Sisters Of Mercy v. Town Of Hooksett.

• Decision Date: 06 March 1945
• Docket Number: No. 3488.,3488.
• Citation: 42 A.2d 222
• Parties: SISTERS OF MERCY v. TOWN OF HOOKSETT.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

42 A.2d 222

SISTERS OF MERCY

v.TOWN OF HOOKSETT.

No. 3488.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

March 6, 1945.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Merrimack County; Lorimer, Judge.

Proceedings by the Sisters of Mercy against the Town of Hooksett for abatement of taxes assessed on plaintiff's property. The petitions were dismissed in part and motions to dismiss other petitions denied, and both parties bring exceptions.

Exceptions sustained in part and overruled in part, and case discharged.

Petitions for the abatement of taxes assessed in the years 1936 to 1941 inclusive by the defendant upon the property of the plaintiffs, who are a charitable, religious and educational corporation. The petitions are grounded on claims of exemption. Hearing by Lorimer, J., who found certain facts and the valuations of various portions of the property in accordance with their uses, also similar findings as to the use and value of the plaintiffs' property elsewhere. To certain of these findings, and also to certain rulings, and to the Court's failure to make certain findings and rulings, the parties severally excepted. The petitions for the abatement of the taxes for 1938 and 1939 were dismissed, subject to the plaintiffs' exceptions. The defendant excepted to the denial of its motions to dismiss the other petitions. These exceptions are transferred on bills of exception.

At Hooksett the plaintiffs maintain one school building, a heating plant, a water supply and grounds for two educational institutions, Mount Saint Mary College and a preparatory school, neither one of which has exclusive occupancy with respect to the other. Certain other buildings and grounds are not used and occupied solely for educational purposes. At Manchester the plaintiffs own considerable property devoted to various charitable and educational uses, and one rented property, only the last of which was taxed during the years 1936 to 1941. At Nashua they own one piece of property that was not taxed in the years mentioned, used as residential quarters for the sisters who teach in the parochial schools. Other facts appear in the opinion.

The Court transferred without ruling the following question:

‘1. Is Mount Saint Mary College in Hooksett a seminary of learning and the real estate used by it for school purposes exclusively not liable to be taxed under the provisions of P.L. c. 60, § 5, now R.L. c. 73, § 7?

‘2. Is petitioner entitled to an exemption of $150,000 on its Hooksett real estate under the provisions of P.L. c. 60, §§ 22 and 23, now R.L. c. 73, §§ 24, 25?

‘3. In case the findings of the Court on market values of petitioner's real estate in Manchester are material:

‘a. Is the Chapel in Manchester a house of public worship and not liable to be taxed under the provisions of P.L. c. 60, § 5?

‘b. Is the normal school for novitiates in Manchester a seminary of learning and the real estate used by it for school purposes exclusively not liable to be taxed under the provisions of P.L. c. 60, § 5?’

These questions will be answered in the opinion under the foregoing numbering, after which the exceptions will be considered.

JOHNSTON, J., dissenting in part.

Hughes & Burns, of Dover (Walter A. Calderwood, of Dover, orally), for plaintiffs.

Robert W. Upton and Richard F. Upton, both of Concord, for defendant.

PAGE, Justice.

I. The plaintiffs own real estate in Hooksett which they use and occupy for two schools, one of preparatory rank, the other called Mount Saint Mary College. The latter is empowered to confer degrees. L.1934, Sp.Sess., c. 14. Real estate is not taxable when used exclusively for educational purposes by ‘seminaries of learning.’ R.L. c. 73, § 7. The defendant advances a novel interpretation of the quoted phrase, a ‘seminary,’ as specifically defined in some dictionaries, is a school of preparatory or pre-collegiate rank. Upon this interpretation, the plaintiffs could claim the benefit of the general educational exemption only as to so much of their real estate as is used and occupied by their preparatory school, while as to that devoted to the uses of the college, they must pay taxes.

Doubt is cast upon this interpretation by the fact that the word ‘seminary’ has a general meaning as well as a specific one. The New Standard Dictionary defines it as ‘A place of education; used commonly of a special school, as of theology or pedagogics, or a school of academy grade. * * *’ The same work defines ‘academy’ in both the general and specific manner: ‘A place of instruction or training. Specif.: (1) A school intermediate between a common school and a college. (2) Any institution where the higher branches are taught, or where pupils are trained in some special science or art; as the U. S. Naval Academy.’ The word ‘academe’ by which an earlier generation fondly described their college, is ‘Any place of academic study.’ And ‘academic’ is ‘Of or pertaining to an academy, college, or university.’ Webster defines ‘seminary’ as ‘A place of education, as a school of a high grade, an academy, college, or university.’

