Appeal Tax Court of Baltimore City v. St. Peter's Academy

• Decision Date: 31 January 1879
• Citation: 50 Md. 321
• Parties: APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. ST. PETER'S ACADEMY. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Alphonsus Hall. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Lawrence's Church. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Mary's Seminary. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. Rock Hill College. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Trustees of the Catholic Cathedral Church of Baltimore. Same v. Same APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The General Workingmen's Sick Relief Union of Baltimore City. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Red Men's Hall of Baltimore. APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Zion Church of the City of Baltimore.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

50 Md. 321

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. ST. PETER'S ACADEMY.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Alphonsus Hall.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Lawrence's Church.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. St. Mary's Seminary.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. Rock Hill College.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Trustees of the Catholic Cathedral Church of Baltimore.

Same v. Same

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The General Workingmen's Sick Relief Union of Baltimore City.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Red Men's Hall of Baltimore.

APPEAL TAX COURT OF BALTIMORE CITY v. The Zion Church of the City of Baltimore.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 31, 1879

A Leo Knott, State's Attorney for Baltimore City, and Charles J. M. Gwinn, Attorney-General, for the appellant.

The valuations and assessments which were made of the property of the appellees under the Act of 1876, ch. 260, must be recognized as remaining obligatory upon the appellees, unless the court is prepared to say that the grant of exemptions made by the Act of 1878, ch. 413, sec. 3, can be held to have operated retrospectively, so as to affect the levy made by the corporate authorities of Baltimore City for the year 1877. This levy created a debt or duty for that year chargeable upon each one of the appellees, and upon all other persons to whom property had been assessed in that city. State v. Mayhew, 2 Gill, 496. This debt or duty is in the nature of a contract obligation, because the law implies a promise on the part of every one assessed with a tax, that he will pay such tax. Baltimore v. Howard, 6 H. & J. 395; Dashiell v. Baltimore, 45 Md. 621.

This court has said that it is a universal rule that no statute will be construed to act retrospectively unless such purpose be plainly expressed in the statute. Baugher v. Nelson, 9 Gill, 303; State v. Norwood, 12 Md. 206; Clark v. Baltimore, 29 Md. 283; Davis v. Clabaugh, 30 Md. 508; Williams v. Johnson, 30 Md. 500; Herbert v. Gray, 38 Md. 529; Williar v. Baltimore Butchers' Loan Asso., 45 Md. 555, 556; Prince v. U. S., 2 Gallison, 208; Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 66, 190, 191; Archer v Bokenham, 11 Mod. 150; Henderson's Tobacco, 11 Wall. 656, 657.

The Act of 1878, ch. 413, sec. 3, in exempting the parsonages connected with buildings used exclusively for public worship and the grounds appurtenant to such buildings, which were necessary for their respective uses, as well as the buildings; and in exempting the ground appurtenant to hospitals, asylums, charitable or benevolent institutions which were necessary to their respective uses, as well as the buildings; and in exempting the buildings, furniture and equipment of incorporated educational or literary institutions, contains no word from which the inference can be drawn that the Legislature intended that the Act should operate retrospectively. On the contrary, the second section of the Act of 1878, ch. 413, upon which the third section is made directly dependent, expressly shows in its concluding words, that it was intended to be prospective in its operation, because it declares what property shall be liable to be valued to the respective owners thereof.

The grant of exemptions, therefore, made by the third section of the Act of 1878, ch. 413, cannot be held to operate retrospectively; and, even if this court should be of the opinion that the third section of the Act of 1878, ch. 413 repealed the second section of the Act of 1876, ch. 260, nevertheless the property valued to each one of the appellees was properly valued to such appellee. We shall not, on our part, contend that the exemptions granted by the Act of 1876, ch. 260, sec. 2, were repealed by the third section of the Act of 1878, ch. 413. We shall only insist that the appellees are confined to the exemptions expressly granted by that Act.

As to Rock Hill College.

This corporation would seem to be an institution properly exempted from taxation under the Act of 1876, ch. 260, sec. 2.

As to the Trustees of the Cathedral Church of Baltimore.

