Spring Hill Cemetery of Danville v. Ryan

• Decision Date: 01 December 1960
• Docket Number: No. 36020,36020
• Parties: SPRING HILL CEMETERY OF DANVILLE, Illinois, Appellee, v. William E. RYAN, County Collector, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 619

170 N.E.2d 619

20 Ill.2d 608

SPRING HILL CEMETERY OF DANVILLE, Illinois, Appellee, v. William E. RYAN, County Collector, Appellant.

No. 36020.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 1, 1960.

Acton, Baldwin, Bookwalter & Meyer, Danville (Harvey H. Acton, Danville, of counsel), for appellant.

John R. Dean, State's Atty., Daville, for appellee.

DAILY, Justice.

Defendant, the county collector of Vermilion County, appeals directly from a decree of the circuit court for said county permanently enjoining him from collecting real estate taxes levied against certain property owned by plaintiff, The Spring Hill Cemetery Association of Danville, Illinois. The revenue is involved to give us jurisdiction and the issue presented is whether two tracts of land owned by plaintiff are exempt from taxation.

Plaintiff was organized as a nonprofit organization on April 28, 1864, under authority of a general law which, with effect from February 14, 1855, permitted the incorporation of cemetery associations. Laws of 1855, p. 189. By section 1 thereof such associations were authorized to acquire land 'not exceeding fifty acres' and were restricted in its use to the laying out of such land 'into lots for a burial place for the dead with convenient aisles,' and the erection of a 'hearse house' thereon. By section 8 of the act, it was provided: 'The property of the corporation, its ground, lots and appliances, shall be exempt from taxation and shall not be liable to sale on execution.' Worthy of note at this point is the circumstance that although the constitution of 1848, then in force, did not in express terms permit exemption to be granted to cemetery property, this court held in People v. Rosehill Cemetery Co. 371 Ill. 510, 21 N.E.2d 766, that the action of the legislature in granting such an exemption was to be treated as valid.

In August, 1885, plaintiff adopted a resolution electing to receive and hold in perpetual trust 'any money or property given, devised, or bequeathed to the association for the purpose of takeing (sic) care and butifying (sic) the lot of any person or persons,' and it is undisputed that in June, 1948, plaintiff was licensed by the Auditor of Public Accounts to accept 'by gift, grant, contribution, payment, devise or bequest, or pursuant to contract, any sum of money, funds, securities or property of any kind, or the income or avails thereof, and to hold the same in trust in perpetuity for the care of its cemetery, or for the care of any lot * * * in its cemetery.' See Ill.Rev.Stat.1947, chap. 21, pars. 64.3 64.7 and 64.8.

Shortly after its organization, plaintiff purchased approximately 54 acres of land lying south of Voorhees Street and, when this proceeding was commenced, such land had been almost completely used for burial purposes. In 1903, plaintiff purchased a half-acre tract adjoining the 54-acre tract and this land is presently used for a manager's residence. The half-acre tract is at issue here and shall hereafter be referred to as tract 1. Plaintiff's manager occupies the premises rent-free and, in this manner, the association saves on the amount of salary that would otherwise have to be paid and likewise has some one on the grounds at all times for service and supervisory purposes.

To provide against the day when the original acreage would be fully utilized for interment purposes, plaintiff, in September, 1929, purchased 45 acres of land lying to the immediate north of Voorhees Street. At present, this land has the cemetery office located on it, about one acre has been platted and is being used for burials and the balance, except for a 10-acre tract to which we shall refer as tract 2, is used, according to the testimony of plaintiff's manager, for dirt, deposit of dirt and other cemetery operations. Tract 2 was leased to the Northwestern Publishing Company on May 23, 1952, for a period of 20 years, and is presently occupied by the lessee which operates and maintains there a transmitter tower and a television station. Under the terms of the lease, plaintiff is paid a rental of $1 per year and is given weekly radio and television time free of charge which is utilized to advertise and promote the sale of plaintiff's cemetery lots.

In 1958, the defendant-collector attempted to collect real-estate taxes levied for that year against tracts 1 and 2 in amounts of $850.40 and $548.58, respectively, whereupon plaintiff started this action for injunctive relief alleging the tracts are tax exempt.

