Curtis v. Androscoggin Lodge, No. 24, I. O. O. F.

• Decision Date: 12 December 1904
• Citation: 99 Me. 356,59 A. 518
• Parties: CURTIS v. ANDROSCOGGIN LODGE, NO. 24, I. O. O. F.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

59 A. 518

99 Me. 356

CURTIS

v. ANDROSCOGGIN LODGE, NO. 24, I. O. O. F.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 12, 1904.

(Official.)

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Androscoggin County.

Action by Charles P. Curtis, collector of taxes of the city of Auburn, against the Androscoggin Lodge, No. 24, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to recover taxes assessed for the year 1903, and for which the lodge claims an exemption. Case reported on agreed statement. Judgment for defendant.

Argued before WISWELL, C. J., and WHITEHOUSE, STROUT, SAVAGE, PEABODY, and SPEAR, JJ.

Ruel W. Smith, for plaintiff.

H. W. Oakes, J. A. Pulsifer, and F. E. Ludden, for defendant.

WISWELL, C. J. In this action by a tax collector to recover a tax assessed upon the real estate of the defendant, the only question presented by the agreed statement of facts, upon which the case comes to the law court is whether or not this real estate is exempt from taxation under the provisions of Rev. St. c. 9, § 6, par. 2. By this paragraph the real and personal property of all benevolent and charitable institutions incorporated by the state is exempt from taxation, but, by the same section of the paragraph, "so much of the real estate of such corporations as is not occupied by them for their own purposes shall be taxed in the municipality in which it is situated."

It is agreed that the defendant, the owner of the real estate taxed, is a benevolent or charitable institution, within the meaning of the language quoted from this section, and that the property is exempt from taxation unless it comes within the exception to this exemption—that so much of the real estate of such corporations "as is not occupied by them for their own purposes shall be taxed in the municipality in which it is situated." With respect to the character, situation, and occupation of the real estate in question, the following facts appear from the agreed statement: The real estate in question consists of a three-story building owned and occupied by defendant. In the lower story of the building there is a large room, fitted up as a hall, with a small kitchen connected, a small room known as a "parlor," and another room known as a "dressing room." On the second floor there is a lodgeroom, with anterooms, designed especially for use by the defendant as a lodgeroom; and on the third floor there is one large room, used principally as a smoking room in connection with the lodgeroom. The building is heated by steam throughout supplied from the basement, and is in the care of a janitor employed and paid by the defendant.

The agreed statement contains also the following: "The defendant occupies all of the building for its own purposes, using it whenever required. It holds regular weekly meetings in the lodge hall on the second floor, using the lodge hall and the anteroom connected with it, and the third floor, and, at such times as are convenient, uses also the hall on the first floor and the rooms on the first floor for its other meetings from time to time as it may have occasion. But it lets the lodge hall and the anterooms to associate branches of the Odd Fellows, viz., the Rebecca Lodge and the Odd Fellows Encampment, for their, regular meetings, and to Christian Scientists, Sundays, for a meeting in the forenoon, for which it receives a rental; and it lets the hall on the first floor, with the other rooms, from time to time, as they may be desired by other parties satisfactory to the defendant and receives pay for such letting. A single room in the second story is also let for two hours a day to the Christian Scientists. The furniture and fixtures throughout the building belong to the defendant corporation, and the entire building is at all times under its control, subject only to use as above stated. Light, as well as heat, is provided by the defendant...