Albuquerque Alumnæ Ass'n of Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity v. Tierney

20 P.2d 267, 37 N.M. 156
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 15, 1933
DocketNo. 3835.
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 20 P.2d 267 (Albuquerque Alumnæ Ass'n of Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity v. Tierney) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Albuquerque Alumnæ Ass'n of Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity v. Tierney, 20 P.2d 267, 37 N.M. 156 (N.M. 1933).

Opinions

WATSON, Chief Justice.

Appellant sued to enjoin collection of taxes, claiming that the property assessed is exempt.

The material findings may be thus summarized: Appellant is incorporated under 1929 Comp. St. § 32-506, authorizing the organization of “a corporation for religious, benevolent, charitable, scientific or literary purposes, or for the establishment of colleges, academies, seminaries, churches or libraries.'’ The' property in question is held in legal ownex-ship by appellant, but purely in trust for the use of the active membership of Kappa Kappa Gamma as a chapter house at the University of New Mexico. This sorority is a constituent of a national organization of the same; name. It is composed of a carefully selected group of bona fide women students of the University of New Mexico. The property is used as a fraternal home where the active members of the society board, room, study, hold social functions, and practice the principles of the society while in attendance at the University. The active members encourage scholarship, participate as a group and as individuals in University activities, discuss University and student problems, and require of all members a regular, orderly, and moral life. The local chapter is under the active supervision of the national organization, which •requires the maintenance of certain standards, and is also under the direct supervision and control of the University to the same extent that the latter controls other students and organizations. An existing University regulation requires that all nonresident women students live either in a University dormitory or in one of these chapter houses, and this rule is essential to a proper supervision of women students. The dormitory facilities are not sufficient to accommodate the women students, and would have to be increased except for this and similar sorority houses.

The trial court refused to find that the use to which appellant’s property is devoted is educational, and refused the injunction prayed.

Much that was urged in Temple Lodge v. Tierney, 37 N. M. 178, 20 P.(2d) 280, just decided, is here renewed, so it may be well to distinguish the two cases.

In the first place, the decision in the Temple Lodge Case rests upon a conclusion of charitable use of the property there in question. In the present case, the use is not claimed to be “for charitable purposes.”

In the second place, it is not impossible that the Temple Lodge Case might have been decided on the ground of an educational use of the property there involved. Even so, the same conclusion would not necessarily follow in this case. The trial judge found that Masonry embraces and inculcates a system of philosophy and actively explores important fields of human knowledge. We have no similar findings here. No attempt at a similar showing seems to have been made. We have nothing on which to base a claim that this society has an educational program of its own.

In the third place, while, under the varying provisions of the states, views are divided as to whether exemption extends to the property of Masonic Lodges, appropriately used, there is strong support for the exemption under provisions similar to ours, and scarcely any authority to the contrary. On the other hand, as will be seen, appellant is able to marshal from the decisions but weak support for its contention here.

In this, as in the Temple Lodge Case, appellee contends for a strict construction of N. M. Const, art. 8, § 3. That question we fully considered in the case mentioned, and need not pursue further. As there suggested, canons of construction are not arbitrary formulas. They have not been devised, though frequently used, as a convenient means of supporting a bad conclusion. They are merely aids to logical deduction as to intent — always the ultimate question.

Appellant claims that this Greek letter sorority is a literary and scientific institution or society, and that the property is devoted exclusively to literary and scientific objects, and is thus exempt under 1929 Comp. St. § 141-110. We think not. We consider that statutory provision repealed by the Constitution. True, all territorial laws not inconsistent with the Constitution were to remain in force. And there is no necessary conflict between the exemption of property used for educational or charitable purposes, and the continued exemption of the property of literary and scientific societies. It is another principle, however, which induces our conclusion. It seems plain from the face of article 8 that the Constitution makers intended to cover the whole field of exemption.

Section 3 is affirmative and self-executing. It creates exemptions. There is a strong presumption against an intent to permit the Legislature to create others. Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius. But this is not all. Section 5 gives t-he Legislature permission to make certain other exemptions. Here again the maxim applies. 'So the whole subject is covered. There can be no other source of exemption than section 3, which the Legislature cannot touch, and section 5, wherein the legislative power is limited to specified -objects.

This is not to say that the use of property for literary or scientific purposes will always be .immaterial to a claim of exemption. As suggested in the Temple Lodge Case, such uses might be deemed educational within the meaning of the Constitution.

Appellant ably urges two theories in support of its claim that the use of its property is for educational purposes. The first rests upon the character of the fraternity itself ; the second upon its relation to the State University, undoubtedly an educational insti-r tution.

As to the first: Doubtless there are great, cultural advantages in the college sorority mode of life. It is urged that the present conception of education is very broad, as shown by the expanding programs of educational institutions, and that it includes what may be gained from refined surroundings and contacts, and direction and incentive to high standards and ideals. But we cannot upon that alone hold that the sorority is an educational institution, or that its occupancy of the premises as a home of refinement and culture and select social activity is an educational use. Its claim must stand or fall .upon the part it plays in University education. That phase of the matter has been most often considered by the courts, and is perhaps most strongly pressed here.

Among the objects enumerated in appellant’s articles of incorporation we find: “To encourage scholarship, literary and scientific training of the women students at said University of New Mexico.”

In some situations this might be determinative of the corporation’s character as literary or scientific or educational. Not in this situation. It has been frequently pointed out that, since use is the criterion, it is necessary to show that the practice conforms to the profession.

The intimate relation of the sorority to the University cannot be doubted. The former could not exist without the latter. The active members must be University students. Colleges and Universities could and occasionally do, function without these adjuncts.

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20 P.2d 267, 37 N.M. 156, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/albuquerque-alumn-assn-of-kappa-kappa-gamma-fraternity-v-tierney-nm-1933.