Greenville Ice And Coal Co. v. City of Greenville

• Decision Date: 14 December 1891
• Citation: 69 Miss. 86,10 So. 574
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GREENVILLE ICE AND COAL COMPANY v. CITY OF GREENVILLE

10 So. 574

69 Miss. 86

GREENVILLE ICE AND COAL COMPANY v. CITY OF GREENVILLE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 14, 1891

October 1891

FROM the circuit court of Washington county, HON. R. W WILLIAMSON, Judge.

On March 9, 1882, was passed "An act to encourage the establishment of factories in this state and to exempt them from taxation." The act contains, among other things the following sections:

"SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of Mississippi, That to encourage the introduction of factories in this state, the machinery used for the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, yarns, or fabrics composed of these or other materials, or for the making of all kinds of machinery or implements of husbandry, or all other things or articles not prohibited by law, the manufactured goods and the materials used therefor, the buildings in which the machinery is located and grounds upon which situated, or which may be within the necessary inclosure around such buildings; also all warehouses and other store-houses used exclusively by the company in its business and adjacent to the factory and its inclosures, and also the offices of the officers and employes adjacent to and located on the grounds of such factory, and used by them alone, but shall not apply to any railroad shops or machine-works which are the property of railroads, and no other property, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, exempt from all taxation, state, county, and municipal, for the period of ten years from the time such factory is completed and in operation. . . . .

"SEC 4. Be it further enacted, That all capital hereafter employed in canning factories, and capital employed in the operation of the Clements attachment, shall be exempt, as provided in the first and second sections of this act."

The Greenville Ice & Coal Company was incorporated after the passage of the above statute, and its business is the manufacture of ice and the bottling of soda-water by machinery in the city of Greenville. Having been assessed for taxes by the said city on all its real and personal property used in said business, the said company petitioned the board of mayor and aldermen of the city to be released from assessment and taxation on that portion of the property engaged in the manufacture of ice, claiming exemption under the above statute. The application was denied, and an appeal taken to the circuit court, where the case was tried by the court without a jury, by consent of the parties, and resulted in a judgment for the city, and from that judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

Affirmed.

Jayne & Watson, for appellant.

Making ice from water by artificial means is a manufacture of ice. People v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 99 N.Y. 181; Attorney-general v. Lorman, 59 Mich. 157. The statute of 1882 is very inartificially drawn, but its language is broad enough to cover all kinds of factories except such as are prohibited by law, and machine-shops belonging to railroad companies. Its declared purpose is to encourage the introduction of factories. It specifies certain kinds of machinery, and then broadens out to embrace machinery in the manufacture of any thing not prohibited by law. The rule that these words must be limited to things of like kind as those specified cannot be applied. To give force to the words "or all other things or articles not prohibited by law," we must construe it to mean all other kinds of manufactories not prohibited by law; otherwise, why modify this general exemption by expressly excluding therefrom railroad shops or machine-works? These are not of like kind with those enumerated. The purpose of the act was to offer inducements for establishing factories in this state. It cannot be doubted that the language includes ice factories.

Calhoon & Green, on the same side,

Filed a brief and written argument discussing the statute in its several parts and as a whole, and contending that by its language and its obvious intent ice factories are embraced within the exemption.

Campbell & Starling, for appellee.

The statute exempts only three classes of factories: (1) Those manufacturing goods, yarns, or fabrics composed of cotton or wool or similar material; (2) those manufacturing machinery or similar articles; (8) those manufacturing implements of husbandry or similar articles. The words, "all other things or articles not prohibited by law," must be referred to the words, "machinery or implements of husbandry,"...