Young Men's Christian Association of the City of Lincoln v. Lancaster County

• Decision Date: 20 April 1921
• Docket Number: 21276
• Citation: 182 N.W. 593,106 Neb. 105
• Parties: YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF LINCOLN, APPELLEE, v. LANCASTER COUNTY ET AL., APPELLANTS
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

182 N.W. 593

106 Neb. 105

YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF LINCOLN, APPELLEE, v. LANCASTER COUNTY ET AL., APPELLANTS

No. 21276

Supreme Court of Nebraska

April 20, 1921

APPEAL from the district court for Lancaster county: WILLARD E STEWART, JUDGE. Reversed, with directions.

REVERSED.

Charles E. Matson, Harry R. Ankeny and Max G. Towle, for appellants.

Burkett Wilson, Brown & Wilson, contra.

DORSEY C. FLANSBURG, J., not sitting.

OPINION

DORSEY, C.

The Young Men's Christian Association of the city of Lincoln is the owner of two lots, covering 100 by 142 feet of ground, in the business district, upon which stands a five-story brick building occupying nearly the entire two lots. This real estate was valued by the county assessor for taxation for the year 1917 at $ 100,000. Objections were filed with the county board of equalization on the ground that the property was used exclusively for religious, educational and charitable purposes, and was therefore exempt from taxation. The objections were overruled, but the valuation was reduced to $ 80,000. Appeal was then taken to the district court, where the objections were sustained and the property held to be exempt. The cause is now before this court for review on appeal by the taxing authorities.

The main part of the building, 100 by 100 feet in size, is occupied on its first floor by the offices of the association, a lobby and a cafeteria; on the second floor is another cafeteria, and the remainder of that floor is devoted to assembly rooms for the general use of the members, and for holding meetings connected with the various activities of the association, also by library, reading and study rooms and class rooms in connection with the religious and educational work. Part of the third floor is also utilized for the foregoing purposes; the remainder of the third floor and all of the fourth and fifth floors are divided into sleeping-rooms occupied by members who lodge there. On the north side of the main part of the building, and as a part of the same structure, there is a space 42 by 100 feet occupied, all but the two top stories, by the gymnasium and other rooms devoted to physical exercise, with baths, swimming pool, bowling alleys and billiard tables in the basement, where there are also a tailor repair shop and a barber shop. The two floors above the gymnasium in this part of the building are also occupied by sleeping-rooms.

The general purpose of the association is to promote the moral, physical and educational welfare of young men, to bring them under moral and religious influences, to improve their characters and to stimulate in them higher ideals of life and conduct.

The active work by which the association seeks to carry out these aims is partly among its own membership and partly in the effort to extend its influence outside, into and over the general community. The advantages and opportunities offered to its members are designed to influence young men to join the association and thus to bring as many as possible under its direct influence and supervision. At the same time, meetings participated in by organizations or groups interested in religious and other phases of community and home life are welcomed and accommodated, without charge, in its assembly rooms constantly throughout the year. Among these are lectures to parents on their relations and duties to boys, and also boy scout meetings. A boys' department is maintained of which boys may become members, entitling them to the use of the gymnasium, baths, games and other privileges. There are also meetings of the Sunday-school institute, in which instruction is given in Bible study and Sunday-school teaching, to aid and supplement the local church work along that line.

The members of the association and others who come to the building are given the benefit of religious influences by means of Bible classes and meetings of a religious character regularly held on Sunday and throughout the week. The educational work, under the supervision of an educational director, consists of both day and night schools, in which the common branches, languages and technical subjects are taught, and also health clinics teaching the functions and care of the body. Several class rooms in the building are used for this work.

The department of physical exercise and improvement, in charge of a physical director, is an important feature in the program of the association, and the essential relation of proper development of the physical requirements of young men to their mental and moral life is strongly emphasized. Music, games and other recreations are provided, and the general plan pursued by the association seeks to bring the entire routine of life of young men and boys into proper relation with their physical, mental and spiritual needs.

The membership of the association consists of active members who must be members of some protestant evangelical church, and who alone have the right to vote, and associate members to whom no religious test is applied, and who, equally with the active members, enjoy the other privileges of the association. There are about 1,700 members and the annual membership fee is $ 10. Revenues are made up of the membership fees, the income from the 117 rooms occupied by members, the cafeteria, barber shop and tailor shop, together with the small fees charged for games and for certain services for which members are required to pay. The total falls about $ 1,000 a month short of the amount necessary to pay the running expenses, and that deficit is made up by voluntary contributions of liberally disposed persons.

The Constitution and statutes of this state permit exemption from taxation only in case the building was, during the year for which it was assessed, "used exclusively * * * for schools, religious * * * and charitable purposes." Rev. St. 1913, sec. 6301. The contention of the appellee is that it is a religious and charitable institution, and that the building in question, being used for the promotion of its general purposes, is, in a legal sense, used for religious and charitable purposes, although parts of the building are used for purposes which, if dissociated from and considered apart from their utility in carrying out the general plan, are not strictly either charitable or religious; such uses being merely incidental and not destructive of the exempt character of the property.

The use of the property is, under our law, the criterion by which to determine whether it is or is not exempt from taxation. It is therefore essential to determine, in the first place, whether the association, not in its aims and purposes alone, but in what it actually does to carry them out, is religious or charitable, before it can be decided that any of the uses to which the building was put partake of those characteristics. This court said in Young Men's Christian Ass'n v. Douglas County, 60 Neb. 642, 52 L. R. A. 123, 83 N.W. 924: "It is to be conceded at the outset, as it is admitted by the demurrer to the petition, * * * that the object and purposes of the appellant corporation are such as to exempt the property, used exclusively by it for the purposes of its organization, from taxation under the laws of the state." No such concession can be made in the state of the record before us, and we shall therefore proceed to inquire whether the appellee may properly be described as a religious or charitable organization.

Under facts with reference to the objects and activities of the Young Men's Christian Association there under consideration not differing essentially from the corresponding facts in the instant case, it was held in Little v. City of Newburyport, 210 Mass. 414, 96 N.E. 1032, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 425, that the association, though not giving charity in its narrowest sense, was in its essence a benevolent or charitable institution, within the meaning of those words in the statute. In Commonwealth v. Young Men's Christian Ass'n, 116 Ky. 711, 105 Am. St. Rep. 234, it was concluded that a similar organization was an institution of "purely public charity" under the statute of Kentucky. That decision was reaffirmed in Corbin Y. M. C. A. v. Commonwealth, 181 Ky. 384, 205 S.W. 388. A similar organization devoted to the welfare of young women was held to be a purely public charity in Philadelphia v. Women's Christian Ass'n, 125 Pa. 572, 17 A. 475.

The supreme court of Louisiana, on the other hand, held in State v. Board of Assessors, 52 La. Ann. 223, 26 So 872, that a Young Men's Christian Association could not claim exemption of its building from taxation on the ground that,...