Number 17 October 7, 1970

Number 17 October 7, 1970 Honorable William F. Powers Commissioner of Public Safety 1010 Commonwealth Avenue Boston. Massachusetts 02215 Dear Commissioner Powers: In connection with the authority conferred on you by G. L. c. 147, § lOG, to appoint employees of educational institutions as special police officers, you have requested my opinion whether the Children's Hospi- tal Medical Center qualifies as an "educational institution" under the statute. Attached to your request is a letter from the Chief of the Medi- cal Center Police of the Children's Hospital Medical Center which states that the center and its sister hospitals ''have teaching or training programs, operate educational medical research programs or provide some form of fellowship or grant in aid assistance to their staff physi- cians, interns, nurses or employees." General Laws c. 147, § lOG provides, in pertinent part: "The commissioner may at the request of an officer of a college, university or other educational institution appoint employees of such college, university, or other institution as special police officers." In order for the Children's Hospital Medical Center to qualify under the statute, it must be an "educational institution." In that regard. I note the Supreme Judicial Court has categorized institutions as "educa- tional" where the stated purposes of the institution is "clearly educa- tional" and work actually conducted by the institution is "dominantly educational," Assessors of Boston v. Garland School, 296 Mass. 378, 387. See, also. South Lancaster Academy \ . Lancaster, 242 Mass. 553, 558. The Court has further stated that an educational institution's ac- tivities must be primarily educational and not merely incidental to some other dominant purpose. Assessors of Boston v. Garland School, supra, at 387. In my opinion, a hospital whose primary purpose is to heal the sick or research new cures for illness is not an "educational institution," whose dominant purpose must be education. Accordingly, resolution of the question you have posed depends on a determination whether the Children's Hospital Medical Center and its sister hospitals primarily carry on work of an educational nature. Such a determination is a factual one and must be made by you as the Commissioner of Public Safety. See 1965-1966 Op. Atty. Gen. 242, 243. In the absence of sufficient facts upon which to make the determination, I am only able to advise you that the Children's Hospital Medical Center and allied hospitals may only qualify as educational institutions under G. L. c. 147, § lOG. it their stated and actual dominant purposes are educational. Very truly yours, ROBERT H. QUINN Attorney General 62 P.D. 12