Young Women's Christian Ass'n v. Portsmouth

• Decision Date: 01 June 1937
• Parties: YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASS'N v. PORTSMOUTH.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

192 A. 617

YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASS'N

v. PORTSMOUTH.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Rockingham.

June 1, 1937.

Transferred from Superior Court, Rockingham County; Johnston, Judge.

Petition by the Young Women's Christian Association against Portsmouth to abate a real estate tax. Issue of right to exemption transferred without ruling.

Abatement ordered.

Petition, to abate a real estate tax on the ground of use for charitable purposes. The plaintiff is a locally incorporated institution. Its general purpose is "to pro-mote the moral, religious and educational welfare of men and women of all ages, to aid them when in want and distress, and by a kindly interest to bring them under moral and religious influences, thereby improving their character and stimulating in them higher ideals of life and conduct." It uses its property as "a general gathering place for women, girls and children, both local and transient, free reading, recreation and rest rooms," and other free services. It furnishes lodging for women who have no home in Portsmouth and who pay a charge if able. It runs a restaurant open at noontime and to the general public but maintained primarily to furnish food to women who either are transients or lunch away from home. It conducts courses in education, religious training, and culture. All receipts are used in maintenance and in carrying on its activities.

The issue of its right to exemption was transferred without ruling by Johnston, J.

Jeremy R. Waldron and Wyman P. Boynton, both of Portsmouth, for plaintiff. Leo Liberson, City Sol., of Portsmouth, for the defendant.

ALLEN, Chief Justice.

By statute (Laws 1930, Sp.Sess., c. 4) the personal property of religious, educational, and charitable societies locally incorporated or organized and their real estate owned and occupied by them for their charitable purposes are tax exempt, provided none of the income or profits of their business is used or appropriated for other than the charities they administer.

The act requires compliance with certain defined tests to constitute a religious or educational institution within its application. It may be assumed that the plaintiff is not such a body under the act and may be exempted from taxation only as it is shown to be a public charity of another character. But its services in the fields of religion and education have evidentiary value to show its proper classification as a charitable organization within the act. They are indications of an enterprise not undertaken as a commercial venture, with a money-profit motive, or as a group devoted to its own social enjoyment.

The defendant, asserting that tax exemption laws are to be construed with rigorous strictness and a technique of narrowing application, takes the position that the plaintiff is not a charitable institution within the tenor of the exemption statute, for reasons to be later stated and considered.

Whatever may be the present standing of rules of strict construction for certain classes of legislation, in any event they are controlled by and subordinate to the principle that the ascertainment of the actual legislative intent is the only purpose and objective of proper construction. "The question is what the words used meant to those using them." Clough & Co. v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 77 N.H. 222, 230, 90 A. 863, 867, Ann.Cas.1915B, 1195. Legislation is not to be restricted, thwarted, or defeated contrary to its intended scope of application fairly stated and shown. Conceding that exceptional situations established by legislation are not to be expanded beyond the limits intended for them, they are not to be curtailed by lessening the area of the intended scope. A policy for exceptions is not to be belittled in favor of the policy not embracing the exceptions. Each policy is to receive its due recognition.

An exemption of property from taxation is a classification placing the property in the nontaxable list. Whether the classification be expressed through unstated omissions of the property from taxation, or by stated exceptions, is immaterial. The broad principle of equal and proportionate taxation does not require that valid classifications resulting in tax exemptions are to be treated with judicial disfavor; and the constitutional mandate that no tax shall be laid to impose upon a taxpayer more than his share of the burden of taxation is not disregarded by an exemption which classification produces provided the exemption serves the general welfare. The policy of equality of taxation and that of serving the general welfare are each to be respected, in the light of each other. The legislation being valid, an attitude of hostility towards either policy is not to be taken.

How the Legislature has stated its will, in acting upon both policies, is not to be ascertained by sacrificing purpose to form of statement. If it is clear that an authorized exemption was intended, it is to be given full, and not partial, effect. An exemption of charitable institutions from taxation being granted, a prescribed condition that only such as meet a hard and fast definition does not accompany it. "The legislative purpose to encourage charitable institutions is not to be thwarted by a strained, overtechnical and...