The question is whether the Legislature used the phrase in its general, broad sense; or had in mind only those schools specifically chartered as ‘seminaries,’ of the preparatory grade, and other schools of similar grade chartered as ‘academies.’ The use of the phrase ‘seminaries of learning’ in our tax statutes originated in 1842. R.S. c. 39, § 2. At that time the Legislature had chartered six preparatory schools under the corporate name ‘Seminary,’ and several times that number under the name ‘Academy.’ One of these was Gilmanton Academy. Just a few years before 1842, this academy had opened a department known as Gilmanton Theological Seminary, to which students were admitted only if graduates of a preparatory school. A few of the students had college degrees. If not a post-college school, the seminary was surely of post-preparatory rank. Upon the narrow construction now argued, the real estate used by Gilmanton Academy would have been exempt, while that used by the seminary would have been taxed. That the Legislature could have intended that an academy was a seminary of learning while a seminary of higher learning was not, is greatly to be doubted.

Specifically did the Legislature in 1842 intend to tax the only New Hampshire educational institution of the day that gave degrees-Dartmouth College? The answer will indicate what they meant by ‘seminaries of learning.’ Unquestionably they meant what the framers of the Constitution meant when they provided that it should be ‘the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools.’ Const. Part 2, art. 83. There is ample proof that ‘seminary’ was used in 1784 in the general sense. The Convention of 1781, which originated the constitutional phrase, issued an address to the people in which they said (p. 15): ‘From the deepest impression of the vast importance of Literature in a free government, we have interwoven it with, and made its protection and encouragement a part of the Constitution itself.’ This indicates no narrow definition of the word ‘seminary.’

In the years 1781-1784, while the Constitution was being debated and adopted by the people, there was in New Hampshire no single educational institution known specifically as a ‘seminary.’ The only two existent institutions to which the word ‘seminaries' could apply were Phillips Exeter Acadamy and Dartmouth College, and there is no evidence of an intention to cherish Exeter and to neglect Dartmouth.

The common language of the day called Dartmouth a ‘seminary,’ just as the Latin catalogues of the College used the root of academy in the general sense-‘Catalogus Senatus Academici.’ In 1770, Samson Occum, addressing Eleazar Wheelock, founder and first President of Dartmouth, spoke of ‘your Seminary.’ Richardson, History of Dartmouth College, 114. Eleazar Wheelock, by the charter of the College, had power to nominate his successor. He died in 1779, and by will nominated his son John and gave him all his right ‘to said seminary.’ Farrar, Report of the Case of the Trustees of Dartmouth College against William H. Woodward, 200. In 1787 John Quincy Adams, then at Newburyport near our border, wrote in his diary that a certain ‘son of Dartmouth’ was like ‘all the young gentlemen from that seminary’ in ‘effervescence and manners.’ Richardson, op. cit. 277. Dr. Belknap referred to Dartmouth College as ‘a seminary of literature.’ History of New Hampshire, II, 349 (published in 1791).

Officially the State several times recognized Dartmouth as a seminary. In 1789, President John Wheelock prayed the Legislature for a land grant to the Trustees of the College ‘for the benefit of that Seminary.’ The Legislature made it expressly ‘for the benefit of that Seminary.’ 21 State Papers, 395, 476; 22 State Papers, 694. And in 1792 the President and Council of the State gave the Trustees of the College authority to sell any part of the land granted, if they thought it ‘beneficial to said Seminary,’ 22 State Papers, 505. In 1807 Dartmouth College had from the State another grant of land for ‘that Seminary.’ L. June, 1807, p. 33.

In 1816, the Legislature attempted to amend the charter of the College and make it into a University. The preamble of the act recited their constitutional duty ‘to cherish * * * all seminaries' as the ground for their action. L.June 1816, c. 35. This project had been brought to legislative attention in a memorial from President John Wheelock, in which he referred to Dartmouth College as ‘this Seminary.’ A special legislative committee appointed to consider the memorial reported ‘It was at once perceived, that the administration of public seminaries' involved too much for a full investigation. Documents Relative to Dartmouth College Published by Order of the Legislature 4, 9.

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