New England Hospital for Women & Children v. City of Boston

Real estate purchased by an incorporated charitable institution, upon which, as soon as purchased, the corporation begins, and until the assessment of the tan complained of, id diligently proceeding to erect a building to be occupied for the purposes for which it was incorporated, is, under Gen. Sts. c. 11, § 5, cl. 3, exempt from taxation.

Contract to recover back a tax paid under a written protest. Writ dated October 2, 1872. The case was heard in the Superior Court upon an agreed statement of facts, from which it appeared that the plaintiff corporation was a benevolent and charitable institution, incorporated by Sts. 1863, c. 77; 1871, c. 186, for the purposes of establishing and maintaining a hospital for the treatment of the diseases of women and children, and of giving therein clinical instruction to female students of medicine, and of training nurses; for which purposes it had power to take and hold real estate not exceeding in value $150,000, and personal estate not exceeding in value the same amount; that April 13, 1871, a committee of the corporation, duly appointed to procure a lot of land for the purpose of erecting a hospital thereon for the purposes specified in the charter, reported that they had purchased a lot of land on Codman Avenue, in Boston, for such purposes ; that April 25 the lot was conveyed to the corporation for $18,600 ; that April 15 an architect had been employed to prepare plans and specifications for the hospital; that some days before May 1, 1871, he viewed the lot of land to locate the hospital, and May 8, sent in his plans to$ the plaintiff; that the plans having been approved, the architect, May 27, staked off the lot preparatory to digging for the foundation ; that thereafter the work of building the hospital was prosecuted with due diligence; that it was completed and occupied by patients long prior to the commencement of the action; that the plaintiff had never leased the premises, and had derived no profit whatever from them, and that they had never been occupied by any other parties; that the plaintiff corporation, May 1, 1871 and for many years prior thereto, occupied a building as a hospital, and for the other purposes for which it was incorporated, in the city of Boston, which was May 1, 1871, and had been since May 1, 1865, exempted from taxation; that the plaintiff corporation did not May 1, 1871, or prior thereto, occupy the lot of land, except as above stated, but did, at that date, occupy for the purposes for which they were incorporated, the estate situated on Warrenton and Pleasant Streets, in Boston, which was in the taxation of the year 1871, and for several years prior thereto, exempted from taxation; that the value of the real estate on Codman Avenue, and on Warrenton and Pleasant Streets, together, was less than $150,000 ; that May 1, 1871, a tax of $325.88 was assessed on the lot of land on Codman Avenue by the defendant city, and the same not having been paid, a summons from the defendant was issued to the plaintiff, and thereupon the tax was paid by the plaintiff, under a protest in writing duly made. In the Superior Court judgment was ordered for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed.