208 Pa. 157 | Pa. | 1904
Opinion by
This appeal was first argued with that of the Philadelphia Traction Company reported in 206 Pa. 35, and the judgments in both cases were affirmed on the supposition that there was no difference in the questions involved. A reargument was granted for the reason afterwards brought to the attention of the court, that the questions raised by the. appeals -were not identical, because the property assessed by the city in this case was the defendant’s power house. The property assessed in Philadelphia v. Traction Company, supra, was a barn used for the storage of cars. The Act of April 21, 1858, P. L. 385, expressly makes “ car houses ” subject to taxation by ordinance for city purposes, and in that case it was conceded that the property assessed was liable if the act applied to traction motor companies. The points decided were that the act when passed was intended to apply to both steam railroads and passenger railway companies, and that it now applies to traction motor companies that exercise the franchises of street railway companies.. The application of the act was extended to a new class of corporations, which enjoyed the privileges and became subject to the liabilities of street railway companies. It was not, however, extended to a kind of property not enumerated in the act as taxable or to one that did not come within the classification made by the act.
The act of 1858 provides that “the offices, depots, car houses, and other real property of railway corporations situate in said city, the superstructure of the road and -water stations
We have referred to these cases, not that there is any doubt as to the principle decided by them, which has been uniformly sustained by later decisions, but to show the state of the law at the time of the passage of the act of 1858, as an aid in construing it. It had then been settled by judicial construction that the words “ real estate ” in a tax act did not include the necessary property of a corporation, although land, without which its public duties could not be performed. A distinction had been made by this court between the class of property that was a constituent part of a corporate franchise and essential to the performance of its duties to the public, and that which was only advantageous and convenient but not necessary to the exercise of its franchise.
The act of 1858 was written in the light of these decisions, and it followed them, preserving the distinction that had been made but drawing the lines more closely against exemption. Up to this time the offices, depots, ear houses, the superstructure of the road and water stations of a railroad had all been exempt. The act drew the line at a different place and exempted only the last two, which were clearly essentials and formed part of the road itself. The act does not make an arbitrary selection of property to be taxed and property to be exempted, but makes a classification on the same principle as that which had been established by decision but on slightly different lines. Under this classification the property of a public corporation in Philadelphia that is essential to its franchise is exempt, unless named in the act as subject to taxation or coming within the same class as depots, offices, and car barns.
The judgment is reversed with a procedendo.