Case Name: CRITTENDEN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION v. The BOARD OF EQUALIZATION of Crittenden County
Court: Arkansas Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Arkansas
Decision Date: 1997-12-18
Citations: 330 Ark. 767
Docket Number: 97-43
Parties: CRITTENDEN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION v. The BOARD OF EQUALIZATION of Crittenden County
Judges: Glaze and Imber, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Arkansas Reports
Volume: 330
Pages: 767–780

Head Matter:
CRITTENDEN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION v. The BOARD OF EQUALIZATION of Crittenden County
97-43
958 S.W.2d 512
Supreme Court of Arkansas
Opinion delivered December 18, 1997
Hanover, Walsh, Jalenak & Blair, by: James A. Johnson, for appellant.
Hale, Fogleman & Rogers, by: Joe M. Rogers, for appellees.

Opinion:
W.H. "Dub" Arnold, Chief Justice.
The property that is the subject of this appeal is a physicians' office building and parking lot located adjacent to the Crittenden Memorial Hospital and leased from the county by appellant Crittenden Hospital Association. The primary issue presented is whether this property is exempt from ad valorem taxation as public property used exclusively for public purposes. Ark. Const, article. 16, § 5(b). The Association was assessed taxes for this property for the tax year 1993 and applied for an exemption. The County Equalization Board denied the exemption. The Association appealed to the county court, which reversed the board's ruling and ordered the property to be removed from the tax rolls. The tax assessor appealed to the circuit court, which ruled that the Association had not met its burden of proving that the property was used exclusively for public purposes. The Association appeals, raising several arguments for our review. We have permitted the Arkansas Hospital Association to file a brief as amicus curiae in support of the Association's position. Finding no merit to the Association's claims, we affirm the circuit court's judgment.
I. Burden of proof
We examine first the Association's argument that the circuit court erred in requiring it to establish an entitlement to the tax exemption beyond a reasonable doubt. In making its argument, the Association asks us to reconsider our well-established case law on ad valorem tax exemptions:
It is settled that a taxpayer must establish an entitlement to an exemption beyond a reasonable doubt. City of Little Rock v. McIntosh, 319 Ark. 423, 892 S.W.2d 462 (1995). A strong presumption operates in favor of the taxing power. Id. Tax exemptions must always be strictly construed against the exemption. City of Fayetteville v. Phillips, 306 Ark. 87, 811 S.W.2d 308 (1991). In Hilger v. Harding College, 231 Ark. 686, 331 S.W.2d 851 (1960), we wrote:
Taxation is an act of sovereignty to be performed, so far as conveniently can be, with justice and equality to all, and exemptions, no matter how meritorious, are acts of grace, and must be strictly construed, and every reasonable intendment must be made that it was not the design to surrender the power of taxation or to exempt any property from its due proportion of the burden of taxation.
Id. at 693, 331 S.W.2d at 855 (quoting Brodie v. Fitzgerald, 57 Ark. 445, 22 S.W. 29 (1893)).
City of Fayetteville v. Phillips, 320 Ark. 540, 899 S.W.2d 57 (1995). We have plainly stated that "fw]e cannot accept any lesser standard for a tax exemption case arising under the Constitution." City of Fayetteville v. Phillips, 306 Ark. 87, 811 S.W.2d 308 (1991). We decline to depart from our long line of cases embracing this standard of proof.
II. Exclusivity requirement
Article 16, section 5(b), of the Arkansas Constitution provides that:
The following property shall be exempt from taxation: public property used exclusively for public purposes, . . . and buildings and grounds and materials used exclusively for public charity.
It is undisputed that the budding and parking lot are public property; thus, the question is whether the property is used exclusively for public purposes. The circuit court concluded that the Association failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the building and lot are used exclusively for public purposes. The Association challenges this conclusion, claiming that the facts presented to the circuit court demonstrated that the properties indeed serve a public and charitable purpose.
The Association initially points to the fact that the properties were constructed for a public purpose. In 1976, Crittenden County issued bonds for the purpose of financing extensions and improvements to its hospital. The following year, the bonds were refunded to finance the costs of these improvements, which included the construction of the physicians' office building and parking lot in question. The 1977 bonds were issued under the authority of Act 175 of 1961, codified at Ark. Code Ann. § § 14-265-101 et seq. (1987). In the county's official statement required to issue the bonds, it concluded that the improvements to the hospital and surrounding facilities were necessary in order to recruit new physicians to the area and thus to provide medical care to the public. The county entered into a long-term lease agreement whereby it leased the hospital and surrounding facilities to the Association, a not-for-profit corporation. The Association leases office space in the physicians' office building to doctors engaged in private practice who also staff the hospital. It receives rental income from this property and uses it to fund the operation of the hospital. According to the Association, it has not raised the rental price since the building was erected.
