Electric Hose & Rubber Co. v. Mayor of Wilmington

Citations

• 28 Del. 444
• 5 Boyce 444
• 94 A. 741
• 1915 Del. LEXIS 26

Syllabus

<p>Taxation—Exemptions—Statutory Provisions.</p> <p>Act Gen. Assem. May 20, 1898 (21 Del. Laws, c. 106) § 3, provides that marsh and meadow lands in Wilmington, protected from overflow by banks at the expense of the owners, whereon no houses or buildings are erected, are thereby declared exempt from municipal taxation. Section 4 provides that any such land, which has been filled in so as to become high land, shall be so exempt for ten years from the time it becomes high land. Section 5 provides that any such land, upon which any manufacturing establishment or industrial improvement shall be erected after the passage of that act, shall for ten years after it shall be erected be so exempt. Section 6 provides that any such land upon which any such establishment or improvement “has been erected within two years prior to the passage of this act (or which may hereafter be erected) ” shall for ten years from the passage of that act be so exempt. Held, that marsh or meadow land, with a manufacturing establishment or improvement erected thereon after the passage of that act, is exempt for ten years from the time of such erection, and not merely for ten years from the passage of the act, as section 6 applies to such establishments or improvements previously erected, and the words “or which may hereafter be erected” should be disregarded; this construction being _necessary to prevent the destruction of the primary object of all four sections.</p>