Serra Retreat v. County of Los Angeles

SPENCE, J.

Plaintiff brought this action to recover certain taxes paid under protest for the tax year 1946-1947. The question to be determined is the tax status of that portion of plaintiff’s building, a retreat house, used as living quarters for four priests and six lay-brothers who attend to the spiritual and temporal needs of laymen making the retreats. Plaintiff relies on the welfare tax exemption extended to “property used exclusively for religious ... or charitable purposes.” (Cal. Const., art. XIII, § 1c; Rev. & Tax. Code, § 214.) The trial

[756]

court sustained the exemption, claim and overruled defendant’s general demurrer to plaintiff’s complaint. From the judgment accordingly entered in favor of plaintiff, defendant has appealed.

This case presents a problem somewhat similar to that discussed in the opinion this day filed in six consolidated hospital eases,

Cedars of Lebanon Hospital

v.

County of Los Angeles,

L. A. No. 20610,

ante,

p. 729 [221 P.2d 31], relative to the welfare exemption of hospital property used for nurses’ homes and the housing of other alleged essential personnel. The considerations there determinative that such property was “used exclusively for hospital purposes” within the concept of the welfare exemption likewise here prevail in support of plaintiff’s claim to the exemption benefit. Thus it affirmatively appears from the allegations of plaintiff’s complaint, which were admitted by the demurrer thereto, that use of the portion of the property for living accommodations for its priests and lay-brothers is a use for a facility which is incidental to and reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of religious and charitable purposes. The trial court therefore properly awarded to plaintiff the tax relief here sought.

As appears from the complaint plaintiff, Serra Retreat, is a California religious corporation organized, owned and operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes, and not for profit; no part of its net earnings, if any there be, inures to the benefit of any person or individual. It has been duly exempted from federal and state income, corporation, franchise, gift, estate, inheritance, social security and unemployment insurance taxes, and it has qualified as an institution entitled to welfare exemption status under the laws of this state. (Rev. & Tax. Code, §§ 214, 251, 254, 254.5, and 259.5.) The property known as Serra Retreat consists of a single edifice—a retreat house—which is allegedly operated “for the sole and exclusive purpose of dispensing charity and providing a place of religious reflection to which all persons regardless of race, color or creed may come to spend time” in religious meditation and to make a “layman’s religious retreat” for the purpose of gaining “spiritual benefits and improvement of character.” A layman’s retreat lasts for “fifty hours,” during which time “religious exercises and instructions are conducted by the Franciscan Fathers” and for the entire period “it is required as part of the religious activity that all retreatants remain constantly on the property, without