Forman Sch. Inc. v. Town Of Litchfield.

• Decision Date: 09 July 1947
• Citation: 54 A.2d 710,134 Conn. 1
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: FORMAN SCHOOLS, Inc., v. TOWN OF LITCHFIELD.

134 Conn. 1

54 A.2d 710

FORMAN SCHOOLS, Inc.,

v.TOWN OF LITCHFIELD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 9, 1947.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Litchfield County; McDonough, Judge.

Proceedings on appeal by the Forman Schools, Inc., from the action of the Board of Tax Review of the Town of Litchfield in refusing to exempt plaintiff from taxation. From a judgment for defendant town, sustaining the board's action, after trial to the court, plaintiff appeals.

Error, judgment set aside, and case remanded with direction.

BROWN and DICKENSON, JJ., dissenting.

David Cramer and Clayton L. Blick, both of Litchfield, for appellant (plaintiff).

Jonathan F. Ells, and Lester W. Schaefer, both of Winsted, for the appellee (defendant).

William C. Ward, of Stamford, amicus curiae.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., BROWN, JENNINGS, and DICKENSON, and ERNEST A. INGLIS, Superior Court Judge.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Common Pleas from the action of the board of tax review of the defendant town in placing its property on the tax list, claiming that it was exempt, as belonging to a Connecticut corporation organized exclusively for educational purposes, under § 1163 of the General Statutes. The trial court sustained the action of the board and the plaintiff has appealed to this court.

Previous to 1925, our statutes had for many years included a provision exempting from taxation ‘buildings or portions of buildings exclusively occupied as colleges, academies, churches, public schoolhouses,’ with an addition made in 1921 to include ‘the land on which they stand.’ General Statutes, Rev.1888, § 3820; Rev. 1902, § 2315; Rev. 1918, § 1160; Public Acts, 1921, Chap. 109. We considered the scope of the exemption in Yale University v. New Haven, 1899, 71 Conn. 316, 42 A. 87, 43 L.R.A. 490, Brunswick School v. Greenwich, 1914, 88 Conn. 241, 90 A. 801, and Corbin v. Baldwin, 1917, 92 Conn. 99, 101 A. 834, Ann.Cas.1918E, 932. The case of Pomfret School v. Pomfret, 105 Conn. 456, 136 A. 88, while not decided until 1927, arose under the act of 1921; and in it (105 Conn. at page 459, 136 A. at page 89), we formulated, upon the basis of the earlier decisions, certain conditions which must exist before the property of a school would be exempt: ‘First, is the property devoted to the public use; second, was the property so received and is it so held as to be dedicated to public benefit instead of to private advantage or gain?’ In explanation of the significance of the first question, we said (105 Conn. at page 460, 136 A. at page 89): ‘The situation presented is not in accord with the conception of public education and public benefit which is at the root of the exemption claimed-the performance, though by private persons, of functions which otherwise would devolve upon the state or municipal government.’ We held that the school involved in that case did not meet this requirement because it was, like the school involved in Brunswick School v. Greenwich, supra, not a public institution offering instruction to all comers, but was in essence ‘a private school, calculated, manifestly, to interest only those who have the means and disposition to separate their children from the public schools.’ In Female Academy v. Darien, 108 Conn. 136, 142 A. 678, decided by us in 1928, but arising under the 1921 act, we reached a like conclusion.

In 1925, a special commission appointed under authority of the General Assembly particularly to study exemptions from taxation made a report, and as a result an act was passed which, in place of the general exemption of colleges, academies and schools quoted above and certain other institutions, contained a provision which, although somewhat altered in detail by chapter 319 of the Public Acts of 1927, is essentially the same as that now found in § 1163 of the General Statutes. Subject to certain other sections of the statutes not relevant to the issue before us, subsection (7) exempted ‘the real property of, or held in trust for, a Connecticut corporation organized exclusively for scientific, educational, literary, historical or charitable purposes or for two or more such purposes and used exclusively for carrying out one or more of such purposes and the personal property of, or held in trust for, any such corporation, provided (a) any officer, member or employee thereof does not receive or at any future time shall not receive any pecuniary profit from the operations thereof, except reasonable compensation for services in effecting one or more of such purposes or as proper beneficiary of its strictly charitable purposes, and provided (b)’ that an annual statement of the claimed exemption shall be made to the taxing officials.

