295 P. 813 | Cal. | 1931
The above-entitled causes, consolidated for purposes of appeal, present appeals from judgments rendered after the overruling of general demurrers, and require determination of the single legal question as to whether or not the properties described in the respective complaints are, under the allegations thereof, exempt from taxation by the provisions of section 1b of article XIII of the state Constitution, adopted November 2, 1926. As the facts involved in these appeals differ only as to the party plaintiff and the property owned, we will set out in substance only the allegations of the complaint filed by the Cypress Lawn Cemetery Association.
It is therein alleged that the defendant was and is a municipal corporation; that the plaintiff was, and is a cemetery *389
association incorporated under sections 608 to 617, both inclusive, of the Civil Code, and has been and is maintaining a cemetery in the county of San Matco wherein it has sold and granted the perpetual right of burial to many thousands of persons, and the bodies of many thousands of human dead have been buried; that said plaintiff has received a surplus from the sale of lots which, under sections
The constitutional provision here involved, and decisive of the present dispute, reads as follows: "All property used or held exclusively for the burial or other permanent deposit of the human dead or for the care, maintenance or upkeep of such property or such dead, except as used or held for profit, shall be free from taxation and local assessment." Subject to the exception, this provision exempts from taxation and local assessment two kinds of property, classified on the basis of its use, but without consideration of the status or character of its owner or possessor, to wit, (1) that "used *390 or held exclusively for the burial or other permanent deposit of the human dead", and (2) that "used or held exclusively . . . for the care, maintenance or upkeep of such property" (i.e., the first class) "or such dead" (i.e., human dead so deposited or buried). The exception "except used or held for profit" qualifies the phrase "all property", and therefore restricts or limits both classes of property. We are here concerned only with the second class as affected by the exception.
[1] Constitutional provisions and statutes exempting property from taxation are strictly construed. (People v. Board ofDirectors,
It is in accordance with the common wish of mankind that the places where the dead are buried should be protected and preserved against interference of possible sales for unpaid taxes, and be kept free from molestation or desecration. Exemptions of cemetery property from taxation are but the expression of that wish. [3] That this is true as regards section 1b of article XIII, supra, appears from the argument made in favor of the proposed constitutional amendment and sent to all of the voters prior to the election at which it was adopted. The proponents of the measure urged that it "should have been adopted long ago in order to protect the last resting place of the departed. . . . The county assessors know that they cannot under the law seize and sell a burial lot containing a body and yet under the present law, they are compelled to levy an assessment against such a plot, thereby expending the time and money of the county in bookkeeping, etc., to no avail, and jeopardizing *392 the title to a property that may be containing the last remains of some dear one. . . .
"Finally, only the cemetery property not held for profit and owned by those exclusively for burial purposes is exempted. It will not relieve from taxation property of cemetery associations and others which is to be sold for profit, but only property to be used exclusively for the burial of the dead, and this sacred property should be kept tax free. . . ." In City of Pasadena v.Railroad Com.,
The judgments are, and each is, reversed, with instructions to the court below to sustain the respective demurrers without leave to amend the complaints, and thereupon to render judgment in favor of the defendant in each case.
Shenk, J., Seawell, J., Richards, J., Langdon, J., Preston, J., and Curtis, J., concurred.
Rehearing denied.