114 Ky. 165 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1902
Opinion op the court by
— Reversing.
This proceeding was instituted, under section 4241 of tbe Kentucky Statutes, by the auditor’s* agent for Fayette county against the Lexington Cemetery Company, to have assessed for taxation, as omitted property, certain notes, bonds, and cash belonging to the company from 1880 to 1893, inclusive. Tbe judgment of tbe county court was to tbe effect that $43,000 in notes and cash, belonging to the company, was liable to taxation since the adoption of ■our present Constitution. An appeal by the company to the Fayette circuit court resulted in a judgment setting
The Lexington Cemetery Company was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly in February,. 1848. It was empowered to acquire ground, plat it into lots, and sell them exclusively for burial purposes, and apply the proceeds to the improvement and ornamentation of the cemetery, and the incidental expenses necessary to keeping it in repair. It was not organized for profit, and no dividends have ever been declared, and no salaries are paid to any of its officers. But under their management it has become a beautiful city of the dead, “vast, ornate, and in scrupulous condition.” The bodies of more than 14,000 persons sleep under its sod. Among them are the bones of some who in life shed immortal glory upon the nation. Neither talent, taste nor money have been spared to make it worthy of the universal sentiment of reverence for the burial places of the dead which springs from the Christian belief in the final resurrection of the body. More than $6,000 is spent anually in ornamentation and care of the grounds. Yet sot able and judicious has been the management that the company ha® on hand a large sum of money, the proceeds, iu the main, of lots sold, the prices: of which range from $6 for a place for a single burial, to much higher prices, according to the extent and location of the lot; and it is this fund which the Commonwealth seeks in this proceeding to subject to taxation.
None of the previous Constitutions recited specifically the property which should be exempt from taxation, and the General Assembly enjoyed and exercised a very wide discretion in matters of this kind, especially when the property of any form of charitable institution was involved. The act of 1873, which is found in the Revised Statutes, ex-
For the reasons indicated, the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for proceedings consistent with this, ■opinion.
Whole court sitting.
'Petition for rehearing by appellee overruled.