Shreveport Creosoting Co., Ltd. v. City of Shreveport
| Decision Date | 27 May 1907 |
| Docket Number | 16,580 |
| Citation | 119 La. 637,44 So. 325 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | SHREVEPORT CREOSOTING CO., Limited, v. CITY OF SHREVEPORT et al |
Rehearing Denied June 29, 1907.
Appeal from First Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; Thomas Fletcher Bell, Judge.
Action by the Shreveport Creosoting Company, Limited, against the city of Shreveport and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Reversed, and demand dismissed.
James Martin Foster, Dist. Atty., and Ruffin Golson Pleasant, City Atty., for appellants.
Pugh Thigpen & Foster, for appellee.
The plaintiff prayed for and obtained a writ of injunction against the defendants, sheriff and city comptroller, restraining them from collecting parish and municipal taxes on its land and plant for the year 1906. The tax assessor was also made a party defendant so as to obtain a decree contradictory with him, declaring said property exempt from parish and municipal taxation for future years.
The petition alleged, in substance: That the corporation was engaged in the manufacture of cross-ties, telephone, and telegraph poles, bridge timbers, and other articles of wood all in a finished state and ready for convenient, immediate, and general use and sale without further manipulation; that it employed more than five hands in the manufacture of said material, and that all of its capital, machinery, and other property employed in said manufacturing enterprise was exempt from parochial and municipal taxation for a period of 10 years dating from January 1, 1900, as provided by article 230 of the Constitution of 1898; that, in order to put said manufacturing enterprise into operation, it bought considerable real estate situated in the city of Shreveport and in the parish of Caddo, and all of said land was absolutely necessary for the location of said plant, and for switches and side tracks, necessary and essential for the operation of said plant; that the land bought for the location and operation of said plant consisted of about 55 acres, all of which was used exclusively for the location and operation of the plant; that the state taxes on said property had been paid or tendered; and that the assessment for year 1906 for parish and municipal taxation was illegal, null, and void, for the reason that same was exempt from such taxation.
The tax collector, the representative of the city, and the assessor were made parties defendant, and under suitable allegations an injunction was issued restraining the collection of the parish and municipal taxes for the year 1906.
All of the defendants filed answers denying the exemption from taxation of property owned by the plaintiff.
Upon these issues the case was heard in the court below, and from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, decreeing the whole of the capital, machinery, and other property employed in its manufacturing plant exempt from parish and municipal taxation, not only for the year 1906, but up to and including the years 1909, all of the defendants have appealed.
The following are the positions advanced in the brief of the plaintiff:
(1) Article 230 of the Constitution exempts from taxation the capital, machinery, and other property "employed in the manufacture of furniture and other articles of wood." Articles of wood in this article refer to a particular substance or commodity manufactured from wood by hand, by art, or machinery ready for immediate, convenient, and general use, complete in themselves without further manipulation or work on them. Carpenter v. Sheriff, 45 La.Ann. 456, 12 So. 483; Whited v. Assessor, 49 La.Ann. 325, 21 So. 538; Globe Lumber Co. v. Assessor, 110 La. 438, 34 So. 595.
(2) There can be no doubt but what cross-ties, bridge timbers, such as treated by the plaintiff, telephone and telegraph poles are "articles of wood," within the meaning of the Constitution, and, if the Creosoting Company manufactures them, it is within both the letter and spirit of the constitutional exemption.
(3) A manufacturer is not one who creates out of nothing for that would surpass human power; neither is he one who produces a new article out of materials entirely raw. He is one who gives new shapes, new qualities, new combinations to matter which has already gone through some artificial process. City v. Le Blanc, 34 La.Ann. 596; City v. Ernst, 35 La.Ann. 746; Carlin v. Western Assurance Co., 57 Md. 526, 40 Am. Rep. 440; State v. Sugar Refining Co., 108 La. 628, 32 So. 965; Norris Bros. v. Com., 27 Pa. 494.
