Academy of Fine Arts v. Philadelphia County

• Decision Date: 01 January 1854
• Citation: 22 Pa. 496
• Parties: Academy of Fine Arts versus Philadelphia County.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 496

22 Pa. 496

Academy of Fine Arts versus Philadelphia County.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ERROR to the District Court of Philadelphia.

C. Ingersoll, for the corporation.

Baker and Badger, for the County of Philadelphia.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by LEWIS, J.

This Court has repeatedly declared it to be a rule of the public law that taxes shall be assessed in such manner that all the citizens may pay their quota in proportion to their abilities and the advantages they derive from the society: Hood's Estate, May, 1853; Vattel, Kent, &c. All laws exempting any portion of the people or property from bearing a proper share of the public burdens, unless in consideration of adequate contributions to the community in some other form, are therefore unjust. To create privileged classes, and to exempt them from the payment of their just proportion of the public taxes, is to lay increased taxes upon the other citizens; and, unless compensated for, by corresponding advantages to the public, is to violate the duties of government. For this reason, statutes which strip the government of any portion of its prerogative, or give exemption from a general burden, should receive a strict interpretation: 11 Rep. 74; 8 Mod. 8; Cowper 26. No interests, falling within the general description of taxable property, can claim exemption from bearing their just proportion of the public charges, unless the exemption be so clearly expressed in the statute as to admit of no other construction. It is never to be presumed that the legislature intend to lay unequal burdens upon the people; and their enactments are not to be construed so as to produce that result, unless the intent is so plainly expressed as to render it unavoidable: Dwarris on Statutes 669, 749, 750.

With these principles in view, we arrive at the question, Is the "Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts" one of the academies which the legislature, in the Act of 1838, designed to exempt from taxation?

That Act exempts from contributions to the support of government, "all universities, colleges, academies and school-houses, belonging to any county, borough, or school district, or incorporation, endowed or established by virtue of any law of this Commonwealth, with the grounds thereto annexed." An academy originally meant a garden, grove, or villa, near Athens, where Plato and his followers held their philosophical conferences; but, of course, we are not to adopt this as the present meaning of the word. It has acquired, by the usage of modern times, a variety of meanings. It is sometimes used to designate a school for teaching a particular art or science. But it is most commonly understood to mean a school or seminary of learning (holding a rank between a university or college, and a common school), in which the arts and sciences in general are taught.

The term college is likewise used in various senses, as a college of electors, a college of surgeons, or a college of cardinals: but it is commonly used to describe an edifice appropriated to instruction in the languages and sciences in general. There is less diversity in the...