Case Name: City of Toledo v. Hosler, Treasurer
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1896-03-31
Citations: 54 Ohio St. 418
Docket Number: 
Parties: City of Toledo v. Hosler, Treasurer.
Judges: 
Reporter: Ohio State Reports, New Service
Volume: 54
Pages: 418–421

Head Matter:
City of Toledo v. Hosler, Treasurer.
Gas wells, pipe lines, etc. — Owned by municipal corporation — In use for citizens generally — Exempt from taxation.
Gas wells, pipe lines, pumping stations and machinery owned by a municipal corporation and used by it for the conveyance of gas to be consumed by it and by its citizens generally, are used exclusively for a public purpose and are exempt from taxation.
(Decided March 31, 1896.)
Error to the Circuit Court of Hancock county.
The cause was tried in the circuit court on appeal from the court of common pleas.
The city of Toledo sought a perpetual injunction against the defendant to restrain him from collecting a tax upon so much of its pipe lines, gas wells, pumping stations, telephone line and fixtures as are in Hancock county, the same being used as alleged in the petition, for heating and lighting the city. The defendant having answered, and the cause being submitted to the circuit court upon the pleadings and the evidence, that court made the following finding of facts:
“That the said city of Toledo is, and continuously ever since the22d day of January, A. D. 1889, has been a municipal corporation, duly incorporated under the laws of this, the said state of Ohio, as a city of the third grade of the first class; that the said defendant, David Hosier, is, and was, at the commencement of this action, the duly qualified and acting county treasurer of said county of Hancock; that under and by virtue of an act of the general assembly of the state of Ohio, enacted January 22, A. D. 1889, and contained in Ohio Laws, volume 86, page 7, said plaintiff has acquired and continuously ever since the times stated in the petition, has been the owner of a certain system of machinery, pipe lines, gas wells, pump station, telephone line and fixtures appurtenant thereto, situate in the townships of Allen and Cass, in the county of Hancock, and state of Ohio; that during all of said time said system of machinery, pipe lines, gas wells, pumping station, telephone lines and fixtures appurtenant thereto, have been and now are exclusively used by the said plaintiff to produce, convey and furnish natural gas to .said city, for public and private use and consumption, and said city of the gas thus produced, conveyed and furnished, sold a part of the same to the private residences of said city for private use in said city, at a fixed and established rate, made so by the ordinance of said city, and from which rate said city derive a revenue, and this was partly the purpose by and for which said city became the owner of said system of machinery, gas wells, etc., as aforestated, and partly the purpose of said city in operating said system of machinery, gas wells, etc., etc., as aforestated. That the said plaintiff owns and controls gas leases in said townships of Allen and Cass, in Hancock county, Ohio, to the extent of 520 acres, which gas leases were of the value of $520.00, and more in the years 1893 and 1894. That all the gas wells, fixtures and pumping stations of said plaintiff are situated on said 520 acres, and are used by said city in extricating and conveying the gas from said 520 acres to the said city of Toledo; for the public and private use of said city as aforestated. That the duly authorized officials of said county of Hancock and state of Ohio, have placed said property of said plaintiff upon the tax duplicates of said county for assessment and taxation, and have levied thereon as taxes and penalties the amounts of money in the petition set forth. That said assessment and taxes levied on aforesaid and said penalties averred as aforesaid, were levied and assessed as provided by the laws of Ohio, for taxing and assessing property owned and controlled by individual partnerships or corporations. That the said defendant as treasurer of said county of Hancock,. was at the commencement of this action upon the refusal of said city to pay said taxes and penalties as aforesaid, about to proceed to enforce the collection of said taxes and penalties by resorting to each and all of the remedies provided by the laws of Ohio for the collection of taxes when said taxes became delinquent.
Upon those facts the circuit court adjudged that the petition of the plaintiff be dismissed, that a temporary injunction previously granted should be dissolved and that the plaintiff should pay the costs of the suit.
The reversal of that judgment is the object of this petition.
Charles F. Watts, for plaintiff in error.
John Poe, for defendant in error.

Opinion:
By the Court.
On behalf of the city of Toledo it is contended that this property is exempt from taxation under the eighth subdivision of section 2732 of the Revised- Statutes, as amended March 13, 1891 (88 O. L. 96), which provides for the exemption of:
"All market houses, public squares, or other public grounds, town or township houses or halls used exclusively for public purposes and all works, machinery, pipe lines and fixtures belonging to any town and used exclusively for conveying water to said town, or for heating or lighting the same."
In support of the judgment of the circuit court it is said that the property is not within the terms of this exemption, and, if it were, the provisions of the statute relating to the exemption must receive such construction as. will make it harmonious with section 2, article 12, of the constitution, which ordains that "Laws shall be passed taxing by a uniform rule all moneys, and also all real and personal property according to its true value in money; but burying grounds, public school houses, houses used exclusively for public worship, institutions of purely public charity, public property used exchosively for cony public purpose, and personal property to an amount hot exceeding in value two hundred dollars for each individual, may by general laws be exempted from taxation."
The constitutional restriction upon the power to exempt pi'operty from taxation requires that the exempted property must be used exclusively for a public purpose. That the property in question is so used, is determined in State ex rel. v. Toledo, 48 Ohio St., 112. In that case the validity of the act under whose favor the city of Toledo acquired this property was challenged upon the ground that it was an attempt to authorize the city to tax its citizens for a purpose which, in part at least, was not public. The facts found in this case show that the property is used for the purposes contemplated in the act whose validity was there sustained.
Judgment of the circuit court reversed and judgment for plaintiff in error.