Court Opinion

ID: 9533068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:28:00.71414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:54.428436
License: Public Domain

Schroeder, J.,
dissenting: In my opinion, the appeal of the cemetery is meritorious and the judgment of the trial court should be reversed. Under these circumstances the city’s appeal is moot.
*709The provisions of G. S. 1949, 17-1302, quoted in the court’s opinion, are ambiguous. Lots sold and conveyed in a cemetery must be held by the proprietor for the purpose of sepulture only, and are not subject to attachment or execution. This simply means that should a levy for special assessments be made against the proprietors of cemetery lots, the collection could not be enforced. The statute in the preceding sentence exempts ground held by a cemetery corporation for burial purposes from “public taxation.”
In my opinion, the two sentences read together indicate an intention on the part of the legislature to include special assessments in the term “public taxation.” This is indicated by the exemption of lots held by an individual proprietor from attachment or execution. It could hardly be argued that cemetery lots held by a proprietor were subject to “public taxation” under 17-1302, supra.
It is not disputed that 95% of the land adjacent to Seventeenth Street in the Mount Hope Cemetery is occupied by the graves of deceased persons, and that the assessments here in question may not be enforced and the land foreclosed against without molesting these graves.
Courts have generally held that an assessment lien, since it runs against the land itself, must be enforced against the property assessed, and may not be satisfied by levying on the general assets of the association. (Olson v. Gary Oak Hill Cemetery Ass’n., 212 Ind. 654, 10 N. E. 2d 995; The People v. Cemetery Ass’n., 266 Ill. 32, 107 N. E. 143; City of Gary v. Gary, etc., Cemetery Assn, 186 Ind. 446, 116 N. E. 741; and see 71 A. L. R. 322, “Cemetery property and cemetery lots as subject to assessment for public improvement, in absence of express exemption”). This is the established rule in Kansas.
Reference is made to the case of Mount Hope Cemetery Co. v. Pleasant, 139 Kan. 417, 32 P. 2d 500, where the origin, character and purpose of the appellant cemetery is déscribed in detail.
In view of the provisions of 17-1302, supra, language used in the case of Cemetery Co. v. Ann Arbor, 303 Mich. 56, 5 N. W. 2d 564, best expresses my view of this case. There the court said;
“. . . the law is well established in this State that the lands of a cemetery association, used for cemetery purposes, cannot be subjected to a lien for a special assessment for street improvement and cannot be sold to satisfy such an assessment. Woodmere Cemetery Association v. City of Detroit, 192 Mich. 553; White Chapel Memorial Association v. Willson, 260 Mich. 238. In Avery v. Forest Lawn Cemetery Co., 127 Mich. 125, 129, we said;
*710“ ‘It is the settled policy of this State, in common with the universal sentiment of mankind, to preserve and maintain the burial places of the dead. The legislature has, by express enactment, prohibited the sale, except for burial purposes, or mortgaging, of lands set apart for cemetery purposes. It has also in express terms provided for the exemption from levy and sale on execution, or upon any other final process of a court, all cemeteries, et cetera, while in use as repositories for the dead. This was within the power of the legislature to do, and so careful has the legislature been to preserve such properties for burial purposes that it has also in express terms taken it out of the power of the court of chancery to decree satisfaction of any judgment out of such exempt property.’
“. . . The upkeep, care and maintenance of a cemetery are necessary to carry out the policy of preserving and maintaining the burial places of the dead. If the funds obtained and accumulated for such purposes [care and maintenance] can be taken to satisfy a special assessment for street improvement, then the State policy is not carried out. A cemetery without funds and equipment for its upkeep, care, and maintenance would soon deteriorate into an unsightly and disgraceful condition.
“Plaintiff is a nonprofit corporation. Its personal property consists principally of certain reserve funds. Its annual statements show no surplus of income from which these special assessments could be paid. Payment of the unpaid installments of the two assessments would materially reduce plaintiff’s reserve funds. To take from the ‘endowment fund reserve,’ or from the ‘perpetual care reserve,’ or from the surplus fund for the ‘care and upkeep’ of the cemetery, the amount necessary to pay these special assessments would be inequitable and might result in irreparable injury to plaintiff’s financial condition. These funds, though not exempt by statute, are certainly of such a trust nature that they should not be violated or depleted through the payment of special tax assessments which were void as liens on plaintiff’s land.” (pp. 61, 62, 64.)
It is respectfully submitted the lower court should be reversed.
Price, J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion.