Asylum v. New Orleans

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Citation: 105 U.S. 362,26 L.Ed. 1128
• Parties: ASYLUM v. NEW ORLEANS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

105 U.S. 362

105 U.S. 362

26 L.Ed. 1128

ASYLUM v. NEW ORLEANS.

October Term, 1881

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Edwin T. Merrick and Mr. George W. Race for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. Henry C. Miller, contra.

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

This case comes before us for the purpose of reviewing the judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana, which sustained the validity of a certain tax imposed by the authorities of the city of New Orleans upon the property of the plaintiff in error, the 'St. Anna's Asylum for the relief of destitute females and helpless children of all religious denominations,' a charitable institution which was incorporated by an act of the legislature of Louisiana, approved April 29, 1853, for the purposes indicated by its name. The charter gave it perpetual succession and power to take, purchase, possess, and enjoy all kinds of property whatever, real or personal, by gift, grant, sale, bequest, exchange, or by any other mode of conveyance or transfer whatsoever, and the same to sell, convey, or dispose of under the restrictions therein provided, and directed that it should administer the same for the furtherance of the object of the incorporation and in accordance with the conditions of the charter; with a provision, that all acceptances of immovable property, and all alienations of immovable property and stocks, should be signed by the president and treasurer, after the declared will of a majority of the board of directors had been duly inscribed on the minutes of the corporation. It appointed a first board of directors, and provided for annual elections thereafter, and for the appointment of a president and other officers, and declared that the president and directors should superintend, manage, and control the affairs and interests of the corporation.

The sixth section declared as follows:——

'SECT. 6. Be it further enacted, &c., that the said corporation shall enjoy the same exemption from taxation as was enacted in favor of the 'Orphan Boys' Asylum of New Orleans' by the act approved March 12, 1836, entitled, 'An Act for the relief of the Orphan Boys' Asylum of New Orleans."

The act relating to the 'Orphan Boys' Asylum of New Orleans,' referred to in this section, declared as follows:—— 'That from and after the passage of this act all the property, real and personal, belonging to the Orphan Boys' Asylum of New Orleans be and the same is hereby exempted from all taxation either by the State, parish, or city in which it is situated, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.'

The proofs show that under the charter thus granted the corporation was duly organized, and, by means of donations, erected an asylum, and has always fulfilled the objects of its organization. The property on which the tax in question was imposed was procured in 1874, and was assessed in the tax-list at $90,000. The following admission with regard to it appears in the record:——

'Now, therefore, it is admitted (as was done in the lower court) that the defendant acquired said cotton-press mentioned in the tax-bill and answer filed by defendant, after 1874, by devise, bequest, and legacy, from Dr. W. N. Mercer, and that they were the owners of the same when said assessment of $1,350 of city taxes was made by the city. That no inmates of the asylum are kept upon the premises, and that the revenues of the cotton-press on which said assessment is made are applied to the keeping and maintaining the objects of charity mentioned in the defendant's act of incorporation, viz. to the support and maintenance and relief of destitute females and helpless children of all religious denominations, as intended by the charter, and that said asylum is, and has been since its organization, in active and efficient operation (as shown by the evidence) in the city of New Orleans.'

The proofs further show that the corporation largely relies on the rents of this property for enabling it to carry on its benevolent work.

The tax in question was imposed in 1876 under the supposed authority of the Constitution of 1868, and legislation adopted in pursuance thereof. Article 118 of that Constitution declared as follows: 'Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State. All property shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law. The General Assembly shall have power to exempt from taxation property actually used for church, school, or charitable purposes.'

In conformity with this provision the legislature of Louisiana, in 1871, passed a law delaring that all taxes levied by the city of New Orleans shall be assessed equally upon every description of property, both real and personal; but, by another act, passed at the same session, it was declared that public hospitals, asylums, poor-houses, and all other charitable institutions for the relief of indigent and afflicted persons, and the lots of ground appurtenant thereto and used therewith, and all their furniture and equipments, so long as the same shall be used for that purpose only, shall be exempt from taxation.

The corporation resisted the payment of the tax, and the usual proceedings for its collection were instituted in the Third District Court for the Parish of Orleans. The corporation filed an answer setting up the exemption from taxes contained in its charter, and claiming that it was a contract, and contended that the Constitution of 1868, and the statute passed in pursuance thereof, impaired the obligation of said contract, in violation of the tenth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States. The court below gave judgment in favor of the city, and an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and the judgment was affirmed. We are now called upon to review this decision.

The language of the exemption is so explicit and so broad, and comes in after so many allusions to property which it is supposed the corporation might acquire, other than that which would be directly used for food and shelter to the destitute and helpless persons under its care, that no doubt can be entertained as to its literal application to all the property of the society which it would be lawful and proper for it to possess. The funds on which it relies for carrying on its work, however invested, whether in stocks, real estate, or otherwise, no less than the asylum building itself, are clearly embraced in the terms of the exemption; and to exclude them from its operation would require the insertion or addition of words which the legislature did not see fit to express. Undoubtedly, if the corporation should acquire property not needed or used for carrying on the institution, it would be an act outside of the objects and purposes of the charter, and ultra vires; and, as to such property, it could not, in its own wrong, justly claim the benefit of the exemption. But the property in question is not obnoxious to this objection; it directly contributes to the support of the institution, and is held for that purpose alone.

Indeed, it is not on any assumption that the...