machinery fixed in place as part of an oil refinery constituted personal property because it was devoted primarily to the business conducted on the premises
How later courts described this case
- machinery fixed in place as part of an oil refinery constituted personal property because it was devoted primarily to the business conducted on the premises
- “In deciding the instant case, this court may rely for authority on [Teaff\ and the subsequent cognate cases decided by this court, in which the rules of law laid down by the court in that leading case have been consistently followed.”
- machinery fixed in place as *363 part of an oil refinery constituted personal property because it was devoted primarily to the business conducted on the premises
- following Teaff v. Hewitt (1853), 1 Ohio St. 511
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Fundamentally this inquiry does not concern the application or interpretation of a statute, but the scope of that part of Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution which provides: "Land and improvements thereon shall be taxed by uniform rule according to value."
Hence we have in question, among other items, steel structures rising high into the air and weighing many tons, which are held herein by the majority to be personal property. These structures are set on and bolted to specially designed and constructed concrete foundations, and are connected with other parts of the refinery by pipes or conduits some of which run over-ground and others underground through tunnels. Unprotected from the weather by any housing and standing there as permanent rather than temporary edifices on land which has been devoted to oil-refinery purposes over a period of many years, these structures constitute an essential portion of a large refinery system. In our judgment they are as much a part of the real estate as the buildings or fences, and under the constitutional provision should be taxed as such.
WEYGANDT, C.J., and ZIMMERMAN, J., concur in the foregoing dissenting opinion. *Page 523