In re McCormick's Estate

• Citation: 99 N.E. 177,206 N.Y. 100
• Parties: In re McCORMICK'S ESTATE.
• Decision Date: 29 June 1912
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

206 N.Y. 100

99 N.E. 177

In re McCORMICK'S ESTATE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 29, 1912.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Appraisal of the estate of Lucy M. McCormick for transfer tax purposes. From a decree imposing a transfer tax upon a legacy to the American Baptist Publication Society (148 App. Div. 936,133 N. Y. Supp. 1131), the Society appeals. Reversed.

D. W. Perkins, of Brooklyn, for appellant.

Harold A. Blake, of Albion, for respondent State Comptroller.

HISCOCK, J.

The testatrix, in connection with the settlement of whose estate this controversy arises, died in September, 1908. She left a legacy to the appellant, the American Baptist Publication Society, and the question is whether this legacy is subject to a transfer tax.

The appellant was incorporated under a special law of this state (Laws 1906, c. 198), which, amongst other things, enacts as follows:

‘Section 1. The American Baptist Publication Society, incorporated by the laws of the state of Pennsylvania, * * * for the purpose and object of promoting evangelical religion by the means of the Bible, the printing press, colportage, Sunday schools, and other appropriate ways, is hereby incorporated as the American Baptist Publication Society. * * *

‘Section 3. The said corporation shall have power to receive, hold, take by donation * * * any real or personal property which has been, or may hereafter, be given, granted or devised to it * * * for the purpose stated in section one.’

At the time the testatrix died, section 221 of article 10 of the Tax Law, relating to taxable transfers, provided: ‘Any property devised or bequeathed * * * to any religious, educational, charitable, missionary * * * corporation * * * shall be exempted from and not subject to the provisions of this article.’ Consol. Laws 1909, c. 60. In order to come within this exemption from taxation upon its legacy, the appellant must establish that it is a religious, charitable, or missionary corporation, and its character is to be determined by the provisions of the act under which it is incorporated. On this appeal, it has attempted to sustain its position by the argument that it is a charitable organization. I think that its claim to exemption can be better and more naturally upheld on the theory that it is a missionary corporation.

As indicated by the act of incorporation, its purpose is ‘promoting evangelical religion by means of the Bible, the printing press, colportage, Sunday schools, and other appropriate ways.’ Thus its object is to encourage, advance, and forward the cause of religion. The means by which it is proposed to do this are the circulation of the Bible, the use of the printing press, the establishment of Sunday schools, and colportage, which latter may be described as the sending forth of persons to labor for the spread of the Gospel by distributing religious books and tracts. No definite territory is prescribed within which this object shall be pursued and these methods employed; but, so far as appears, they may be brought into worldwide activity.

I think clearly that these purposes establish the character of the appellant as a missionary corporation. A missionary is defined to be ‘one sent to preach the Gospel to the heathen or the poor; one laboring to spread the Gospel, especially among a neglected population, in connection with some church or society’ (Stormonth's English Dictionary); and, again, as a person ‘sent by ecclesiastical authority to labor for the propagation of his religious faith in a community where the church has no self-supporting, indigenous organization; hence, a propagandist.’ Century Dictionary.

In Bulkeley v. Worthington Ecclesiastical Society, 78 Conn. 526, 63 Atl. 351,12 L. R. A. (N. S.) 785, the question was whether the defendant society was a missionary society, and it was held not to be such; but in reaching this conclusion the court defined a missionary society, saying: ‘The terms ‘missionary’ and ‘missionary society’ are of common use, and have a well-accepted meaning. This meaning is the same, whether the use is intended to be precise or technical, or merely that of everyday speech. By universal acceptance, the word ‘missionary,’ whether as a noun or adjective, embraces not only the conception of a religious, charitable, or educational work or worker, but also such a work done through philanthropic motives, for the welfare of others too poor, too unappreciative, or too indifferent to do it themselves, and by persons supported or means furnished, in part at least, by some agency of which those for whom the work is done do not form a sustaining part. The derivation of the word implies a sending; and so it is that in both technical and common speech the idea of a sending forth, a sending forth to the service of others, the doing of a work for others, is associated with its meaning. Sometimes it is used to characterize the agency sent; sometimes of the agency sending; but always there is associated with the notion...