Book Agents of M. E. Church, South, v. Hinton

• Citation: 21 S.W. 321
• Parties: BOOK AGENTS OF METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, v. HINTON, County Trustee.
• Decision Date: 25 February 1893
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

Page 321

21 S.W. 321 BOOK AGENTS OF METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH,
v.
HINTON, County Trustee. Supreme Court of Tennessee. February 25, 1893.

Page 322

Appeal from circuit court, Davidson county; W. K. McAlister, Judge.

Action by the Book Agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, against W. E. Hinton, county trustee of Davidson county, to recover a tax. Judgment dismissing the action, from which plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

W. T. Turley and Pitts & Meeks, for plaintiff. W. D. Covington, for defendant.

WILKES, J.

The plaintiff is a body corporate, doing business at Nashville, Tenn. An ad valorem tax was assessed upon its personal property, for state purposes, for the year 1890, at a valuation of $40,000. The tax was paid, under protest, February 28, 1891, amounting to $120. Within 30 days thereafter, this action was brought to recover the amount paid, on the ground that the plaintiff was a corporation created, and its property used, purely and exclusively for religious and charitable purposes, and hence exempt from taxation under the constitution and act of the legislature. The court below (Hon. W. K. McAlister, Judge) heard the case, upon an agreed statement of facts, without the intervention of a jury, and, being of opinion that the tax was properly laid and collected, denied the plaintiff any relief, and dismissed the suit, from which judgment the plaintiff appealed.

It is the policy of the state, and but justice between its citizens, that all property shall be taxed, and that no property shall escape this common burden, unless it comes fairly within the exemption; and it is incumbent on the plaintiff to show that it comes within the exempting clause of the constitution and statute. This court has said, in the case of State v. Fisk University, 87 Tenn. 241, 10 S. W. Rep. 284: "The intention of the legislature must govern in ascertaining the extent of tax exemptions; and when the exemption is to religious, scientific, literary, and educational institutions, the same strict construction will not be indulged in that would be applied to corporations created and operated for private gain or profit." The fundamental ground upon which all such exemptions are based is a benefit conferred on the public by such institutions, and a consequent relief, to some extent, of the burden upon the state to care for and advance the interests of its citizens. The constitution, art. 2, § 28, provides that "all property, real, personal, and mixed, shall he taxed; but the legislature may except such as may be held by the state, by counties, cities, and towns, and used exclusively for public or corporation purposes, and such as may be held and used for purposes purely religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational," etc. The act of 1889, c. 96, § 2, subsec. 2, under which this tax was assessed, exempts all property belonging to any religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational institution, used exclusively for the purposes for which said institution was created. The terms "purely," as used in the constitution, and "exclusively," as used in the statute, are synonymous, and mean that the property must be used wholly and entirely for such charitable and religious purposes, and exclude entirely the idea of any individual gain or profit, or indeed of any corporate profit, unless it is used purely for such religious and charitable purposes.

The important question raised in the case, and set out in the assignment of errors, is, was this institution purely religious and charitable in its purposes, and was the property assessed, held, and used exclusively for such purposes, when this tax was laid? The question is an important one, not so much on account of the amount, as of the principle, involved. The plaintiff was chartered by chapter 136 of the acts of 1855-56. The first section provides that Edward Stephenson and Francis A. Owen, and their successors in office, "be, and they are hereby," made a body corporate and politic, under the name and style of the Book Agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and by that name and style to have perpetual succession for the manufacture and distribution of books, tracts, periodicals, etc., with power to sue and be sued, to hold personal and real estate, and to sell and dispose of the same as they may deem best for the interests involved. The second section provides that the corporation shall "now, and at all times hereafter," be under the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, according to the laws and usages of the same, as contained in their present or any future edition of their Discipline. Looking to this Book of Discipline, it appears (section 229) that the object or purpose of the institution shall be to advance the cause of Christianity, by disseminating religious knowledge and useful, literary, and scientific information, in the form of books, tracts, periodicals, etc. It is put under the control of the general book agent and a book committee elected by the general conference. This general conference has power to make...