Texas Attorney General Opinion: C-357 Page: 7 of 11
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Honorable Joe Resweber, Page 7
public charity because the majority of the rooms
in the hospital was used to take care of pay patients
and stated at page 932 that '. . .the mere fact that
pay patients largely predominated over the charity
patients, or that the institution did not go out
into the highways and by-ways seeking out those to
whom its charitable offices might be extended, could.
not, under the great weight of authority, be said
to so detract from its charities as to disqualify
it as an institution of purely public charity.
"At page 935, the court said:
'The theory upon which institutions
of this character are exempted from
taxation is that they serve the govern-
ment by relieving it to some extent of
what would otherwise be a public duty or
governmental function to care for the
indigent sick and afflicted and it is
the assumption by such institutions of
this burden which compensates the govern-
sent for the exemption granted them from
the general obligation resting upon all
citizens to pay taxes. It is therefore
essentially to the general public interest
that the facilities of these institutions
to carry an this burden be extended by
additiona new structures, and building
funds, looking to that end and keeping
pace with a growing pppult~Ei:.m and its
necessarily increasing demands for
charitable dispensations.'
"Both the State and Federal Governments are devoting
attention to the ever increasing problem of the aged who
constitute an ever increasing percentage of our popuati .
We think it is self-evident that an aged person need net be
wholly without financial means in order to become a public
charge. The Home serves the Government by relieving it
to some extent from what would otherwise be a public duty
or governmental function to care for the aged, and may be
deemed, therefore, an institution of 'purely public
charity' as those words are used in our Constitution.
-1697-Opinion No. (C-357)
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: C-357, text, December 8, 1964; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth268775/m1/7/: accessed June 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.