Sweetser v. Manning
| Decision Date | 05 January 1909 |
| Citation | 86 N.E. 897,200 Mass. 378 |
| Parties | SWEETSER v. MANNING. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Frederic
A. Fisher, for plaintiff.
John W McEvoy, for defendant.
The plaintiff brings this suit as collector of taxes of the town of Chelmsford, to recover a tax assessed upon the personal property of the defendant on May 1, 1904. His right to recover is questioned only on the ground that a part of the tax was assessed upon the defendant's money at interest secured by mortgages on St. Peter's Cemetery in the city of Lowell, which cemetery is exempt from taxation under Rev Laws, c. 12, § 5, cl. 8.
Seemingly the case might be decided in favor of the plaintiff on the ground that, if the tax was wrongly assessed, the defendant's only remedy was by an application for an abatement. Rev. Laws, c. 12, §§ 73-74; Hicks v Westport, 130 Mass. 478. But as both parties have argued the question whether the property is liable to taxation, we prefer to put our decision on broader grounds.
Rev. Laws, c. 12, § 2, provide that 'all property, real and personal, situated within the commonwealth, * * * unless exempted by law, shall be subject to taxation.' Personal property subject to taxation includes 'money at interest and other debts due the person to be taxed, more than he is indebted or pays interest for, but not including in any such debts due him, or indebtedness from him any loan on mortgage of real estate, taxable as real estate, except the excess of such loan above the assessed value of the mortgaged real estate.' Rev. Laws, c. 12, § 4, cl. 2. The property in question is money at interest represented by promissory notes secured by mortgages. But it is not a 'loan on mortgage of real estate taxable as real estate,' because the mortgages which secure it are upon a cemetery, and cemeteries are exempt from taxation. Loans on mortgages are taxable as real estate only under Rev. Laws, c. 12, § 16. That section makes taxable as real estate the interest of a holder of a duly recorded mortgage in real estate not exempt from taxation under section 5. If the mortgaged real estate is exempt from taxation under section 5, the loan on the mortgage cannot be taxed as real estate, and it is left subject to taxation as personal property like other money at interest. See Knight v. Boston, 159 Mass. 551, 35 N.E. 86.
It follows that there is no ground for the defendant's...
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Garden Cemetery Corporation v. Baker
... ... authority, such authority being conferred by general law. R ... L. c. 78, § 2; chapter 109, § 6. See Sweetser v ... Manning, 200 Mass. 378, 86 N.E. 897. In this respect it ... differs from public service corporations. Atty Gen. v ... Haverhill Gas Co., ... ...
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Trefry v. Younger
...be sold or mortgaged. Garden Cemetery Corp. v. Baker, 218 Mass. 339, 341, 342, 105 N. E. 1070, Ann. Cas. 1916B, 75;Sweetser v. Manning, 200 Mass. 378, 86 N. E. 897;Donnelly v. Boston Catholic Cemetery Ass'n, 146 Mass. 163, 166, 15 N. E. 505. The master finds that the northerly part of the l......