95 Minn. 489 | Minn. | 1905
This is a proceeding to enforce the payment of taxes assessed for the year 1902, which were delinquent and unpaid on the first Monday of Jaunary, 1904. The defendant here claims.that the property was exempt under the provisions of section 3, article 9, of the state constitution. Plaintiff had judgment, from which the defendant appeals.
It is claimed on behalf of the corporation that this farm, with its 'income, is exempt from taxation,.under the section of the constitution referred to, which, after providing, among other things, that “laws shall be passed taxing all property and personal property according to its true money value,” declares “that all institutions of purely public •charity shall be exempt.” The contention of defendant on this appeal •is that such a construction should be given to the word “institution” in the organic law, and be held to apply not only to the buildings and •adjacent portions of the land used directly for the realization of its .■specific and distinctive purposes as a hospital, but to all real property from which it derives an income to aid in extending the beneficent •purposes of its organization.
While the question thus presented has not been directly passed upon by this court, yet it has been impliedly held at least that the constitution ■does not extend to real estate held by charitable institutions. In County of Hennepin v. Brotherhood of Church of Gethsemane, 27 Minn. 460, 8 N. W. 595, it was said that the word “institution” in the constitution •comprehends not only a building and the ground covered by it, but ^adjacent ground which is reasonably necessary or proper to the purposes and object in view, and which is used directly for the promotion and accomplishment of the same, and for this reason the real estate, a part of the immediate grounds connected therewith, was held to be
Judgment affirmed.