Boston & M.R.R. v. Town of Billerica

• Decision Date: 03 March 1928
• Citation: 160 N.E. 419,262 Mass. 439
• Parties: BOSTON & M. R. R. v. TOWN OF BILLERICA.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

262 Mass. 439

160 N.E. 419

BOSTON & M. R. R.

v.TOWN OF BILLERICA.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

March 3, 1928.

Report from Superior Court, Middlesex County; F. T. Hammond, Judge.

Petition by the Boston & Maine Railroad against the Town of Billerica for abatement of taxes. Petition was dismissed, and case reported. Order dismissing petition affirmed.J. M. O'Donoghue, of Lowell, and Wier and M. J. Cohen, both of Lowell, for petitioner.

M. G. Rogers, of Lowell, for respondent.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a petition for abatement of taxes assessed for the year 1925 on certain machinery owned by the railroad and situated in Billerica. It was taxed upon the theory that it was ‘machinery employed in and branch of manufacture or in supplying or distributing water,’ as those words are used in G. L. c. 59, § 18, clause second, as amended by St. 1924, c. 321, § 2, and hence taxable where situated. The contention of the railroad is that this machinery was used in the business of transportation and was not ‘used in manufacture or in supplying and distributing water,’ and hence was exempt from local taxation under G. L. c. 59, § 5, as amended by St. 1924, c. 321, § 1, and was subject indirectly to taxation by being included in the valuation of its franchise and thus increasing its franchise tax levied under G. L. c. 63, §§ 53, 54, 55, 58, and payable to the commonwealth. A further contention of the railroad is that, even if it be wrong in its main contention and if such property was taxable under said chapter 59, § 18, as amended, it has complied with the legal formalities pre-requisite to obtaining in these proceedings a reasonable abatement. A commissioner was appointed to make preliminary findings of fact upon specified issues. His findings upon the point whether machinery owned by the railroad and situated in Billerica was or was not used in manufacture in substance were these: The railroad was, in 1925, an extensive system engaged in the transportation of freight and passengers, operating 4,287 miles of tracks in five states and in the province of Quebec, having many thousands of employees and owning 1,056 locomotives, 1,702 passenger cars, 17,909 freight cars, and numerous other cars. In order to carry on the business of transportation efficiently it is necessary for the railroad company to maintain repair shops where its locomotives and cars may be overhauled, repaired, and kept in effective and safe condition. There are two large shops for the repair of freight cars located respectively at Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire. In addition to these there are seven small shops at different places where less important repairs are made. The principal point at which repairs to locomotives and passenger cars are made is at Billerica, Massachusetts. At that place is located an extensive establishment covering many acres, employing about 1,600 men, devoted exclusively to the repair of locomotives and passenger cars, where substantially all the repair work on locomotives and passenger cars is done for the whole of the railroad's system. There are at least eight large buildings of varying dimensions, in which these repairs are made. These buildings and the use to which each is devoted need not be described in detail. As shown by the commissioner's report, a great amount of strictly repair work is done. We refer only to the portions of his report which describe processes resembling or constituting manufacture. In the locomotive shop is a large amount of heavy machinery for the repair of locomotives. A part of this building is called the machine shop, where is done ‘all the machine work on the parts. Old parts which are worn are refinished or built up, and new parts are made to take the place of those which are lost, broken, or worn beyond repair. Crank pins, springs, rings for cylinder packing, valve bodies, various plugs and injector parts connected with the brass work of the locomotives,safety valve parts, studs and bolts of various kinds and sizes are made in this shop. These parts are all made from raw material bought elsewhere. Castings are not made on the premises, but are bought in the rough and refashioned and adapted to particular uses. The tools and dies used in the shop are made there. Under the steam hammers are shaped drawbars, spring rigging, brake rigging parts, and other forgings. Sheets of metal are bent and riveted over the locomotive boilers as boiler sheets. The making of parts is a small percentage of the entire work done at Billerica, and is confined to articles which, because of the special use for which they are required, cannot readily be bought. Probably 60,000 different articles used in the repairs are carried in stock in the storeroom, of which about 55,000 are purchased all ready to use, the remaining 5,000 being made in the shops.’ Another large building is the blacksmith shop, where ‘the blacksmith work for the locomotive shop is done. It is equipped with steam hammers, planers, and various styles of forging machinery adapted for making the various parts that go into locomotives, from the smallest bolt to the largest and most complicated forging. In this shop also locomotive and car springs are repaired, and some new springs are made.’ Another shop is principally devoted to the mounting of car wheels. ‘These wheels have been purchased elsewhere, but here the hubs are bored, the axles turned and fitted, and the wheels pressed onto the axles. Some of the wheels are used at the Billerica shop, and others are shipped to other points on the system to be used where needed. In this shop also air brake parts are repaired, and the blacksmith work is done which is necessary for the repair of passenger cars. Many car axles are here reclaimed by welding processes in which metal which has been worn off in service is replaced.’ The power plant is in another building. ‘It consists of boilers, air compressors, electrical dynamos, and pumps, used for supplying power, compressed air, water, and steam, for the operation of the entire plant. The boiler room is equipped with machinery for effectively handling coal and ashes. Electricity is here developed which is used exclusively for lighting the buildings and premises and for supplying electrical current for the motors that drive the shop machinery. In this building also are the water pumps used to supply water throughout the shops.’ In the coach shop ‘passenger cars undergo repairs ranging from the renewal of a few pieces of siding to the replacement of the entire wooden superstructure, but no new cars are made. Here the lumber is sawed and planed for the various purposes for which it is to be used. In this building also is a cabinet shop in which doors, sashes, and interior parts of passenger cars are made. Under this roof is also a sheet metal shop where the general smith and sheet metal work for passenger cars is done. This work includes the making of water coolers, ventilators, and other parts. * * * All the parts and tools made in the different shops are used solely in repair work and replacement connected therewith on the company's locomotives and cars.’

