People v. Knickerbocker Ice Co.
| Decision Date | 08 May 1885 |
| Citation | 1 N.E. 669,99 N.Y. 181 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. KNICKERBOCKER ICE CO. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Mr. Hale, for appellant, the Knickerbocker Ice Co.
D. O'Brien, Atty. Gen., for the People.
This action was brought to recover state taxes for the year ending November 1, 1882, under the provisions of chapter 542, Laws 1880, § 3, as amended, (Laws 1881, ( c. 361,) and also for the penalty prescribed (Laws 1881, supra, § 2) for their non-payment. The answer in substance avers that the defendant ‘is a manufacturing corporation, carrying on manufacture within this state,’ and therefore exempt from such imposition by the very terms of the statute, supra.
Upon trial of the issue before a referee, it appeared that the defendant was a corporation organized under the manufacturing act of this state, (Laws 1848, c. 40,) and in pursuance of an act passed April 12, 1855, (Laws 1855, c. 30,) to extend the operation of said act of 1848; that its business was ‘collecting ice from the Hudson river and Rockland lake,’ ‘storing, preserving, and preparing it for sale, transporting it to the city of New York, or elsewhere, and vending the same;’ and the referee found that the defendant was not a manufacturing corporation carrying on manufacture. If this finding is correct, judgment properly followed the prayer of the complaint. The business of the defendant is described in language found in its articles of association, and for the doing of which it was organized. The performance thereof corresponds with its license, and while the phrase by which the incorporation was effected might not be important, we cannot fail to see that neither it nor its operations are in any way concerned with the manufacture or sale of an artificial product. Its dealing is with ‘ice’ as an existing article, not the manufacture or production of ice by combination of materials, or the application of forces, or otherwise. It collects, stores, and preserves that which natural causes created, and which other natural causes would destroy and waste. It seeks only to hold these last in check. Similar operations would equally apply to water, fruit, sand, gravel, coal, and other natural productions. Water might be improved by filtration; fruit by judicious pruning of the tree or vine, or protection by glass; sand and gravel by screening; cobble-stones by selection; and coal by breaking; and each by various processes stored until the season of demand, when, having been ‘collected, stored, preserved, and prepared for sale,’ the natural article, and no other, would be put upon the market.
No doubt ice may be manufactured and frigorific effects produced by artificial means. Corporations exist for that purpose, and come literally within our manufacturing laws. Their methods in no respect resemble those of the defendant. Its tools and implements are for convenience in handling and marketing a product, and not at all for making it. Many cases are cited by the learned counsel for the appellant, but we find none so comprehensive as to include this case. They all, so far as they have any application, require the production of some article, thing, or object by...
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Aybar v. Aybar
...in New York. Statutory interpretation and construction are the province of the courts (see id. ; see also People v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 99 N.Y. 181, 1 N.E. 669 [1885] ["No doubt it is the province of the court to declare what the law is"]).The majority's decision to interpret the BCL ane......
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... ... found in nature, is not manufacturing, but the production [243 ... Ala. 58] of ice by artificial means is. People v ... Knickerbocker Ice Co., 99 N.Y. 181, 1 N.E. 669. As well ... say that a gas company, organized under the corporation laws, ... is not a ... ...
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Central Trust Co. of Illinois v. George Lueders & Co.
...a 'manufacturer,' within the meaning of the exemption provision of the Constitution. A somewhat similar holding was had in People v. Roberts, 145 N.Y. 375, 40 N.E. 7, as applied to the business of mixing tea, roasting grinding coffee, and packaging spices and baking powders. In People v. Kn......
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In re I. Rheinstrom & Sons Co.
... ... Then ... come three decisions of the Court of Appeals of New York in ... the cases of People v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 99 ... N.Y. 181, 1 N.E. 669; People ex rel. Union Pacific Tea ... Co. v. Roberts, 145 N.Y. 375, 40 N.E. 7; People ex ... ...