Appeal of McElwee, 118
| Decision Date | 06 October 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 118,118 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | In the Matter of the Appeal of William H. McELWEE, Jr., William H. McElwee, III, Elizabeth McElwee Cannon, Dorothy Plonk McElwee and John Plonk McElwee; R. B. Johnston and Sons; and Paul Osborne and Presley E. Brown Lumber Company from the Valuation of Certain of Their Properties by Wilkes County For 1977. |
McElwee, Hall, McElwee & Cannon by W. H. McElwee, William H. McElwee, III, and William C. Warden, Jr., North Wilkesboro, for appellants.
Brewer & Freeman by Joe O. Brewer and Paul W. Freeman, Jr., Wilkesboro, for appellee Wilkes County.
The issue on this appeal is whether the governing officials of Wilkes County followed prescribed statutory procedures in establishing a present use value schedule for 1977, a revaluation year, which was used by the county in establishing a valuation for ad valorem property tax purposes on forestlands owned by appellants.
In the summer of 1974 the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners contracted with Allen Appraisal Company for a reappraisal of all real property in the county as required by G.S. 105-286, the reappraisal to become effective 1 January 1977. Over a period of seven or eight weeks Allen developed schedules of values to be used in appraising individual properties. The schedules were approved and adopted by the Board of Commissioners on 24 September 1974. The schedules adopted included a document entitled "1977 Use Value Schedule for Wilkes County." This schedule appears in the record as follows:
This schedule was used for the determination of present use valuations for the property which is the subject matter of this appeal.
On 26 September 1974, The Journal-Patriot, a public newspaper of general circulation in Wilkes County, printed a notice pertaining to the revaluation. No other public notice appeared with reference to the adoption of schedules, standards and rules for the 1 January 1977 revaluation of Wilkes County property. The only reference to the schedules, standards and rules adopted by the County Commissioners relating to the reappraisal of real property in Wilkes County was a short statement which appeared in the minutes of the Commissioners in minutes dated 24 September 1974.
Appellants owned approximately 22,584 acres of forestland in Wilkes County in 1977 and appealed its valuation. On 31 March 1977 each of the appellants made proper application for present use valuation as provided in G.S. 105-277.4 (1979). Wilkes County valued the appellants' property at $100 per acre according to the schedule set out above. The parties stipulate that Wilkes County's use value assessment and its market value assessment of the property are the same. Thereafter, each of the appellants filed with Wilkes County a complaint regarding the valuation of their respective properties. The matter came on for hearing before the Wilkes County Board of Equalization and Review and, in each instance, that Board ruled on each appellant's complaint as follows:
(1) The above-mentioned land was appraised as timber land only.
(2) It was appraised at the lowest value on our schedule.
(3) This schedule was adopted as required by North Carolina state law before the appraisal work began in 1974.
(4) The use value schedule was duly adopted by the Wilkes County Board of County Commissioners and that this Board sitting as a Board of Equalization and Review has no authority to change this schedule of values. The Board can only change the application or misapplication as applied by the appraising officials.
(5) Based on the above facts the Board ruled no change in value.
As a result of these rulings, appellants made application to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission on 14 July 1977. That Commission, sitting as the State Board of Equalization and Review, conducted a hearing on 11 June 1979 and entered a final decision affirming the county's action on 26 October 1979. Appellants appealed to the Court of Appeals and that court affirmed. Judge Wells dissented and appellants appealed to this Court as a matter of right. Other facts pertinent to our decision are noted below.
We first determine the appropriate standard for judicial review of this appeal from the Property Tax Commission, a state administrative agency. We first note that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) controls the scope of review on this appeal.
G.S. 150A-43, a part of the APA, provides in pertinent part that "[a]ny person who is aggrieved by a final agency decision ... is entitled to judicial review of such decision under this Article, unless adequate procedure for judicial review is provided by some other statute, in which case the review shall be under such other statute." (Emphasis added.) The question, therefore, is whether "some other statute" provides "adequate procedure for judicial review" such that the APA review statutes become inapplicable.
In determining what is "adequate procedure for judicial review," as those words appear in G.S. 150A-43, we held in State ex rel. Commissioner of Insurance v. Rate Bureau, 300 N.C. 381, 395, 269 S.E.2d 547, 559 (1980), that adequate procedure for judicial review exists under some other statute only if the scope of review is equal to that provided for by the APA.
Here, there is "some other statute" providing for judicial review of decisions of the Property Tax Commission. G.S. 105-345.2 governs the extent of review for appeals from the Property Tax Commission and its provisions are remarkably identical to those found in G.S. 150A. Subsection (a) provides that the appellate court shall review the record and exception and assignments of error in accordance with the Rules of Appellate Procedure. Subsection (b) provides that the appellate court shall (1) decide all relevant questions of law, (2) interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and (3) determine the meaning and applicability of the terms of any Commission action.
More importantly, with respect to this appeal, G.S. 105-345.2(b) provides that the court may (1) affirm, (2) reverse, (3) declare null and void, (4) remand for further proceedings, or (5) reverse or modify the decision of the Property Tax Commission if the substantial rights of the appellants have been prejudiced because the Commission's findings, inferences, conclusions or decisions are:
(1) In violation of constitutional provisions; or
(2) In excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the Commission; or
(3) Made upon unlawful proceedings; or
(4) Affected by other errors of law; or
(5) Unsupported by competent, material and substantial evidence in view of the entire record as submitted; or
(6) Arbitrary or capricious.
G.S. 105-345.2(c) provides that the court shall review the whole record and due account shall be taken of the rule of prejudicial error.
In Commissioner of Insurance v. Rate Bureau, 300 N.C. at 395, 269 S.E.2d at 559, we held that, in the interest of uniformity and judicial review of administrative decisions, G.S. 150A-51 was the controlling judicial review statute in insurance ratemaking cases even though Chapter 58, dealing with the North Carolina insurance laws, contained virtually identical review provisions. There, however, the provisions of Chapter 58 had been enacted by our General Assembly in 1971, prior to the enactment of the APA in 1973. Here, the review provisions for appeals from the Property Tax Commission, found in G.S. 105-345.2, were enacted by our Legislature in 1979, six years after the enactment of the APA. Therefore, we hold (1) that the procedure for judicial review provided by G.S. 105-345.2 is equal to that under the APA and (2) that G.S. 105-345.2 is the controlling judicial review statute for appeals from the Property Tax Commission.
Although it incorrectly identified the appropriate statutory standard for review on this appeal, the Court of Appeals correctly noted that the principles established by this Court in In re Appeal of Amp, Inc., 287 N.C. 547, 215 S.E.2d 752 (1975), are relevant to the decision of this case. There, Justice Copeland enunciated several well-established principles concerning appellate review of administrative agency decisions: (1) a reviewing court is not free to weigh the evidence presented to an administrative agency and substitute...
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