20 Barb. 81 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1855
This is a claim on the part of one of only two particular mutual life insurance companies, for the law, although seemingly general, applies to no others, to be in effect exempt from taxation. With a fund employed in their business amounting, as appears, to nearly three millions, they claim that by an act of the legislature, passed, we may presume, at their special instance, in June, 1853, they were to be taxed as if their capital was limited to the comparatively insignificant sum of $100,000.
By the act referred to it was provided that any mutual life insurance company, incorporated before the adoption of the general insurance law of 1849, should be subject to taxation in the same manner as if it were incorporated under the general law with a capital of $100,000. Construing this act in connection with the previous legislation of the state, and harmonizing as far as practicable with the principles of equal justice, the courts,
The $100,000 provision, it was held, had the same meaning both in the act of 1853, and in the general act of 1849, to which that of 1853 referred—and in the act of 1849 its object confess•edly and indisputably was to fix a minimum instead of a maximum —a minimum of capital and not a maximum of taxation.
The act of June, 1853, was no doubt adroitly framed in the interest of the two companies in question. Its language, without being direct and striking, was, upon close consideration, susceptible of, if it did not grammatically require, the interpretation subsequently sought to be put upon it. Having failed, however, as we have seen in the courts, to establish that interpretation, another attempt, it would seem, by or on behalf of the companies, was made upon the legislative department in the form of a quasi appeal from the judiciary; and in March, 1855, an act was accordingly passed by the legislature of that year to declare the true intent and meaning.of their predecessors in the act of June, 1853 ; in other words, an act of the legislature to reverse the act of the court. The relators, however, are now met by a new difficulty. Before the act of June, 1853, went into operation, the legislature, it appears, overlooking, we may presume, what they had less than twenty days previously done—not an uncommon occurrence in the closing scenes of a legislative session—passed a new tax law applicable to all incorporated companies, chartered or general, liable to taxation, “ on their capital or otherwise.” By this act not only the capital stock proper of all such companies, but their “ surplus profits or reserved funds exceeding 10 per cent,” were expressly directed to be assessed and taxed in the same manner as the other personal or real estate of the county. Here, then, be the construction of the act of June what it may, was a palpable repeal in July of its only
What, then, we are to inquire, are the powers of the tax commissioners ? Can they, in such cases, correct the errors of the
It has been said that if the commissioners are allowed to possess this power of raising the amounts set down by the assess
The relators, it appears, had notice. They argued before the commissioners, and they appealed to the supervisors. They were heard by both, and were not considered as wronged by either. And such, too, after full hearing, was the opinion of the special term.
There is clearly no equity in the relators’ case. They seek to establish for themselves a special privilege, at the expense of the rest of the community, and incompatible with the equal rights of all other companies, but one, engaged in the same business. Such claims, to be available, must be clearly made out; and statutes passed to sustain them (if so passed at all) being at variance with common right, are to be strictly construed. So construing the statutes cited by the relators, the position taken by them is as untenable in law as in equity.
Judgment of special term affirmed, with costs.
Roosevelt, Clerke and Cowles, Justices.]