(4) Very few of the articles now known as manufactured could properly be called so within the original and strict meaning of the term, as shown by its derivation. It is a word which, in the vicissitudes of language, has come to signify the reverse of its intrinsic meaning. Modern lexicographers, scientific works and the jurisprudence of the country have given it a broad, liberal, and legal meaning, expanding it so as not only to include one who gives new shapes to raw material, but also to one who gives the raw material thus prepared new qualities and new combinations. City v. Le Blanc, 34 La.Ann. 596; City v. Ernst, 35 La.Ann. 746; City v. Refining Co., 108 La. 628, 32 So. 965; State v. Dupre, 42 La.Ann. 561, 7 So. 727.
(5) To constitute the plaintiff a manufacturer of cross-ties, "other articles of wood," it is not essential that it should go into the forest, fell the trees, and put the raw material into proper form and shape, as this would not complete the tie for ready sale and use. The timber from which such ties are made is not such as could be used. The felling of the trees and the reduction of the timber to proper shape is only one step in the process of manufacture. The treating process has to be applied before the tie is ready to be delivered to the consumer for use.
(6) The proof shows that the sap or gumtie, treated by the plaintiff, is without value in a commercial sense as a cross-tie, but that, after undergoing the creosoting process, is of great value and becomes one of the most important factors in the construction and maintenance of railroads. The treatment is accomplished by a mechanical and chemical process; and, since it gives new life, new qualities, and new combinations to the material, it follows that such treatment constitutes the plaintiff a manufacturer of "articles of wood," within the meaning of the constitutional exemption.
(6) Soon after the adoption of the Constitution of 1879, the courts gave the word "manufacture" a broader and more liberal meaning than that imported by the ordinary lexicographic meaning assigned to the term, and brought within its grasp not only the labor of putting the raw material into shape and form, but also expanded its meaning so as to include the process of giving the material new qualities, substances, and combinations. This enlarged construction was recognized before the adoption of the Constitution of 1898, and since that Constitution retained the same language, thus construed and applied, this construction must be considered to have had the sanction of the convention, as the contrary does not appear. State v. Brewer, 22 La.Ann. 273; Globe Lumber Co. v. Clement, 110 La. 438, 34 So. 595; DaPonte v. Assessors, 35 La.Ann. 655; Crescent Bed Company v. City, 111 La. 124, 35 So. 484.
(7) The argument for an enlarged and liberal construction or interpretation of the word manufacture does not militate against the concession that the words "articles of wood" are not to be construed in their larger signification, for it is settled by well-known rules of statutory interpretation that they are to be referred to the particular words which they immediately follow, and can only include other "articles of wood" or things ejusdem generis with those specifically enumerated. The word "other," as used in the Constitution, as qualifying "articles of wood," contributes to give a restrictive sense to the words "articles of wood," and limits the exemption from taxation to "other articles of wood," such as furniture and other like articles. City v. Le Blanc, 34 La.Ann. 596; Jones v. Raines, 35 La.Ann. 998; Martin v. New Orleans, 38 La.Ann. 398, 58 Am. Rep. 194; Carre v. New Orleans, 41 La.Ann. 996, 6 So. 893.
(8) While the question was not specially put at issue in the lower court, yet it has been suggested that, inasmuch as the plant was not completed at the date of the assessment, it is not exempt from taxation for the year 1906. While the authorities are meager on this point, and while the question may be considered as res nova in this state, yet no good reason can be suggested why the exemption should not extend to property intended for manufacturing purposes, if otherwise exempt, where the plant is in good faith in process of construction. Amer. & Eng. Ency. of Law, vol. 12, 329.
Finally, the business in which the plaintiff is engaged, coming within the modern lexicographic, scientific, and legal definition of the terms "manufacture" or "manufacturing," entitles it absolutely and unconditionally to the exemption herein claimed.
Defendant, on the contrary, insists that:
(1) Taxation of all property being the rule, and exemptions the exception, exemptions will never be presumed or implied in reference to property which would be subject to taxation without some express grant of immunity. And, even in cases where it is claimed that there has been an express grant of exemption, it is an invariable rule that every presumption must be in favor of a continuance of the taxing power and against any surrender thereof. Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d Ed.) vol. 12, p. 286, III; Id. p. 288 (2); Id. p. 302; Atlantic & Pacific R. Co. v Lesueur, 19 P. 157, 2 Ariz. 428, 1 L.R.A. 244; People v. Wemple, 29 N.E. 808, 129 N.Y. 543, 14...
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