Appeal Tax Court v. Baltimore Cemetery Co.

Bartol, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee is a cemetery company incorporated by the Act of 1849, ch. 11, and owns about one hundred acres of land, of which seventy-five acres are within the limits of the City of Baltimore. The petition states that this property has been purchased, set apart and dedicated for the cemetery of the petitioner; that for many years past it has been engaged in making sales of parts of said cemetery tract, in small lots to various persons, as burial lots, and it has in this manner disposed of about forty-four acres of the said tract of land, and in very many of said lots burials have been made. The petition states that the assessors of the seventh ward of the city, proceeding under the Act of 1816, ch. 260, ⁴³⁵ have assessed the whole of said seventy-five acres of land, lying in the city, at the rate of one thousand dollars per acre, assessing the whole at $75,000, and have also assessed the permanent improvements upon the same, being the gate-houses and other improvements of the cemetery, at the further sum of $2350.

These improvements, the petition alleges, are fixed improvements used in connection with the cemetery ; and claims that the whole of said property is exempt from taxation. This exemption is claimed under the seventh section of the charter, which provides, “That burial lots in said cemetery shall not be subject to the debts of the lot-holders thereof, and the land of the company dedicated to the purposes of a cemetery shall not be subject to taxation of any hind.” The charter having been granted before the adoption of the Constitution of 1850, it is not affected by, or subject to the provision contained in Art. 3, sec. 47, of the Constitution of 1850. It constitutes a contract, and cannot, without the consent of the company, be repealed or altered by the Legislature. The exemption from taxation secured to the appellee by its charter was inviolable.

Home of the Friendless vs. Rouse, 8 Wal., 430. This