Cook County Masonic Temple Ass'n v. Department of Revenue

Plaintiff, Cook County Masonic Temple Association, is an unincorporated association that acts as the representative of all the individual Masonic Temple organizations in Cook County. The other 33 plaintiffs are the individual Masonic Temple organizations that are members of the Cook County Masonic Temple Association. These 33 plaintiffs each own the sites on which their respective temples are built.

The issue in this case is whether the properties with the temples on them were used for charitable purposes and were therefore exempt from real estate taxation in 1978 under the Revenue Act (Ill.…