County of Erie v. City of Erie

• Decision Date: 04 October 1886
• Docket Number: 459
• Citation: 113 Pa. 360,6 A. 136
• Parties: The County of Erie v. The City of Erie
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

6 A. 136

113 Pa. 360

The County of Erie v. The City of Erie

No. 459

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

October 4, 1886

Argued April 29, 1886

ERROR to the Court of Common Pleas of Erie county: Of January Term 1886, No. 459.

Case stated wherein the county of Erie was plaintiff and the city of Erie was defendant, as follows:

1. That the city of Erie is a municipal corporation, duly incorporated by an Act of Assembly, approved April 14th 1851, P.L. 631, and others, amendatory thereof, and supplementary thereto, and is located in the county of Erie.

2. That the said city is the owner of a piece of land in the Third ward of said city, upon which is erected an engine house that said engine house is used exclusively for fire purposes and is necessary therefor; that the said land and building have been assessed by the assessors of said ward for the year 1885, at the sum of $9,140. That the said city is also the owner of six horses, which are used in operating the fire department of said city and necessary therefor, which said horses have been assessed at the sum of six hundred dollars.

3. That the county commissioners of Erie county have levied a tax for the year 1885, of three mills upon each dollar of valuation of said real and personal property, amounting to twenty-nine and twenty-two one-hundredths (29.22) dollars, payment of which tax has been duly demanded.

4. That the fire department of the city of Erie is maintained at the expense of said city to prevent the destruction of property by fire; and no revenue whatever is derived therefrom.

If upon the above facts the Court be of the opinion that said property is legally subject to taxation by the county of Erie, then judgment shall be entered in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant for the sum of twenty-nine and twenty-two one-hundredths dollars, with costs of suit; but if the Court shall be of the opinion that said property is not liable to taxation for county purposes, then judgment to be entered in favor of the defendant for costs either party to be entitled to a writ of error to the Supreme Court.

The Court, GALBRAITH, P.J., entered judgment for the defendant, filing the following opinion:

The question here presented is whether the property of the city, owned and used in carrying on the municipal government, and necessary to that end, is liable to be taxed for county purposes. That no such claim would have been set up before the adoption of the new Constitution of 1874, and the Act of Assembly passed May 14th, 1874, is conceded, but it is argued that the law is now different, made so, it is urged, by the first and second sections of the ninth Article of the Constitution, and by the first section of the statute referred to. The language of the Constitution is as follows: "All taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and collected under general laws; but the General Assembly may, by general laws, exempt from taxation public property used for public purposes, actual places of religious service, places of burial not used or held for private or corporate profit, and institutions of purely public charity. All laws exempting property from taxation other than the property above enumerated, shall be void."

The Act of Assembly of May 14th, 1874, was no doubt intended to specify what property was meant to be exempt from taxation, but the only public property therein specifically mentioned as such, are school houses, court houses and jails. Hospitals, universities, and other institutions of benevolence or charity, although they might be public property, are evidently not included for that reason, but because of their being benevolent or charitable enterprises. The argument is that all public property not covered and exempted by the specific terms of the Act must be taxable. In this view I cannot agree. It is, as appears by its title, an Act to exempt from taxation, and can only be held to have reference to the property therein specifically enumerated. It cannot affect other property not mentioned. It was held by the Supreme Court in Coatsville Gas Company v. County of Chester, 97 Pa. St., 476, that Article IX., sections 1 and 2 of the present Constitution, did not execute themselves so as to repeal any existing laws providing for the assessment and collection of taxes, but that they merely imposed restrictions upon future legislation. It was further held in the same case that the Act of May 14th, 1874, was an exemption Act. It was not an Act to impose a tax upon property before exempt, but to exempt the property therein specifically mentioned.

The investigation of the legal question presented by this case naturally resolves itself into two queries, namely: First, was the property described the subject of taxation before the Constitution of 1874, and if not, has it been made so subject by the terms of that instrument or by the subsequent legislation referred to?

That it was not subject to taxation prior to 1874 is conceded, and the reason for such exemption is found in the general rule that the public is never subject to have its property, with which the machinery of government is carried on, sold for taxes. Municipal corporations, counties, cities or townships are parts of the state government. They are local depositories of limited and prescribed political powers to be exercised for the public good within their respective boundaries. Why should they tax the property of each other any more than each should tax its own property, or that the property of the state itself should pay taxes? In the case of Directors of the Poor v. School Directors, 42 Pa. St., 21, Chief Justice LOWRIE, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, said: "May the school directors tax the county poorhouse situated in their township? Most certainly not, unless there be some very express enactment authorizing it. If there can be any common law relative to taxation, this must be one of its most elementary precepts; because it is a manifest dictate of common sense and because the contrary is absurd, unless under very special circumstances.

"Tax the poorhouse to support the schools? Why this would be to take the poor taxes to support the schools; and the people must be taxed to pay the officers who perform such foolish service. If we require the townships, counties, towns, cities and state, and the road, school and poor authorities to tax each other, we shall furnish fees enough for several hundred officers engaged in transferring from one public body to another the taxes which it has collected for its public purposes. Then poor taxes must be collected to support the school and roads, and school taxes to support the poor, and so all around. Surely it is not too much to say that this is absurd. The public is never subject to tax laws, and no portion of it can be without express statutes. No exemption law is needed for any public property held as such."

The same doctrine is laid down by Judge DILLON in his work on Municipal Corporations, § 614: "The general statutes of the state upon the subject of taxing property undoubtedly refer to private property and not to that owned by the state, and in view of the public nature of municipalities and the purposes for which they are established, heretofore explained, the author is of opinion that such enactments do not by implication extend to any property owned by them; certainly to none owned by them for public uses."

In Frank v. Freeholders, 39 N.J.L. 347, the Court says: "When the buildings are those of a municipal corporation, a fundamental rule of public policy compels the Courts to arrest the proceedings before the buildings are touched."

The same rule was held in People v. Doe, 36 Cal. 222, SANDERSON, J., saying: "The Constitution and laws upon the subject of taxing property are therefore to be understood as referring to private property and persons, and not as including public property of the state, or any subordinate part of the state government, such as counties, towns, and municipal corporations."

In the case of People v. Solomon, 51 Ill. 52, Chief Justice BREESE, speaking of the South Park Commissioners as a corporation and of the park property, said: "But holding it, they hold it as a public corporation for public purposes, and was it ever heard that the property, real or personal, of a public municipal corporation was subject to taxation?"

Further authority for this position will be found in Cooley on Taxation, pages 130 and 131; also pages 56 to 59 inclusive, and notes; Worcester v. Worcester, 116 Mass. 193; Wayland v. County Commissioners, 4 Gray, 501.

The new Constitution made no change in the existing law so far as this case is concerned or the question at issue here. Public property was before the adoption of the new Constitution exempt from taxation, not by statute or by constitutional provision, but from the reason and necessity of things. As said in the case of Directors of the Poor of Schuylkill County v. School Directors of North Manheim Township, 42 Pa. St., 21, already cited: "If there can be any common law relative to taxation this must be one of its most elementary principles." The exemption did not depend upon any statute. The cases referred to by counsel for plaintiff, in which it has been held that this section of the Constitution was a repeal of certain statutes exempting private property from taxation, can have no bearing on the question here involved. There was no statutory provision to be repealed, either by implication or otherwise. I am of the opinion that the law remains as it was prior to the adoption of the Constitution of 1874, and that the Act of Assembly of that year contains nothing to justify the...