Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Coulter

• Decision Date: 05 June 1903
• Citation: Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Coulter, 115 Ky. 787, 74 S. W. 1050 (Ky. Ct. App. 1903)
• Parties: ÆTNA LIFE INS. CO. et al. v. COULTER, Auditor, et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

74 S.W. 1050

115 Ky. 787

ÆTNA LIFE INS. CO. et al. v. COULTER, Auditor, et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

June 5, 1903

Appeals from Circuit Court, Franklin County.

"To be officially reported."

Suits by the Ætna Life Insurance Company.Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company.Equitable Life Assurance Company, Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company, Home Life Insurance CompanyMutual Life Insurance Company of New York, Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company, National Life Insurance Company, New York Life Insurance Company, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, New England Mutual Life Insurance Company Provident Savings Life Assurance Society, Prudential Insurance Company, Ph nix Mutual Life Insurance CompanyPacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, State Mutual Life Assurance Company, Mutual Life Travelers' Insurance Company, United States Life Insurance Company, and Washington Life Insurance Company against Gus C. Coulter, Auditor, and others.Judgments for defendants.Plaintiffs appeal.Reversed.

Grubbs & Grubbs and Hazelrigg & Chenault, for appellantsÆtna Life Ins. Co., Equitable Life Assur. Soc., Fidelity Mut. Life Ins. Co., Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co., New England Mut. Life Ins. Co., Provident Savings Life Assur. Soc., Prudential Ins. Co., and State Mut. Life Assur. Co.C. B. Alexander, for appellant Equitable Life Assur. Soc. Julien T. Davies and Edward Lyman Short, for appellantMutual Life Ins. Co. of New York.Humphrey, Burnett & Humphrey, for appellantsConnecticut Mut. Life Ins. Co. and New York Life Ins. Co.John J. McHenry, Joseph T. Noe, and George Du Relle, for appellantHome Life Ins. Co. Dodd & Dodd and Hazelrigg & Chenault, for appellantMutual Benefit Life Ins. Co.Henry Stoddard, F. M. Sackett, and Alex.C. Barret, for appellantMetropolitan Life Ins. Co. Hazelrigg & Chenault and Jno.W. Rodman, for appellantsNational Life Ins. Co. and Washington Life Ins. Co.Bennett H. Young and Hazelrigg & Chenault, for appellantMichigan Mut. Life Ins. Co. Barnett & Barnett, Hazelrigg & Chenault, Hardin H. Herr, and Chas. K. Stuart, for appellantNorthwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co. Pirtle, Trabue & Cox and Augustus E. Willson, for appellants Ph nix Mut. Life Ins. Co. and United States Life Ins. Co.Donald B. Toucey, for appellantUnited States Life Ins. Co.Wm. Brosmith and Pirtle, Trabue & Cox, for appellantTravelers' Ins. Co. Gordon & Gordon, for appellantPacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. Sweeney, Ellis & Sweeney, J. C. Beckham & Son, and W. S. Pryor, for appellees.

HOBSON J.

Appellants are foreign life insurance companies doing business in this state.They filed these suits to restrain the board of valuation and assessment from proceeding to assess them for franchise tax for the year 1901, or retrospectively for the previous years since November 11, 1898, under section 4077, Ky. St. 1899, on the ground that such companies are not included in the statute.This is the only question to be determined.The circuit court dismissed their petition.

The statute is in these words: "Every railway company or corporation, and every incorporated bank, trust company, guarantee or security company, gas company, water company, ferry company, bridge company, street railway company, express company, electric light company, electric power company, telegraph company, press dispatch company, telephone company, turnpike company, palace-car company, dining-car company, sleeping-car company, chair-car company, and every other like company, corporation or association, also every other corporation, company or association, having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons, or performing any public service, shall, in addition to the other taxes imposed on it by law, annually pay a tax on its franchise to the state, and a local tax thereon to the county, incorporated city, town and taxing district, where its franchise may be exercised.The Auditor, Treasurer and Secretary of State are hereby constituted a board of valuation and assessment, for fixing the value of said franchise, except as to turn-pike companies, which are provided for in section four thousand and ninety-five of this article, the place or places where such local taxes are to be paid by other corporations on their franchise, and how apportioned, where more than one jurisdiction is entitled to a share of such tax, shall be determined by the board of valuation and assessment, and for the discharge of such other duties as may be imposed on them by this act.The Auditor shall be chairman of said board, and shall convene the same from time to time, as the business of the board may require."

In Louisville Tobacco Warehouse Co. v. Commonwealth,106 Ky. 165, 49 S.W. 1069, 57 L. R. A. 33, the statute was construed, and was held not to embrace private trading corporations not having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons, or performing any public service.To this conclusion we adhere.The statute names 20 classes of corporations, and then adds, "and every other like company, corporation or association," thus showing that the Legislature had in mind that other unlike companies, corporations, or associations were not included; and that these words were not intended to cover all corporations is further shown by the next words of the section: "Also every other corporation, company or association having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons or performing any public service."These words show that other companies not having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons, or performing any public service, and not included in the preceding words of the section, were not intended to be embraced by it.It follows that the section was not intended to embrace all corporations, but only the 20 classes named, and every other like corporation and every other corporation having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons, or performing any public service.The reasons for this conclusion are elaborated in the case referred to.

It remains to determine whether insurance companies are embraced by the words, "guaranty or security company," or "every other like company," or "every other corporation, company or association having or exercising any special or exclusive privilege or franchise not allowed by law to natural persons, or performing any public service," or by all of these expressions taken together.In construing a statute, the purpose is to effectuate the intention of the Legislature; and to do this, where the words of the statute are not clear, the court may look to the course of legislation and the object aimed at.Section 245 of the Constitution provided that upon its promulgation the Governor should appoint three persons learned in the law as commissioners to revise the statute laws of the state, so as to conform them to the Constitution and effectuate its provisions.This commission was appointed, and reported to the Legislature a series of acts for this purpose-- among others, an act regulating private corporations (chapter 32, §§ 538-883a, Ky. St. 1899), and an act in regard to revenue and taxation (chapter 108, §§ 4019-4281, Ky. St. 1899), of which section 4077 is a part.These acts are the work of the same Legislature, enacted pursuant to the constitutional provision; and, in determining the meaning of either, it is proper to look to the other acts of that Assembly, without regard to the date at which either act was passed, for the Assembly had before it the revision of the laws of the state.In the act on corporations an insurance bureau is created, and more than 100 sections of the act are taken up with the subject of insurance.Ky. St. 1899, §§ 617-762.The Legislature therefore did not overlook the subject of insurance, and when it named in section 4077 20 classes of corporations, many of them of much less consequence or capital than insurance companies, the presumption must be that the omission to name insurance companies in section 4077 was not accidental.This conclusion is fortified by the fact that in sections 4227and4231 a tax on the receipts of these companies is provided...