B-1 to -53. The Director has moved for summary judgment dismissing the appeal. For the reasons set [486]*486forth below, I conclude that plaintiffs purchases are not eligible for exemption and grant the Director’s motion.

Plaintiff operates a laboratory in which it performs testing of human blood and other body fluids and generates written reports containing the results of the tests. See Metpath, Inc. v. Director, Div. of Taxation, 96 N.J. 147, 150, 474 A.2d 1065 (1984) (describing the laboratory testing services of Metpath, Inc., plaintiffs predecessor in interest).1 The tests must be ordered by physicians. Plaintiff will not perform a test upon request by a patient or other non-physician. The blood and other fluids to be tested are collected in vacutainers or similar devices at offices of physicians- or at facilities operated by plaintiff and delivered to plaintiffs laboratory.

Two sizes of vacutainers are in issue, one contains a chemical anticoagulant and the other contains a chemical clot activator. Plaintiff purchased all of the vacutainers from Becton Dickinson and Company which shipped them to plaintiff in sealed packages. Neither plaintiffs name nor any other identification of plaintiff appeared on the packages or the vacutainers. The label on each package identified the contents as “BD Vaeutainer — Blood Collection Tubes.” In his certification submitted in opposition to the Director’s motion, plaintiffs Director of Lab Operations described the vacutainers as “non-proprietary” and as being “the same or similar tubes used by other testing firms, such as Lab Corp.” Plaintiffs Area Sales Director stated as follows in his certification:

Quest Diagnostic competitors use either the same or similar vaccutainer [sic] collection devices as those obtained by Quest from Becton Dickinson. Many physicians use multiple laboratories since different insurance companies require different clinical laboratories perform their insured’s testing. Quest Diagnostics, Inc., on a daily basis, does receive and will accept vacutainers used by other laboratories or made by other manufacturers and as such will perform the testing on the specimen provided.

Plaintiff markets its laboratory testing services to physicians through sales representatives. Once a physician agrees to use [487]*487plaintiffs services (not necessarily exclusively), plaintiff then provides to the physician, without charge, a supply of vacutainers and a courier box in which the containers can be placed for pick-up by plaintiff. Supplying physicians with vacutainers for placement of blood specimens is a general practice of laboratory companies. In his deposition, plaintiffs Area Sales Director described vacutain-ers as a standard supply that physicians expect to receive and stated that: “[0]ur belief is, if we weren’t to provide them, our competition would, and we would lose business.”

A physician’s certification submitted by plaintiff confirms the foregoing statements by plaintiffs employees. The physician notes that the laboratory to be used for a test generally is determined initially by the insurance carrier for the patient, and, if the insurance carrier does not require that a particular laboratory be used, the physician will select a laboratory based on “my professional experience with the type of test required and the accuracy and timeliness of the clinical laboratory’s return of results or in some cases, a patient’s direct request.” The physician stated that, in drawing blood prior to submitting it to a laboratory for testing, he would use a vacutainer provided by plaintiff or by another laboratory company. In this regard, the physician certified as follows:

The determination of which testing laboratory to use has no bearing on the supplies sent to my office from the clinical laboratory, rather the supplying of vaecutainers [sic] is a convenience to my office and the patient. The vaccutainers [sic] have no other use but for blood collection and no vaccutainers [sic] are returned to this office after they have been used for specimen collection.

The cost of the laboratory testing performed by plaintiff is borne by the patient and not by the physician. Once the testing is completed, the blood and the vacutainer are destroyed pursuant to state and federal law because they constitute biohazardous waste. The test results are transmitted to the physician, and, if the patient specifically requests, to the patient as well, and a bill is sent to the patient or the patient’s insurance carrier.

The statute under which plaintiff seeks exemption from sales tax, N.J.S.A. 54:32B-8.15, provides in pertinent part as follows:

[488]*488Sales or use of wrapping paper, wrapping twine, bags, cartons, tape, rope, labels, nonretarnable containers, reusable milk containers, and all other wrapping supplies when such use is incidental to the delivery of any personal property... are exempt from the tax imposed under the Sales and Use Tax Act.
[N.J.S.A. 54:32B-8.15.]

The Director contends that plaintiffs vacutainer purchases do not qualify for exemption for the following reasons:

1) the vacutainers are not wrapping supplies as defined in the statute because, as used by plaintiff, they are returnable containers. The Director asserts that plaintiff uses the vacutainers as a marketing device with the express intention that, after use to collect blood specimens, the vacutainers be returned to plaintiff for testing purposes. The Director also asserts that physicians can return unused vacutainers to plaintiff; and
2) plaintiff does not use the vacutainers incidental to the delivery of any personal property as required by the statute, because it delivers the vacutainers to physicians empty except for the anticoagulant or clot activator chemicals placed by the manufacturer in the vacutainers prior to shipment to plaintiff.

The Director’s arguments implicitly assume that qualification for exemption should be determined by examining only the transactions between plaintiff and physicians. Plaintiff, however, contends that the returnability and use of the vacutainers must be determined by considering not only their delivery to physicians but also their use by the physicians, as facilitators for plaintiff, to collect blood specimens and deliver the specimens to plaintiff for testing, and plaintiffs destruction of the emptied vacutainers. Plaintiff asserts that, when viewed in this fashion, the vacutainers satisfy the statutory criteria of “nonreturnable containers” used “incidental to the delivery of any personal property.”

Reported decisional law interpreting N.J.S.A. 54:32B-8.15 comprises four cases: Global Terminal & Container Servs., Inc. v.

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Bluebook (online)
21 N.J. Tax 484, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/quest-diagnostics-inc-v-director-division-of-taxation-njtaxct-2004.