Currie-Finch Brick & Lumber Co. v. Miller

• Decision Date: 13 December 1920
• Docket Number: 21348
• Citation: 123 Miss. 850,86 So. 579
• Parties: CURRIE-FINCH BRICK & LUMBER CO. v. MILLER, AUDITOR OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

86 So. 579

123 Miss. 850

CURRIE-FINCH BRICK & LUMBER CO. v. MILLER, AUDITOR OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

No. 21348

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 13, 1920

October 1920

TAXATION. Plant for manufacturing brick held not exempt; exemptions are strictly construed; rule of ejusdem generis applies.

The plant and machinery of a factory for the manufacture of brick Is not exempt from taxation under chapter 183, Laws 1918. The rule is that persons or corporations seeking an exemption from taxation must bring themselves strictly within the letter of the statute. All reasonable doubts are resolved against the exemption, and under the above statute the rule ejusdem generis applies. Greenville Ice & Coal Co. v Greenville, 69 Miss. 86, 10 So. 574, cited.

HON. W H. POTTER, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Hinds county, HON. W. H. POTTER, Judge.

Petition by the Currie-Finch Brick & Lumber Company against W. J Miller, Auditor of Public Accounts, for a certificate of exemption from taxation. Certificate refused, and petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Fulton Thompson, J. Harvey Thompson and R. H. Thompson, for appellant.

The statute in question provides, the following property and no other, shall be exempt from taxation, to-wit:

"All wood distilling plants for the manufacture of wood alcohol, acetate of lime, acetone and other by-products from wood waste, all ship yards, factories and plants working cotton, cement, cement plaster, and lime, rock and stone. Jute and ramie wool, silk, furs and metals or for manufacturing machinery or instruments or articles in a finished state, or for making wagons, automobiles, carriages, buggies, furniture, clothing or shoes; all packing plants and factories engaged in packing farm products into food products for human beings and all creameries."

The exemption claimed by the petitioner was not an exemption of its manufactured bricks, but of its factory and plant where and by which the bricks are manufactured; the exemption is claimed under the words of the statute exempting factories and plants for manufacturing articles in a finished state. It was not denied in the trial court, nor can it be denied here, that a brick is an article in a finished state. A brick is just as much an article in a finished state as a button; each is the subject of barter and sale, each has a market value, although neither is generally sold except in quantities.

The court below, we think departed from the true line of reasoning by conceiving that bricks were not ejusdem generis with other articles mentioned in the statute. The terms of the statute upon which our client relies is in these words: "Factories and plants for manufacturing machinery or instruments or articles in a finished state." Plants for manufacturing machinery are no more exempt under the statute than are plants for manufacturing articles in a finished state. Plants for manufacturing articles in a finished state, are specifically exempted from taxation and there is no room for the application of the ejusdem generis doctrine; the only question is whether bricks are articles in a finished state. If bricks be articles in a finished state, they are specifically exempted, just as much so as if plants for the manufacture of bricks had been specifically named.

The ejusdem generis rule is subordinate and always yields to another more salutary rule of construction; that rule being that every part of a statute should, if possible, be upheld and given its appropriate force. 3 Words & Phrases, p. 2328. Consider the phrase factories and plants for manufacturing machinery or instruments or articles in a finished state, and ask to what the terms instruments or articles in a finished state, can be applied, if limited by the ejusdem generis conception. The quoted phrase is complete in itself, and should the conception mentioned be controlling the general terms instruments or articles in a finished state embrace only articles of the same genus as machinery. There are no such articles. Machinery is a broad and comprehensive term; it is defined in both the Century and Standard Dictionaries as parts of a machine considered collectively. If this definition be correct, the term machinery embraces every instrument or article in a finished state that is of like kind; and no extension of the statute whatever was made by the words instruments or articles in a finished state, although the words were manifestly used to extend the scope of the statute. The ejusdem generis conception must not be permitted to strike out words from a statute or to deny them all meaning, as was done by the court below. There is nothing of the same genus as or anything like, machinery which is not itself machinery.

The ejusdem generis rule can be invoked only when specific and general words, capable of analogous meanings, are associated. If the associated words are incapable of analogous meanings the rule has no application and the words used do not take color from each other. 3 Words & Phrases, p. 2328; United States v. Baumgartner, 259 F. 722; United States v. Sischo, 262 F. 1001. Machinery and articles in a finished state are incapable of analogous meanings.

We ask a reversal of the judgment of the circuit court from which the appeal has been prosecuted and for a final judgment of this court granting petitioner the writ for which he has prayed.

Fred W. Lotterhos, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

In the effort to ascertain the legislative intention with regard to exemption from taxation in an instance where the product of the plant sought to be exempted is a finished article, of the kind mentioned herein; it may be edifying to rehearse the various legislative expressions in this regard. Briefly stated, they are as follows:

"All permanent factories hereafter established in this state, before the first day of January, 1900, for working cotton, jute, ramie, wool, silk, furs, metals, and all other manufacturing implements or articles of use in a finished state shall be exempt from taxation for a period of ten years." Section 3744, Code 1892.

All permanent factories or plants of the kind hereinafter named which are now in the course of establishment or which shall be hereafter established in this state before the first day of January, 1910, shall be exempt from all state, county and levee taxation for a period of five years, viz.: All factories for working cotton, cement, cement plaster and lime, jute, ramie, wool, silk, furs or metals, or for manufacturing machinery or implements or articles in a finished state, or for making wagons, carriages, buggies, furniture, clothing, or shoes, and all creameries. Section 4251, Code of 1906.

All factories and plants for working cotton, cement, cement plaster, and lime rock and stone, jute, ramie, wool, silk, furs or metals, or for manufacturing machinery or implements or articles in a finished state, or for making wagons, carriages, buggies, furniture, clothing, and shoes and all creameries. Chapter 197, Laws of 1908.

All factories and plants for working cotton, cement, cement plaster and lime, rock and stone, jute, ramie, wool, silk, furs, or metals, or for manufacturing machinery or instruments, or articles in a finished state, or for making wagons, carriages, buggies, furniture, clothing and shoes and all creameries. Chapter 241, Laws 1912.

All factories and plants working cotton, cement, cement plaster and lime,...