Spring Hill Cemetery, Inc. v. Lindsey

• Decision Date: 04 April 1931
• Citation: 37 S.W.2d 111,162 Tenn. 420
• Parties: SPRING HILL CEMETERY, Inc., et al. v. LINDSEY et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

37 S.W.2d 111

162 Tenn. 420

SPRING HILL CEMETERY, Inc., et al. v. LINDSEY et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 4, 1931

Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; R. B. C. Howell Chancellor.

Suit by the Spring Hill Cemetery, Inc., and another against Dick Lindsey, Clerk, and others. From an adverse decree defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Price Schlater & Price, of Nashville, for complainants.

W. F. Barry, Jr., and Roy H. Beeler, both of Nashville, for defendants.

COOK J.

The bill was filed by Spring Hill Cemetery, Inc., under chapter 142, Acts of 1875, and E. L. Morris, a stockholder, director, and officer of the corporation, under the Declaratory Judgments Law. The prayer of the bill was for a decree declaring chapter 75, Acts of 1927, void.

It is charged that the statute which imposes certain duties and obligations on cemetery companies chartered under the act of 1875, and upon their officers, directors, and stockholders, is unconstitutional. That the bill, as amended, presents a case for a declaratory decree is admitted by respondents. See Perry v. City of Elizabethtown, 160 Tenn. 102, 22 S.W.2d 359.

We have considered the act challenged by complainants' bill. It does not, as charged in the bill, violate article 2, § 17, of the Constitution. The body of the act contains one subject--the regulation of cemetery corporations--and the subject is expressed in the caption. The object of the act was to prescribe measures and remedies for the enforcement of duties imposed upon cemetery corporations organized under chapter 142, Acts of 1875, and its provisions relate directly or indirectly to that general subject.

The fact that the remedy extends only to cemetery corporations organized for profit under section 9 of the act of 1875 does not render the act in question void as class legislation contrary to article 1, § 8, and article 11, § 8, of the Constitution.

The act of 1927 applies with equal force to all cemetery companies organized under charters granted by the state under the general corporation law of 1875, and prescribes remedies for the enforcement of obligations voluntarily assumed by the corporation when the charter was accepted, from which its powers are derived.

The complainant Spring Hill Cemetery was organized under the act of 1875 referred to. Section 9 of that act, embodied in the charter, and which, otherwise, would be read into it ( Anderson-Dulin-Varnell Co. v. Williams, 148 Tenn. 388, 255 S.W. 597) contains this provision:

"It shall be the duty of the corporation to set apart twenty-five (25) per cent. of all lots sold, to be denominated an Improvement Fund, and the same to accumulate until the interest amounts to a sum sufficient to keep in order the entire grounds used as a cemetery, and any person, or the descendants of any person, who has bought a lot, shall have the right to look after and see to the preservation of said fund, and the proper application of the interest. Until the interest on the fund accumulated as aforesaid, is sufficient for the purpose aforesaid, the corporation is bound to keep the grounds in order out of the remaining three-fourths of the proceeds of the lots."

The declared purpose of chapter 75 of the Acts of 1927 was to require cemetery corporations to at all times carry a sufficient permanent improvement fund to keep up and beautify the cemeteries without commercializing their operation. The provisions of the act of 1927, other than sections 2, 7, 9, and 10, refer to the obligation originally imposed by the above-quoted provision of the act of 1875, which obligation was assumed by the corporation and under which it was onerated with the duty of setting apart 25 per cent. from the sale of lots to the permanent improvement fund, and the latter act prescribes measures and remedies for the enforcement of that duty. As related to such duties and obligations connected with transactions subsequent to the passage of the act of 1927, the last enacted law is valid and enforceable.

The Spring Hill Cemetery was organized in 1881, nearly a half century before the act of 1927 was passed, under the original act which made it obligatory upon the corporation to set up the improvement fund. Lot owners and their descendants were authorized by the act of 1875 to enforce that requirement. If it was observed and enforced, the fund would be now in existence and under control of the corporate treasurer. If the 25 per cent. derived from the sale of lots prior to the passage of the act of 1927 was not set apart by antecedent officers and directors of the corporation, the present officers and directors could not be penalized by a subsequent act for refusing to make up the deficit, nor could the Legislature lawfully declare it to...