Blake v. Xerox Corp.
| Decision Date | 08 March 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 62445,62445 |
| Citation | 447 So.2d 1348 |
| Parties | Al H. BLAKE, Property Appraiser of Dade County, R.K. Overstreet, Tax Collector of Dade County, and Randy Miller, Executive Director of the Florida Department of Revenue, Petitioners, v. XEROX CORPORATION, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and J. Terrell Williams, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee; and Robert A. Ginsburg, Dade County Atty., and Stephen J. Keating, Asst. County Atty., Miami, for petitioners.
Randy R. Briggs of Ayres, Cluster, Curry, McCall & Briggs, Ocala, for respondent.
This cause is before the Court on petition for review of the decision of the district court of appeal, Xerox Corp. v. Blake, 415 So.2d 1308 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982). We granted review on the jurisdictional ground of conflict of decisions. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
This case involves the appraisal of the value of Xerox Corporation's copying machines and other business equipment in Dade County, for purposes of levying ad valorem taxation for the year 1977. Xerox owns thousands of such machines situated in Dade County, and leases them to its customers. Xerox is also in the business of selling copying machines and other items, and has set prices for its new products offered for sale. The Dade County Property Appraiser appraised Xerox's leased equipment at $28,100,053, using the list prices of the various machines adjusted for depreciation.
Xerox filed a complaint against the property appraiser and the Dade County Tax Collector claiming that the county appraiser's method of valuation violated article VII, section 4, Florida Constitution, and section 193.011, Florida Statutes (1977). The Florida Department of Revenue was later added as a party defendant. At trial Xerox presented evidence and argument to the effect that the county property appraiser should have used an income capitalization method for assessing the property rather than looking at list prices adjusted for depreciation. The income capitalization method concentrates on the capacity of property to produce income and capitalizes such net income into present value. Xerox claimed that the income capitalization method of valuation achieves a fairer representation of market value because the vast majority of the equipment manufactured by Xerox is leased and argued that there was an insufficient sales market to justify the use of the list prices as representative of market value. Xerox presented a calculation of value, using the income capitalization method, amounting to $15,338.280.
The trial court rendered judgment for Dade County, finding:
1. The Court finds that the Plaintiff failed to sustain its burden of proof that the Property Appraiser did not consider all the relevant factors under F.S. 193.011.
2. The Court rejects the income approach used by Plaintiff's experts as representing just or market value for the following reasons:
(a) The approach failed to provide for salvage value.
(b) The officer or agent of the Plaintiff admitted that the Plaintiff corporation would not sell its equipment at the prices indicated by its income approach.
3. The "List Price less depreciation" method used by the Property Appraiser more accurately reflected just value albeit that the amount of sales was small and the sales were not of all models of Xerox equipment.
4. The Property Appraiser did not abuse his discretion, and the value set by the Property Appraiser did represent just or fair market value.
On appeal, the district court of appeal reversed, finding that the list prices were not a fair representation of market value since only a small proportion of the copiers and accessories produced by Xerox were sold. The court held "that the absence of an established sales market for the Xerox equipment in question required the appraiser to utilize an income capitalization method as the only method which would assure a just valuation." 415 So.2d at 1311.
The district court found that the income capitalization method put forward by Xerox was a better method of determining market value than the list-price-less-depreciation method used by the property appraiser. On the basis of this perceived superiority of one method over the other, the district court held that the income capitalization method should have been used. But see Xerox Corp. v. Blake, 415 So.2d at 1311 (Pearson, J., concurring) (). We find that the district court applied an erroneous standard of review and we therefore quash the district court's decision.
The property appraiser's determination of assessment value was an exercise of administrative discretion within the officer's field of expertise. Therefore, if the appraiser proceeded lawfully, then that determination was clothed with a presumption of correctness when the taxpayer challenged it. The burden was on the taxpayer to show that the appraiser departed from the requirements of the law or that the appraisal made was not supported by any reasonable hypothesis of legality. Powell v. Kelly, 223 So.2d 305 (Fla.1969).
The trial court, as was indicated above where the findings are set out, found that Xerox Corporation had failed to show that the appraiser departed from the law governing the appraisal of property for ad valorem taxation. Section 193.011, Florida Statutes (1977), 1 provides a list of factors which a property appraiser is to consider when determining the "just valuation" of property. The trial court's determination that the appraiser properly considered the statutory factors as mandated was supported by competent, substantial evidence. Thus the only remaining question was whether the appraiser, following the law, could conceivably and reasonably have arrived at the appraisal value being challenged. Although the trial court appears to have grounded its judgment on the finding that Xerox...
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