[1] The question to be decided is whether the machinery thus described was ‘employed in any branch of manufacture’ or was ‘used in manufacture’ within the meaning of the governing statutes already quoted. In the interpretation of statutes, the natural import of words according to the ordinary and approved usage of the language when applied to the subject-matter of the act, is to be considered as expressing the intention of the Legislature. Hittinger v. Westford, 135 Mass. 258, 259;Duggan v. Bay State St. R. Co., 230 Mass. 370, 374, 119 N. E. 757, L. R. A. 1918E, 680. The dominant statutory word in this connection is ‘manufacture.’ It is to be observed that the statute is not directed to a description of the owner of the machinery as the basis of taxation or exemption from taxation. There is nothing in the statute concerning the occupation of the owner or the nature of the business conducted by the use of the machinery. The legislative words are confined to the machinery and the ascertainment of the uses to which it is put. The machinery must be situated in a particular municipality in the sense of being there with some permanence and not temporarily; it must be ‘used in manufacture’ or ‘employed in any branch of manufacture’ before it can be taxed where situated. Involved in the conception of manufacture is the implication of change wrought through the application of forces directed by the human mind, which results in the transformation of some pre-existing substance or element into something different, with a new name, nature or use. Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association v. United States, 207 U. S. 556, 562, 28 S. Ct. 204, 52 L. Ed. 336. Decisions eliminating certain processes from classification under manufacture as a descriptive term do not reach to the case at bar. It has been held that corporations engaged in supplying and conveying water (Dudley v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corp., 100 Mass. 183;Coffin v. Artesian Water Co., 193 Mass. 274, 276, 79 N. E. 262), mining coal (Byers v. Franklin Coal Co. of Lykens Balley, 106 Mass. 131, 135), harvesting ice (Hittinger v. Westford, 135 Mass. 258, 262), storing manufactured goods (Stone v. Howard Ins. Co., 153 Mass. 475, 27 N. E. 6,11 L. R. A. 771), quarrying stone (Wellington v. Belmont, 164 Mass. 142, 41 N. E. 62), printing a newspaper (Barron v. Boston, 187 Mass. 168, 72 N. E. 951;Evening Journal Ass'n v. State Board of Assessors, 47 N. J. Law [18 Vroom] 36, 41, 54 Am. Rep. 114), are not manufacturing corporations, and that machinery used in furtherance of their corporate purposes is not employed in manufacture. See, also, Ingram v. Cowles, 150 Mass. 155, 23 N. E. 48;People v. New York Floating Dry-Dock Co., 92 N. Y. 487, 489. There has been some diversity of view among judges who have attempted to define the...