City of Lewiston v. All Me. Fair Ass'n

Decision Date26 July 1941
Citation21 A.2d 625
CourtMaine Supreme Court
PartiesCITY OF LEWISTON v. ALL MAINE FAIR ASS'N.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Androscoggin County.

Action to recover taxes by the City of Lewiston against the All Maine Fair Association. On plaintiff's exceptions to a report of referees.

Exceptions sustained.

Argued before STURGIS, C. J., and TITAXTER, HUDSON, MANSER, WORSTER, and MURCHIE, JJ.

Thomas E. Delahanty, of Lewiston, for plaintiff.

Frank W. Winter, pro se, and John G. Marshall, of Auburn, for defendant.

STURGIS, Chief Justice.

Action of debt by the City of Lewiston to recover taxes assessed in the years 1935, 1936 and 1937 against the All Maine Fair Association, a corporation located in Lewiston and organized under Chapter 70 of the Revised Statutes. A plea of the general issue having been filed and the case referred under rule of court, the plaintiff's exceptions to the acceptance of the report bring the case to the Law Court for review.

It is conceded that the taxes sued for were duly assessed in gross upon all the real estate of the Association, this action of debt in the name of the City of Lewiston was authorized, and the All Maine Fair Association is a scientific institution within the meaning of Paragraph III, Sec. 6, Chap. 13, R.S., which provides that included in the list of property exempt from taxation in this State is: "The real estate of all literary and scientific institutions occupied by them for their own purposes or by any officer thereof as a residence * * *; but so much of the real estate of such corporations as is not occupied by them for their own purposes shall be taxed in the municipality in which it is situated."

The defendant Association contends that all its property is exempt from taxation under this statute. The City of Lewiston insists that part of the property is not occupied by the Association for its own purposes and is taxable by virtue of the exception to the exemption provision.

It seems to be indisputably established by the record that the real purpose for which the All Maine Fair Association was incorporated was to conduct Agricultural Fairs at Lewiston and to that end it has acquired a large tract of land in that City with a race track, grandstand, stables and divers other buildings thereon which it occupies and uses generally as a fair ground upon which it holds its Annual Fairs and at other times, when the Fair is not in progress, conducts or by concession or lease, permits pari-mutuel horse races, rodeos, circuses, shows and amusements. In its exhibition hall, but in an addition to it, originally erected for use as an automobile display room, a use long since discontinued, the Association has for some years operated a skating rink throughout the year for revenue and as a venture foreign to the carrying on of its Annual Fair. The Association has regularly let certain parts of the property, for ground rental, to sundry persons as lots upon which to erect and maintain cottages. A small parcel of the property has for years been let, for an annual rental, charged if not collected, as a site of a part of a victualing house which extends from adjoining lands into and upon the Fair ground. At least one on the stables has been let outright for hire to other persons for their own exclusive use. A part of the land in the Fair ground tract is vacant and neither occupied or used at all by the Association for its own purposes.

There can be no doubt that a part of the property of the All Maine Fair Association is exempt from taxation. The land upon which the race track is laid out, the grandstand and the buildings used in connection with the operation of the annual Agricultural Fair, having been acquired and designed and always used in good faith for that purpose, are not taxable. This is true even though the Association sometimes has allowed other persons or corporations to temporarily and occasionally use a part of the property for a rental, or occasionally itself has used a part of it for purposes...

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8 cases
  • Berry v. Daigle
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • July 12, 1974
    ...Holbrook Island Sanctuary v. Inhabitants of Town of Brooksville, 161 Me. 476, 214 A.2d 660 (1965); City of Lewiston v. All Maine Fair Association, 138 Me. 39, 21 A.2d 625 (1941). Where a petitioner seeks to recover moneys paid for an allegedly unlawful and therefore invalid tax, he may not ......
  • Christian Business Men's Committee v. State
    • United States
    • Minnesota Supreme Court
    • March 4, 1949
    ...v. Hoehn, 355 Mo. 257, 196 S.W. 2d 134; Lois Grunow Memorial Clinic v. Oglesby, 42 Ariz. 98, 22 P.2d 1076; City of Lewiston v. All Maine Fair Ass'n, 138 Me. 39, 21 A.2d 625; Board of Equalization v. Tulsa Pythian Benevolent Ass'n, 195 Okl. 458, 158 P.2d 904; American Sunday School Union v. ......
  • Erie County Agric. Soc. v. Cluchey
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • July 1, 1976
    ...326 Mass. 167, 93 N.E.2d 462; Town of West Hartford v. Connecticut Fair Assn., 88 Conn. 627, 92 A. 432; City of Lewiston v. All Maine Fair Assn., 138 Me. 39, 21 A.2d 625). Rather than look elsewhere, to other provisions of article 4 or to other jurisdictions, to determine whether the societ......
  • Maryland State Fair & Agr. Soc., Inc. v. Supervisor of Assessments of Baltimore County
    • United States
    • Maryland Court of Appeals
    • June 14, 1961
    ...to have been decided by this Court, and there is a dearth of authority elsewhere directly in point. The case of City of Lewiston v. All Maine Fair Assn., 138 Me. 39, 21 A.2d 625, involved property taxes on all of the property of the All Maine Fair, under a statute that exempted the property......
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