The Tr.S Of The Acad. Of Richmond County v. Bohler

• Decision Date: 31 October 1887
• Citation: 80 Ga. 159
• Parties: The Trustees of the Academy of Richmond County. vs. Bohler, tax-collector.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

80 Ga. 159

The Trustees of the Academy of Richmond County. vs. Bohler, tax-collector.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

OCTOBER TERM, 1887.

Taxes. Constitutional law. Charities. Before Judge Roney. Richmond county. At chambers, October 28, 1887.

Reported in the decision.

Frank H. Miller and Wm. K. Miller, by brief, for plaintiffs in error.

Boykin Wright, solicitor-general, for defendant.

Bleckley, Chief Justice.

The testator devised to trustees and their successors, all his real estate in the city of Augusta, the annual product to be by them appropriated to the erection of a poor-house in Richmond county, and for the support of its inmatesforever. See City Council of Augusta vs. Walton et al., 77 Ga. 517. No poor-house has been erected, but the trustees are accumulating a fund for the purpose, and first for the purchase of a suitable site therefor, from the income of the devised property. This properly, worth, say $75,000, was assessed for State and county taxes for the year 1887, including school-tax. and the trustees sought to enjoin the collection of the same. The injunction was denied.

The contention on the part of the trustees is, that the devised property is exempt from taxation by the act of December 10th, 1879, (code, §798.) under the descriptive terms "all institutions of purely public charity." The title of the act, (pamph. laws of 1878-9, p. 32.) is, "an act to carry into effect paragraph 2 of section 2 of article 7, of the constitution of this State, in reference to the exemption from taxation of certain property therein described." The body of the act provides, " that the following described property shall bo exempt from taxation, to wit: All public property, places of religious worship, and places of burial; all institutions of purely public charity; all buildings erected for and used as a college, incorporated academy or other seminary of learning; the real and personal estate of any public library, and that of any other literary association used by, or connected with, such library; all books, philosophical apparatus, paintings and statuary of any company or association kept in a public hall, and not held as merchandise or for purposes of sale or gain; provided the above described property, so exempted, be not used for purposes of private or corporate profit or income." The paragraph of the constitution of 1877, (code, §5182,) to which the act refers, provides that " the general assembly may, by law, exempt from taxation all public property, " etc., proceeding from thence, in the exact language of the act, to the close of the above quotation. And in a subsequent paragraph (code, §5184,) it declares that "all laws exempting property from taxation, other than the property herein enumerated, shall be void."

The constitution does not itself exempt anything, but only grants power to the general assembly to exempt the enumerated property, expressly denying to it power to exempt any other. That the act of 1879 was intended to be a full and exhaustive exercise of all the power granted, we have no doubt; and that the legislature construed the power as embracing property, and that alone, is equally certain; for the act declares that "the following described property shall be exempt from taxation, " and then proceeds with the enumeration in the exact terms employed by the constitution, one of the particulars of the enumer-tion being " institutions of purely public charity." These institutions are thus mentioned as property, as physical entities; not as the owners or users of property; not as persons, corporeal or incorporeal, nor as ideal beings, which are neither persons nor property. Observe that neither the act nor the constitution mentions property of, or belonging to, institutions of purely public charity, but only the institutions themselves. No matter to whom the institutions belong, whether to a private individual, to a corporation, or to an unincorporated company or association, they are equally exempt, provided they are dedicated to charity and used exclusively as institutions of purely public charity. Hospitals, almshouses, asylums for the insane, for the deaf and dumb, or the blind, orphan asylums, homes of various kinds, soup-houses, etc., permanently established and open, without charge, to the whole public, or to the whole of the classes for whose relief they are intended or adapted, are institutions of the exempt order, irrespective of their ownership, and without regard to whether they have behind them, or connected with them, any institution in the personal or ideal sense of the term, or not.

That the word " institution, " both in legal and colloquial use, admits of application to physical things, cannot bequestioned. One of its meanings, as defined in Webster\'s Unabridged Dictionary, is " an establishment, especially of a public character, affecting a community." And one of the meanings of " establishment, " as defined by the same authority, is " the place in which one is permanently fixed for residence or business; residence with grounds, furniture, equipage, etc., with which one is fitted out; also, any office or place of business, with its fixtures." " The term \'institution\' is sometimes used as descriptive of an establishment, or place, where the business or operations of a society or association is carried on; at other times it is used to designate the organized body." Gerke vs. Purcell, 25 Ohio St. 244. See also Abbott\'s Law Dic, and City of Indianapolis vs. Sturdevant, 24 Ind. 391. A charitable institution as an organization is neither taxed nor exempted; it is simply ignored as a subject of taxation. So...