Boston Asylum & Farm School For Indigent Boys v. Charles

• Citation: 180 Mass. 485,62 N.E. 961
• Parties: BOSTON ASYLUM & FARM SCHOOL FOR INDIGENT BOYS v. CHARLES et al.
• Decision Date: 27 February 1902
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

180 Mass. 485

62 N.E. 961

BOSTON ASYLUM & FARM SCHOOL FOR INDIGENT BOYS v. CHARLES et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 27, 1902

COUNSEL

Gaston, Snow &amp Saltonstall, for petitioner.

Thomas M. Babson, for defendants.

OPINION

HAMMOND J.

A tax has been assessed upon certain land belonging to the petitioner, for benefit received by the widening and reconstruction of Clinton street; and the question is whether the provision in the charter of the petitioner (St. 1835, c 28) that it may take and hold real and personal estate to a certain amount 'free from taxes' exempts the land from such a tax. The question is narrow, and one not entirely free from difficulty. The plaintiff relies much on the case of President, etc., of Harvard College v. Board of Aldermen of City of Boston, 104 Mass. 470 but the language in that case was much more comprehensive than in the case before us. The exemption was from 'all civil impositions, taxes, and rates,'--'terms as broad as language can make them,' said Wells, J., in giving the opinion, page 482. These terms, it was said 'import not a contract of indemnity, * * * but a renunciation of the taxing power.' Page 484. The language in the present case, however, is not so broad and sweeping. The word used is 'taxes.' While in a general sense it may be said that a betterment assessment is a kind of tax still we think that there is a well-understood difference in the meaning of the two terms as generally used in our statutes. The word 'tax' is used when one is speaking of the annual tax, or any other tax which forms a part of the general burden for public purposes, while the word 'assessment' is used to designate the amount to be paid into the public treasury as a part of the benefit specially received by reason of some local improvement. The first is a burden, inasmuch as it adds nothing to the value of the estate taxed. The second simply requires the landowner to share with the public the special benefit received by the local improvement, and it cannot be assessed unless there be such benefit, and even then not beyond that. The value of the estate is always diminished by the first, but never by the second. This distinction between the usual legal signification of the words seems, as above stated, to be quite generally recognized in our statutes. See the various sections of Pub. St. cc. 11, 12, as to the word 'tax'; and chapter 49, §§ 92, 93; chapter 50, §§ 5, 6, 7, 20, 22; chapter 51,§§ 1-8,--as...