The sole question for decision is whether, according to the evidence submitted upon the trial of the casе, the plaintiff hospital corporation was a purely charitable institution within the meaning of the Constitution of 1945, Art. VII, Sec. I, Par. IV (Code Ann. § 2-5404), and the statutes of the State embodied in Code Ann. § 92-201 (Ga. L. 1946, p. 12, and Ga. L. 1947, p. 1183).
In the case of
Elder v. Henrietta Egleston Hospital,
This court in the same well considered case (before the writer became one of its members) made clear that a purely charitable institution, a hospital, was not removed from that category simply because it derived a profit from the patronagе of patients who were able to pay, so long as the money earned was reserved *667 for the purpose of carrying out its purely charitable purposes. The opinion recognized that as a matter of сommon sense that it was necessaiy for such institution to acquire and maintain a surplus in order to carry out its chаritable design by the expansion of its facilities and services.
In the case of
Mu Beta Chapter
&c.
House Corp. v. Davison,
The constitutiоnal provisions for tax exemption of public charities were clearly summarized in a recent opinion of this court,
United Hospitals Assn. v. Fulton County,
Applying the principles, to which we refer, to the facts of the present case, we must determine whеther there was evidence upon which the trial judge could predicate his judgment dissolving the temporary injunction restraining the defendants from enforcing the ad valorem taxes assessed against the property of the рlaintiff corporation and in the future assessing like ad valorem taxes against it, which was in effect holding that the рlaintiff was not a purely charitable institution.
We think the issue is so clearly made by the pleadings and *668 evidence quoted in the foregoing statement of facts as to rеquire little discussion. While the plaintiff corporation from the facts shown in the record is rendering, as is the case of most hospitals and all skilled physicians, a valuable and splendid service in the healing of the sick and injured, wе can not hold that under the facts developed by the record it functions as a purely charitable institution.
According to the testimony of its own officers and the facts reflected by its records the hospital operаted generally for profit, and while there was some evidence that it did on occasion treat indigent patients, the general practice of the institution was to collect all that it could from its patients, and only charge off as charity those bills it was unable to collect. The evidence in this behalf showed it employed thе methods of collection customarily used by business institutions. The evidence is very clear that the principal bеneficiaries of the hospital’s activities were its employees and the doctors who used its facilities in thе profitable practice of their profession and the collection of accounts due them by patients.
In this connection the observation is inescapable that only the staff doctors were permittеd the use of the hospital facilities. There was proof that except in emergency cases only patients referred by them could be admitted to. the hospital, and that in emergency cases they were cаlled to perform surgical operations or medically treat the emergency patients.
The plaintiff, plaintiff in error here, contends that as in the Egleston Hospital case, supra, its purpose was to accumulate funds so as to expand its facilities so that it could carry out its charitable design. The cases are distinguishable upon their facts. In the Egleston Hospital case the hospital was functioning as a charitable institution and earning money from patients ablе to pay was a mere incident in its operation, and the money so earned was to carry on the beneficent work of the institution. Here, the Doctors Hospital is, according to the evidence adduced upon the trial, engaged principally for non-charitable purposes and apparently chiefly for the benefit of its staff.
Judgment affirmed.