City of Bismarck v. St. Mary's Church
| Decision Date | 04 December 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 8667,8667 |
| Citation | 181 N.W.2d 713 |
| Parties | CITY OF BISMARCK, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ST. MARY'S CHURCH, a Corporation, Defendant and Appellant. Civ. |
| Court | North Dakota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The code establishes the law of this state respecting the subjects to which it relates, and its provisions and all proceedings under it are to be construed liberally, with a view to effecting its objects and to promoting justice.
2. For the reasons stated in this opinion it is held that cemetery property lawfully held by a nonprofit corporation is exempt from special assessments for street improvement purposes.
Rausch & Chapman, Bismarck, for defendant and appellant.
John A. Zuger, Bismarck, for plaintiff and respondent.
The defendant, St. Mary's Church, a corporation, appeals to this court from a judgment of the district court of Burleigh County, entered on the 9th day of March, 1970. The judgment appealed from results from a declaratory judgment action brought by the plaintiff, the City of Bismarck, to determine whether special assessments for street improvements levied upon the cemetery property of the Church are valid.
The Church's answer to the complaint is that the property on which the assessments have been levied is cemetery property and thus exempt from assessment under Section 28--22--02, N.D.C.C.
On a motion for summary judgment on the pleadings and upon a stipulation of the facts, the district court concluded to the contrary and ordered judgment for the plaintiff, holding that the assessments for special improvements were valid on the basis of this court's statement in Soo Line Railroad v. City of Wilton, 172 N.W.2d 74 (N.D.1969).
The district court in its memorandum opinion relied particularly upon the following language in Soo Line:
'In determining whether an improvement does, or does not, benefit property within the assessment district, the land should be considered simply in its general relations and apart from its particular use at the time; and an assessment, otherwise legal, for grading, paving and curbing an adjoining street is not void under the Fourteenth Amendment because the lot is not benefited by the improvement owing to its present particular use.' L. & N.R.R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Co., 197 U.S. 430, 25 S.Ct. 466, 49 L.Ed. 819 (1905).
Soo Line Railroad v. City of Wilton, 172 N.W.2d 74, 82 (N.D.1969).
In the same memorandum opinion the trial court said:
While it is difficult for me to find that the cemetery property is subject to special assessments, the Soo Line case, above cited, leaves me no choice.
The trial court concluded that it was bound by the rule of 'stare decisis'.
In response to the argument that there could be no means of enforcing the assessments if the property were exempt from all process under Section 28--22--02, N.D.C.C., the court again quoted from Soo Line the following:
The great weight of authority is that a railroad right of way may be subjected to a special or local assessment even though such an assessment cannot be enforced by a sale of the property. 48 Am.Jur., Special or Local Assessments § 104, p. 653. See also 14 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 38.41, p. 140.
Soo Line Railroad Company v. City of Wilton, 172 N.W.2d 74, 82 (N.D.1969).
In applying the language in Soo Line, a case involving the question of the legality of special assessments upon property of a corporation organized for profit, the Soo Line Railroad Company, to this case, involving the issue of the legality of special assessments on cemetery property owned by a nonprofit corporation, when said property is by Section 28--22--02, N.D.C.C., 'absolutely exempt from all process, levy, or sale,' the trial court has extended the holding in Soo Line and the reasoning in support of that holding beyond the intent of this court in that case. The issues, the facts, and the statutes distinguish Soo Line from this case.
The City asserts that this court in another case has clearly distinguished between an exemption from taxation and an exemption from assessments, and in support of its position refers us to the following quotation from a 1967 decision of this court, involving the issue of the validity of special assessments on property owned by the City of Southwest Fargo Urban Renewal Agency. The City particularly refers us to the following quotation from the Urban Renewal case:
It will be noted from a study of the statute that urban renewal property is 'exempt from all taxes of the municipality, the county, the state or any political subdivision thereof.' Had the legislature intended that the urban renewal property be exempt from special assessments, the usual language to accomplish that would have been 'all taxes And special assessments.' The failure to make reference to special assessments, we believe, was intentional.
