| N.D. | Nov 22, 1900
The object of this action is to cancel taxes assessed in 1898 against a certain lot, and bulding thereon used as a hospital, and situated in the city of Grand Forks. Nearly all the facts, and all which we deem to be important, are uncontroverted. It is admitted that in the month of December, 1897, the plaintiff purchased the premises in question, and that the title thereto was conveyed to the plaintiff at that time; that the plaintiff continued to be the sole and individual owner of the property until the month of December, 1899, when she sold the same, and conveyed the title to the purchaser. It is further conceded that during the whole of the year 1898 the plaintiff alone, through an agent, who was her husband, carried on and administered the hospital situated on the premises, and that no other business was done on the premises. The plaintiff furnished and paid for the supplies for the hospital, and she alone bore the financial loss which resulted from operating the hospital during the year 1898. The only fact which seems to be disputed is whether the plaintiff did or did not carry on the hospital during the year in question for charitable purposes and none other. Plaintiff’s contention is that she carried on the hospital exclusively for charitable purposes, and that she had no intention to derive any individual emoluments from the hospital, and that she did not in fact do so. She further contends that said hospital, during her administration thereof, was a purely public charity. For the purposes of the case, we shall accept the plaintiff’s theory of the facts as above stated, and this will call for a solution of the question— one of pure law — whether any law exempts from taxation a hospital, and the land upon which it is erected, when the same is conducted solely by one individual, who owns the same, and who operates it for public charity exclusively.
It it elementary in the law of taxation that all property situated within the boundaries of a state is subject to taxation by the sovereign authority, and that a party who claims that particular property is exempt from taxation has the burden of pointing out the law which exempts the same. It is also well settled that laws which exempt property from taxation will receive a strict construction. It is the plaintiff’s contention that the property is exempt from taxation by the terms of section 1180 of the Revised Codes of 1899. Said
But, apparently in. anticipation of the construction which we have here placed upon subdivision 6, counsel for the appellant takes the position in their brief that such a construction would render subdivision 6 unconstitutional, under the provision of a clause found in section 176 of the state constitution, which reads as follows: “And the legislature shall by a general law exempt from taxation property used exclusively for school, religious, cemetery or charitable purposes.” The argument of counsel is that, under the broad terms of the constitution, the legislature is required to exempt all property used “exclusively” for “charitable purposes,” and that the limitations found in subdivision 6 of the statute are wholly absent from the language employed in the organic law of the state. This may be conceded without proving that the plaintiff’s property is exempt from taxation either under the provisions of the constitution or those of the statute; nor does this conclusion, in our judgment, require us to rule that the statute in question is unconstitutional. The constitution does not, in the clause we have
It may possibly have been the legislative purpose, in enacting the general exemption law embraced in section 1180, -supra, to fully comply with this constitutional mandate; but we are not at liberty to indulge in mere conjecture as to what was intended. Our duty is to fairly construe the language actually employed by the legislature, and from it determine the legislative intent. In doing so, we reach the conclusion, as has been seen, that the legislature did not intend to go as far as the language of the constitution required it to go. The legislature, by its language, has not exempted from taxation any and all property devoted exclusively to charitable' uses, but has, on the contrary, only exempted so much thereof as belongs to “institutions” which dispense public charity. But, in exempting only a part of the property which is or may be devoted to charitable uses, there has been no violation of any inhibition found in the organic law. The constitution required the legislature to exempt what is has exempted; but the lawmaking body has not perhaps g'one to the full extent required by the very broad terms employed in the clause we have quoted from section 176 of the state constitution. It is certainly clear to our minds that, notwithstanding the fact that the legislative branch has not seen fit to execute the constitutional mandate to.the full measure intended, such