Since the adoption of the 1927 act we have decided four cases directly involving claims by institutions that their property was exempt as devoted to educational purposes. In Canterbury School v. New Milford, 111 Conn. 203, 149 A. 685, we held the property of the plaintiff not exempt, solely because the requirements of proviso (a) in the statute were not met. In Stanford Jewish Center, Inc., v. Stamford, 117 Conn. 379, 385, 168 A. 5, 7, we said, in holding the property of the plaintiff not exempt: ‘Considered as a school, this is not a public one, ‘offering instruction therein to all comers.’ Brunswick School v. Greenwich, supra, 88 Conn. [at] page 243, 90 A. 801. It does not discharge educational functions which would otherwise rest upon municipal or other governmental agencies, but membership in and the privileges of the corporation, except voting privileges, are open to all persons of good moral character.' In Connecticut Junior Republic Ass'n v. Litchfield, 119 Conn. 106, 109, 174 A. 304, 306, 95 A.L.R. 56, it was claimed that, as in the Brunswick case, the plaintiff was ‘a private school, calculated, manifestly, to interest only those who have the means and disposition to separate their children from the public schools'; but, in holding the plaintiff entitled to an exemption, we distinguished it from the schools involved in that case and the cases of the Pomfret School and the Female Academy. Finally, in Edgewood School, Inc., v. Greenwich, 131 Conn. 179, at page 183, 38 A.2d 792, at page 794, in holding the plaintiff entitled to exemption, we said that its property was ‘sequestered for educational uses and neither it nor any person can secure any profit from its operations. This brings it squarely within the four corners of the statute. The only two requirements stated therein are fulfilled. The holdings and dicta * * * in cases decided both before and after the 1927 amendment do not require a contrary conclusion.’ Two of the judges dissented, substantially upon the ground that the school fell within the class of private schools held in the Brunswick case not to be entitled to an exemption.

In the cases decided by us under the statute as it stood before the 1927 amendments, the question was as to the institutions which the legislature intended to include in the general word ‘academy.’ As long as the exemption was expressed in such a general word, it was our right and duty to inquire what institutions it was the intent of the General Assembly to include in that word; it was our conclusion that the General Assembly could not in reason have meant that every institution falling within the scope of the general terms of the statute should be entitled to an exemption, but that it must have intended the law to apply only to institutions having characteristics which would bring them within the purposes for which exemptions from taxation are ordinarily granted; and, accordingly, we construed the broad words of the statute to be inapplicable where those purposes were not being served. See National Fireproofing Co. v. Huntington, 81 Conn. 632, 633, 71 A. 911, 20 L.R.A.,N.S., 261, 129 Ann.St.Rep. 228; Dorman v. Carlson, 106 Conn. 200, 203, 137 A. 749; State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 417, 11 A.2d 856. We can properly persume that, when the act of 1927 was adopted, the General Assembly acted with knowledge of our previous decisions construing the former provision; City of Stamford v. Town of Stamford, 107 Conn. 596, 606, 141 A. 891; and in this instance such a presumption gains great weight because the report of the special commission on tax exemptions, to which we have referred, contains quotations from our decisions in Yale University v. New Haven, supra, and Corbin v. Baldwin, supra, in which the two bases of exemption formulated in Pomfret School v. Pomfret, supra, are stated at length. The 1927 act codified the requirement that any institution coming within the terms of the provision, to be exempt, must be so constituted as to eliminate the possibility of private profit; but it made no mention of any requirement that such an institution should be so conducted as to assume some of the public burden of education. In fact, the special commission on tax exemptions, discussing its recommendations for amending the statute, stated that one of its purposes was to confine the exemption to institutions where there was no possibility of private gain, but it made no mention of any requirement that to secure the exemption institutions must bear some portion of the public burden.

In omitting the previous general provisions as to colleges, academies and public schools and in bringing them within the broad scope of ‘scientific, educational, literary, historical or charitable purposes,’ the act indicates clearly an intent to do away with any such test. See Westport Bank & Trust Co. v. Fable, 126 Conn. 665, 668, 13 A.2d 862. This conclusion is fortified by the fact that in the subsection just preceding that which we are considering an exemption is granted as regards the property of volunteer fire companies if certain conditions are met, among them that the property is used ‘by the public in lieu of public property which would otherwise be required or authorized by...