Montgomery v. Wyman

• Decision Date: 31 October 1889
• Parties: MONTGOMERY, Collector, et al. v. WYMAN et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

130 Ill. 17

22 N.E. 845

MONTGOMERY, Collector, et al.

v.WYMAN et al.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 31, 1889.

Appeal from circuit court, Madison county; WILLIAM H. SNYDER, Judge.

George Hunt, Atty. Gen., and Geo. F. McNulty, State's Atty., Madison County, for appellants.

Henry S. Baker and Henry S. Baker, Jr., (John M. Holmes and John M. Palmer, of counsel,) for appellees.

BAKER, J.

Martha L. Wyman and Edward Wyman exhibited their bill of complaint, alleging they were the owners, proprietors, and conductors of an institution of learning, called ‘Wyman Institute,’ located at Upper Alton, Ill., and praying an injunction restraining the collection of the taxes levied for the year 1887 on the real estate upon which said institute was situated and maintained, and on the furniture and personal property connected therewith, and used exclusively in carrying it on. Upon the filing of the bill a preliminary injunction was issued. Answer and replication were filed. While the suit was pending in the circuit court the death of Edward Wyman was suggested, and his administrator, George H. Limley, substituted as a party complainant. The cause was heard upon an agreed state of facts, the deposition of Martha L. Wyman being attached to and considered a part thereof. These facts are sufficiently hereinafter stated in this opinion. The final decree of the court made the injunction perpetual.

The claim of appellees is that the real estate and personal property in question are exempt from taxation. Section 3 of article 9 of the state constitution provides: ‘The property of the state, counties, and other municipal corporations, both real and personal, and such other property as may be used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural societies, for school, religious, cemetery, and charitable purposes, may be exempted from taxation; but such exemption shall be only by general law.’ In section 2 of the revenue law (Rev. St. Ill. c. 120, § 2,) it is provided, among other things, as follows: ‘All property described in this section, to the extent herein limited, shall be exempt from taxation; that is to say, first, all lands donated by the United States for school purposes, not sold or released; all public school-houses; all property of institutions of learning, including the real estate on which the institutions are located, not leased by such institutions, or otherwise used with a view to profit.’ That by the canons of construction all laws exempting property from taxation are to be strictly construed, and all reasonable intendments indulged in favor of the state, and all doubts solved in its favor, and against exemptions, goes without saying. The expression ‘institution of learning’ is broad enough to include every description of enterprise undertaken for educational purposes which is of higher grade than the public schools provided for in the statutes, and is not necessarily limited to either public or incorporated enterprises, or to both. Ordinarily, the word ‘institution’ implies an established and organized society; but here the words ‘institution of learning’ seem to refer not so much to the society or person or persons in control of the enterprise as to the institution itself; that is to say, the thing which is established, founded, or instituted. That which is exempt from taxation is the property of the institution of learning, which plainly means the property owned by the institution. The property of, and the property owned by, an individual or corporation, as commonly used and understood, mean precisely the same thing. Railway Co. v. Barker, 125 Ill. 303, 17 N. E. Rep. 797. No matter where the legal title to the property may be vested, it is sufficient for the operation of the statute if the institution is the ultimate or beneficiary owner. Most usually the title is held by the society or corporation which manages and controls the institution of learning, but not necessarily so; for there may be no corporation or organized society, and yet be ‘an institution of learning’ in respect to which the ownership of property, within the true intent and meaning of the law, can be predicated; but in such case, it would seem, there must, in the nature of things, be a trustee or trustees, to hold the legal title to the property, in trust for the purposes and objects of the institution of learning. The idea of ownership of property can only be connected with that which we call ‘an institution of learning’ by means of the interposition of either a society, or corporation, or a trust. If the title is in the controlling corporation, or if it is vested in a trustee or trustees, for the objects to be accomplished through the instrumentality of the institution, in either event the property is, within the contemplation of the statute, the property of the institution of learning. In People v. Anderson, 117 Ill. 50, 7 N. E. Rep. 625, Anderson owned the lots, and erected a meeting-house on two of them, and the latter were used exclusively for religious purposes, but the congregation which worshiped there was not incorporated, or in any manner organized, and at any time Anderson saw proper the congregation might have been excluded from the use of the property; and it was held the property was not exempt from taxation, since church property, to be so exempt, must be owned by the congregation. The constitution of the state of Ohio used the expressions, ‘public school-houses' and ‘institutions of purely public charity,’ and the statute exempted from taxation ‘all public school-houses, * * * all public colleges, public academies, all buildings connected with the same, and all lands connected with public institutions of learning, not used with a view to profit.’ Rev. St. Ohio, § 2732. In Gerke v. Purcell, 25 Ohio St. 229, it was held that the parochial schools, with their playgrounds, were exempt from taxation; that, while they were not ‘public school-houses,’ in the sense of the constitution, yet, inasmuch as they were open to the entire community, they were ‘institutions of purely public charity’ within the meaning of the constitution, and that the word ‘public,’ as applied in the statute to school-houses, colleges, academies, and other institutions of learning, is descriptive of the uses to which the property is devoted, and is not used to describe the ownership of property; but in that case, while the bare legal title was vested in Archbishop Purcell, he was not the real owner of the property, but held the same in trust, to be used for parochial schools.

In the case now under consideration...