City of Southwest Fargo Urban Renewal Ag. v. Lenthe, 149 N.W.2d 373, 378 (N.D.1967).
We would point out, however, that in that case, immediately following the part quoted, we said:
Our view is supported by the fact that the legislature, in discussing the powers given to an urban renewal agency under § 40--58--07(8), empowered the agency to 'levy taxes and assessments.'
Section 40--23--07 further supports our view. The pertinent part of that section reads as follows:
40--23--07. Regulations governing determination of special assessments by commission--Political subdivisions not exempt.--* * * Benefited property belonging to counties, cities, villages, school districts, park districts, and townships, shall not be exempt from such assessment, and such public corporations whose property is so assessed shall provide for the payment of such assessments, installments thereof and interest thereon, by the levy of taxes according to law. * * *
Although urban renewal agencies are not specifically mentioned therein, cities are, and their property is made specifically not exempt from special assessments.
City of Southwest Fargo Urban Renew. Ag. v. Lenthe, 149 N.W.2d 373, 378 (N.D.1967).
We agree with the City that this court has distinguished between general taxation and special assessments and that Subsection (5) of Section 57--02--08, N.D.C.C., which exempts all lands used exclusively for burying grounds or cemeteries from 'taxation' does not of itself exempt cemetery property from special assessments. It may also be said that Subsection (3) of Section 28--22--02, N.D.C.C., which exempts lots in burial grounds from all process, levy, and sale, may not of itself exempt such property from special assessments. This may be argued from the fact that included among the items absolutely exempt is the homestead, which we realize may be lost to the county when taxes are not paid.
These sections, insufficient when standing alone, become more meaningful when considered in light of long-established public policy protecting the burial places of human beings from all intrusion. It is our view that the Legislature did not intend to legislate contrary to that policy, notwithstanding the adoption by the 1959 session of the Legislature of the Nonprofit Corporation Act, Chapter 111, creating Chapters 10--24, 10--25, 10--26, 10--27, and 10--28, of the North Dakota Revised Code of 1943, and specifically repealing Section 10--1011, N.D.R.C. of 1943, which exempted cemetery property from 'taxation, assessment, lien, attachment, and from levy and sale upon execution.'
The records of the subcommittee on Judiciary and Code Revision of the Legislative Research Committee during the interim between the 1957 and the 1959 legislative sessions, which subcommittee studied the Nonprofit Corporation Act and ultimately recommended its adoption, disclose no intention on the part of that subcommittee to break with public policy. We likewise find no evidence of such an intention on the part of the full committee. See Graves v. First National Bank in Grand Forks, 138 N.W.2d 584, 592 (N.D.1965), in which we recognized public policy as a determining factor.
Pertinent is the rule of construction contained in Section 1--02--01, N.D.C.C., part of which reads:
* * * The code establishes the law of this state respecting the subjects to which it relates, and its provisions and all proceedings under it are to be construed liberally, with a view to effecting its objects and to promoting justice.
Through Section 12--21--29, N.D.C.C., the Legislature has provided criminal sanctions to prevent disruption of the tranquility of a cemetery.
Such section reads as follows:
12--21--29. Injury to cemetery or tomb--Misdemeanor.--Every person who willfully shall destroy, mutilate, deface, injure, or remove any tomb, monument, gravestone, or other structure placed in any cemetery or private burying ground, or any fence, railing, or other work for the protection or ornament of such cemetery or place of burial of any human being, or who willfully shall destroy, cut, break, or injure any tree, shrub, or plant within the limits thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of not less than five dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
It is inconceivable to us that the Legislature, with the policy in mind of preserving an atmosphere of tranquility, even to the extent of imposing criminal sanctions against those who would disrupt such tranquility, would on the other hand contemplate permitting an intrusion upon that atmosphere of tranquility by those who would purchase areas unused for burial interposed among the lots which contain graves of the dead or areas used as boulevards, walkways, or driveways, for possible uses other than the burial of the dead. Such a disruption would be possible if the property were not exempt from special assessments and consequently were sold in the process of enforcing those special...
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