Laurel Beach Ass'n v. Town of Milford

• Decision Date: 28 March 1961
• Citation: 169 A.2d 748,148 Conn. 233
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: LAUREL BEACH ASSOCIATION v. TOWN OF MILFORD. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 748

169 A.2d 748

148 Conn. 233

LAUREL BEACH ASSOCIATION v. TOWN OF MILFORD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 28, 1961.

Cleaveland J. Rice, Jr., New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was Charles M. Lyman, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).

Richard H. Lynch, Milford, for appellee (defendant).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, MELLITZ and SHEA, JJ.

MURPHY, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff is the owner of certain properties in the town of Milford which the plaintiff claims are exempt from taxation by the town as property of a municipal corporation used for a public purpose. Both the assessor and the board of tax review of the town rejected the plaintiff's claim. The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, which rendered judgment adverse to the plaintiff, whereupon it appealed to this court.

The defendant by its answer admitted all but one of the allegations of the complaint. Upon these admissions and an oral stipulation, the case was submitted to the trial court. The complaint alleged, and the answer admitted, that the plaintiff was a municipal corporation specially chartered by the state of Connecticut; that it owned properties in the defendant town which were assessed for $63,610 and were used for parks, passways, a casino or clubhouse, a parking lot, tennis courts, a garage or storage shed and a ball field; that the plaintiff had filed an application for tax exemption with the town assessor, who nevertheless included the properties in the tax list; and that the plaintiff appealed to the board of tax review, which refused to make any change in the listing. The parties stipulated that the use of the properties was restricted to the members or invitees of the association and that the properties were not open to use by the general public as such. The court, in effect, decided that the restricted use of the properties was not a use for a public purpose which would exempt them from taxation and that therefore they were taxable.

Section 12-81(4) of the General Statutes provides that 'property belonging to, or held in trust for, a municipal corporation of this state and used for a public purpose' shall be exempt from taxation. The plaintiff has alleged, and the defendant has admitted, that the plaintiff is a municipal corporation which was specially chartered by Special Acts 1899, No. 148, as amended by Special Acts 1919, No. 297. 13 Spec.Laws 129; 18 id. 244. But this admission, alone, cannot control the disposition of this case. If the plaintiff's properties are not devoted to a public use, they are not exempt from taxation, even though it is admitted that the plaintiff is a municipal corporation. Devotion to a public use is the ground for such an exemption. Town of Hamden v. City of New Haven, 91 Conn. 589, 592, 101 A. 11, 3 A.L.R. 1435. The phrase in the statute 'used for a public purpose' means a use open to the public, generally, as distinguished from a use available only to a restricted group of privileged individuals. Central Veterans' Ass'n, etc. v. City of Stamford, 140 Conn. 451, 456, 101 A.2d 281. Instead of attempting judicially to define what constitutes a public use as distinguished from a private purpose, courts usually have left each case to be determined upon its own peculiar facts. In the instant case, according to the stipulation, the people who can use the passways and parks, let alone the other facilities, are limited to members and invitees of the plaintiff. The general test of a public use is the right of the public to receive and enjoy the benefit of the use. Barnes v. City of New Haven, 140 Conn. 8, 15, 98 A.2d 523; see Dawson v. Town of Orange, 78 Conn. 96, 119, 61 A. 101 (in which a public beach was described as one open to the common use of the public and which the unorganized public and each of its members had a right to use). On the record in the instant case and the stipulation as to the exclusion of the general public from the use and enjoyment of the plaintiff's facilities, it is impossible to spell out a use for a public purpose and so entitle the plaintiff to the exemption it seeks.

This case is clearly distinguishable from Sachem's Head Property Owners' Ass'n v. Town of Guilford, 112 Conn. 515, 152 A. 877, and Fenwick Borough v. Town of Old Saybrook, 133 Conn. 22, 47 A.2d 849, upon both of which the plaintiff relies. The Sachem's Head association, like the plaintiff, was an organization of property owners and electors within a prescribed area of the town in...