Pertinent statutory background shows that in 1981 the legislature passed 'An Act in relation to Cemeteries,' wherein it was provided: '* * * That all cemetery associations or companies incorporated for cemetery purposes, by any general or special law of this State, may acquire by purchase, gift or devise, and may hold, own and convey for burial purposes only, so much land as may be necessary, not exceeding twenty acres, for use as a cemetery or burial place for the dead.' Laws of 1891, p. 86; emphasis supplied. Four years later, as an emergency measure, the same act was amended to delete the limitation of 'not exceeding twenty acres' (Laws of 1895, p. 81) and, as so amended, has remained in force and effect to the present date. See Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, chap. 21, par. 29. Both parties to this proceeding agree that the latter enactment served to authorize plaintiff to acquire and hold land in excess of the 50-acre limitation imposed by section 1 of the act of 1855, but they disagree on the question of whether such additional land enjoys the privilege of tax exemption.

In essence, defendant's first contention is that since the act of 1855, under which plaintiff was organized, shows a legislative intent of granting exemption to only 50 acres of land, the additional land acquired under authority of the amendment of 1895 cannot be exempt in the absence of concurrent or subsequent legislation specifically extending the privilege to such land. Plaintiff, insisting that such a construction would produce an absurd result, contends that the additional land, or more specifically tracts 1 and 2, is exempt by virtue of the act of 1855, or by virtue of our decision in Locust Grove Cemetery Ass'n of Philo v. Rose, 16 Ill.2d 132, 156 N.E.2d 577.

As previously pointed out, section 8 of the act of 1855 granted exemption to cemetery associations organized under the provisions of the act in these terms: 'The property of the corporation, its ground, lots and appliances, shall be exempt from taxation * * *.' Looking to this language, and seeking to draw an analogy from Northwestern University v. People ex rel. Miller, 99 U.S. 309, 25 L.Ed. 387, reversing 80 Ill. 333, and from People ex rel. Gill v. Lake Forest University, 367 Ill. 103, 10 N.E.2d 667, plaintiff argues that unless obligations of contract are to be impaired the exemption privilege granted by section 8 must be construed as extending to the after acquired property without regard to its use. We are of the opinion that the analogy is not well taken.

In the Northwestern case, the university was incorporated under a special law of 1851 and by an amendment to its charter in 1855 it was provided: '* * * That all property, of whatever kind or description, belonging to or owned by said corporation, shall be forever free from taxation for any and all purposes.' A subsequent statute of 1872, conforming to the newly adopted constitution of 1870, was construed by this court as limiting the exemption privilege to land or other property in immediate use for school purposes. 80 Ill. 33. However, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed, the rationale of its decision being that the exemption provision of the charter was broad enough to include any and all property owned by the corporation, that the constitution of 1848 permitted the Illinois legislature to grant such an all-inclusive exemption, and that the exemption privilege granted constituted a contract which the State had no right to impair by the subsequent constitution or legislation thereunder. By force of the high court's decision, and under similar factual conditions, the charter provision in the Lake Forest University case, viz., 'That all property, of whatsoever kind or description, belonging or appertaining to the Lake Forest University, shall be and forever remain free and exempt from all taxation,' (367 Ill. at page 105, 10 N.E.2d at page 668) was given the same construction.

There are, however, controlling factual differences between the university cases and the one at hand. Here, the exemption privilege was not couched in the broad and all inclusive terms found in the university charters, but was limited to the ground and lots which cemetery associations were authorized to acquire for 'a burial place for the dead with convenient aisles.' Of even greater significance is that, by section 1 of the same act, cemetery associations were expressly limited to the acquisition of no more than 50 acres of land, a circumstance which has no parallel in the university cases. When the language employed in the act of 1855 is given its plain meaning, and the act is read in its entirety, as it must be, it appears beyond question that the privilege embodied in section 8 at the time plaintiff received its charter was intended to extend to, and was a contract for, the exemption of land, up to 50 acres, used for burial lots, convenient aisles and hearse house. By the amendatory act of 1895, lifting the acreage limitation, the legislature did not impair any obligation of contract, but in fact enlarged upon plaintiffs charter power and in effect granted a new charter with corresponding new contractual rights. Cf. People ex rel. Caton v. Ottawa Hydraulic Co., 115 Ill. 281, 3 N.E. 413. This being so, the land acquired by plaintiff in excess of 50 acres, under statutory authority given long after the original charter had been granted, cannot be said to have become exempt by any of the contractual provisions of such...