The appellees, by the Act of 1820, ch. 84, were authorized to hold property-- real, personal or mixed, not exceeding a certain amount--exclusive of the Cathedral. The property thus held was not exempted from taxation by the Act of incorporation. The exemption can only be claimed under the Act of 1876, ch. 260, sec. 2. It would seem to have been the purpose and meaning of the second section of the Act of 1876, ch. 260, that no corporation should be enabled to claim the benefit of the exemptions granted by that Act, unless such corporation was a religious or charitable corporation, actually using as a corporation, for religious or charitable purposes exclusively, the ground and buildings for which the exemption is claimed.

As to the Zion Church of the City of Baltimore.

It does not appear from the petition in this case, that more than two bodies remain buried in the ground on which Zion Church is situate. The graves yet remaining near the church, are those of two former ministers of the congregation; the other bodies buried in the lot have been removed to some other. burial place. The petition states that it is proposed to bury in the lot around the church the present minister of the church when he shall depart this life. As the petition shows that the present incumbent has been for more than forty years such minister, it would seem that the last burial in the lot--the burial of the minister who preceded the present incumbent--must have taken place more than forty years ago.

So far as we may gather from the petition and affidavit filed in the case, the use of the lot as a burying ground for members of the congregation has been abandoned for many years.

Under these circumstances, it does not seem to be right that in executing the Act of 1876, ch. 260, sec. 2, we should treat the whole of the lot on which Zion Church stands as the burying-ground of a congregation. It would seem that all the ground surrounding Zion Church ought to have been valued, except so much as, in a cemetery, would be accounted proper enclosures for the graves of the two ministers who are buried near the church; and except so much as may suffice for another space of ground, of proper dimensions, for the interment of the present minister, when he shall depart this life.

As to the Red Men's Hall of Baltimore.

The order passed in this case must be reversed, because it appears by the petition that portions of the building owned by the appellee are rented at a money rent to strangers, to be used for purposes of trade. The portions of the building so used constitute taxable properties.

As to St. Peter's Academy, St. Alphonsus Hall, St. Lawrence's Church.

It is true that the Statute of 43 Eliz. ch. 4, commonly called the Statute of Charitable Uses, was never in force in this State. This statute, however, created no new law; it only created a new and ancillary jurisdiction. Att.-Gen. v. Mayor of Dublin, 1 Bligh, 312, 347; Vidal v. Girard, 2 How. 195; Ould v. Washington Hospital, 95 U.S. 309, 310.

A different doctrine was set forth in the preliminary words of the opinion in Dashiell v. Att.-Gen., 5 H. & J. 398, founded, as was then said, upon the opinion of the Supreme court in Baptist Asso. v. Hart, 4 Wheat. 1. It will be seen, by reference to the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case cited, that the language of Chief Justice Marshall did not justify the broad theory of our Court of Appeals, that "the peculiar law of charities originated in the Statute of 43 Eliz." As it would now seem to be settled that the Statute of 43 Eliz. ch. 4, did not create any new rule of law, (Vidal v. Girard, 2 How. 195; Ould v. Washington Hospital, 95 U.S. 309, 310,) it is probable that, when the occasion arises, this court may modify the ruling made by its predecessors in Dashiell v. Att'y-Gen., 5 H. & J. 398, and hold that the Statute of 43 Eliz. ch. 4, was declaratory of the common law in force when it was enacted, except in so far as it afforded a new remedy.

Under the authority of all the cases, we may, at all events, look to this Statute of Elizabeth as affording a just description of institutions which must properly be regarded as charitable. These are, in the preamble of the Act, classified as institutions for the relief of aged, impotent and poor people; for the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and mariners; for schools of learning, free schools and scholars in universities; for the repair of bridges, ports, havens, causeways, churches, seabanks and highways; for the education and preferment of orphans; for the relief or maintenance of houses of correction; for the marriages of poor maids; for the support, aid and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen and persons decayed; for the relief or redemption of prisoners or captives; and for the aid or ease of poor inhabitants in the payment of taxes. Institutions falling under any one of the classes above set forth may properly claim to be charitable institutions.

Such charitable institutions, existing in this State, have been exempted from taxation by the Act of 1878, ch. 413, sec. 3, to the extent therein set forth; but under the Act of 1876, ch. 260, sec. 2, they were exempted in 1877 only so far as they were used for the benefit of the indigent and afflicted.

Baltimore City Court, in considering the appeals made to it, was administering the Act of 1876, ch. 260, only. It was not at liberty to consider the averments that the institutions referred to were "charitable and benevolent institutions, maintained by charitable offerings in whole, or in great part," even when accompanied by proof that there was an annual deficit in the revenue of said institutions, as...