The Association contends that, since the purpose of constructing the building and parking lot was to attract physicians to the county and thus provide better medical care to its citizens, this public purpose justified the issuance of a tax exemption. According to the Association, the legislature, in passing Act 175, pronounced the public policy to assist hospitals and related facilities with financing. However, the issue here turns not on the purpose behind the issuance of the bonds under Act 175 to construct these properties, but on whether the building and lot are exclusively used for public purposes and are thus entitled to a tax exemption under Article 16, § 5(b). We illustrated this point in Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District No. 1 v. Williams, 295 Ark. 442, 446, 749 S.W.2d 314 (1988), a case involving recreational facilities that were open only to members of an improvement district:
The District contends there is a distinction between a public use and a public purpose, proposing that the Article 16 exemption rests not upon usage by the public but upon a public purpose as that term is used in connection with tax exempt revenue bonds. The District submits that "retirement" is an industry and Holiday Island promotes employment and other economic benefits to northern Arkansas. No doubt that is true, and if the issue here were tax exemption for the income from improvement district bonds, the public purpose might well be satisfied. But this is not the issue and it is clear the phrase "public purpose" is not an exact term, susceptible of a static definition [City of Glendale v. White, 194 P.2d 435 (Ariz. 1948)], but has various shades depending on whether the context is eminent domain, revenue bonds, lending the credit of a political subdivision, or tax exemption under § 5(b) of Article 16. Thus, our decision here deals only with a public purpose within the context of Article 16 § 5(b).
The Association further contends that the building should be considered as part of the hospital because one could not function without the other. The collection of rent, the Association asserts, is merely incidental to the charitable purpose of the hospital. In support of its argument that its purpose is not to make a profit, the Association alludes to the fact that it has not raised the rental fees for the building. However, the applicable test for Article 16, § 5(b), purposes is not whether the rents collected from the building are used for a public purpose, but whether the building is used exclusively for a public purpose:
There is a material difference between the use of property exclusively for public purposes and renting it out and applying the proceeds arising therefrom to the public use. The property under our Constitution must be actually occupied or made use of for a public purpose and our court has recognized the difference between the actual use of the property and the use of the income.
Hilger v. Harding College, 231 Ark. 686, 694, 331 S.W.2d 851 (1960) (emphasis in the original); see also City of Fayetteville v. Phillips, 320 Ark. 540, 899 S.W.2d 57 (1995); Off-Street Parking Development District No. 1 v. City of Fayetteville, 284 Ark. 453, 683 S.W.2d 229 (1985).
The Association asks that we apply the rationale of our decision in Burgess v. Four States Memorial Hospital, 250 Ark. 485, 491, 465 S.W.2d 693 (1971), where we recognized that a benevolent and charitable organization's property used as a hospital may be constitutionally exempt from taxation if it is open to the general public, if its services are not refused for inability to pay, and if all profits go toward maintaining the hospital and extending and enlarging its charitable purposes. However, in that case, we held that the chancellor did not err in finding that a portion of hospital property for which rents were collected was not being used directly and exclusively for a charitable purpose and thus was subject to taxation. Id. at 493. The tax exemption of the hospital, we said, was not affected by the revenue-generating hospital building, just as the budding was not made exempt by the tax-exempt hospital. Id. In so holding, we emphasized that the determining factor for tax-exemption purposes is the actual use to which the property is put. Id.
In the present case, the circuit court considered evidence that the Association rents the building exclusively to for-profit private health-care providers. While the Association presented testimony that the parking lot is used by hospital physicians, patients, staff, and visitors, there was also evidence that it is used by the physicians who rented the building and their patients. The circuit court obviously considered this evidence in reaching its conclusion that the Association failed to meet its burden of proving that the budding and lot are used exclusively for public purposes, as "[t]o doubt is to deny the exemption." City of Little Rock v. McIntosh, 319 Ark. 423, 426, 892 S.W.2d 462 (1995); quoting Pledger v. Baldor Int'l, 309 Ark. 30, 33, 827 S.W.2d 646, 648 (1992). Moreover, an additional reason for the trial court's decision to deny the exemption is the fact that the budding is in competition with other tax-paying medical facdities in the county. See City of Little Rock v. McIntosh, supra (city and its airport commission not entided to ad valorem exemption where city leased airport property in question to private car rental agencies who were in competition with other tax-paying car rental companies); City of Fayetteville v. Phillips, supra (art center not entided to ad valorem exemption where facdity offered priority seating whereby the general public was excluded to an unknown extent from events and the center was in competition with simdar tax-paying art facdities).
The Association further contends that the budding is being used exclusively for the public purpose of insuring that the hospital wdl continue to survive. Requiring the payment of taxes on the budding, the Association suggests, would threaten the existence of the hospital. After reviewing the record, we cannot say that the Association proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the hospital would not survive without a tax-free physicians' office budding.
We wid set aside the circuit court's findings of fact only if they are clearly erroneous. City of Little Rock v. McIntosh, supra. When reviewing ad the facts in this case, we cannot say the circuit court's finding that the Association faded to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the budding and lot are used exclusively for public purposes was clearly erroneous.
III. Estoppel
The Association further contends that the tax assessor should be estopped from assessing ad valorem taxes against the Associa tion. In making its argument, the Association refers us to the lease agreement between it and the county that provides that the county will take no action to assess the leased premises. According to the Association, the assessor, whom it claims is a county official, should not be permitted to break this covenant.
The assessor is charged with the duties of making the county tax books and preparing and submitting a final abstract of those books to the State Equalization Board. See Ark. Code Ann. § 28-28-303 (Supp. 1995). The lease agreement referenced by the Association was not signed by the assessor, but the county judge. Thus, the assessor is not bound by the contents of the lease agreement. However, even if we were to agree with the Association that the assessor was bound by the agreement's terms, the parties to this agreement are "conclusively presumed" to have contracted with reference to the existing law, which, in this case, is our Constitution, article 16, § 5(b). See Ellison v. Tubb, 295 Ark. 312, 749 S.W.2d 650 (1988); quoting Robards v. Brown, 40 Ark. 423 (1883).
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the circuit court.
Glaze and Imber, JJ., concur.
Corbin and Thornton, JJ., dissent.