City of Indianapolis, for and on Behalf of City-County Council of City of Indianapolis and Marion County v. Indiana State Bd. of Tax Com'rs
Decision Date | 02 April 1974 |
Docket Number | No. 374S76,CITY-COUNTY,374S76 |
Citation | 308 N.E.2d 868,261 Ind. 635 |
Parties | CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, for and on Behalf of itsCOUNCIL OF the CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND of MARION COUNTY, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. INDIANA STATE BOARD OF TAX COMMISSIONERS et al., |
Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Harold H. Kohlmeyer, Jr., Corp. Counsel, Robert G. Elrod, Asst. City Atty., Frank E. Spencer, Indianapolis, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Halbert W. Kunz of Kunz & Kunz, Carl J. Meyer of Rhoads, Linder, Meyer & Buehl, G. Pearson Smith, Jr., and Lewis C. Bose of Bose, McKinney & Evans, E. C. Ulen, Jr. of Baker & Daniels, Chalmer Schlosser, Jr. of Schlosser, White & Schlosser, Ben J. Weaver of Johnson, Weaver & Martz, Warren C. Moberly of Harrison, Moberly, Wallace & Gaston, Louis Rosenberg, Legal Services Organization, Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Merle B. Rose, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for defendants-appellees.
OPINION ON PETITION TO TRANSFER
This action was originally instituted by certain taxpayers in Marion County who sought to challenge the State Tax Board's action in increasing the 1971 budget of the Marion County Department of Public Welfare. Additionally, the plaintiffs sought to restrain the State Tax Board from making any further increases in the 1971 county budgets and from making any increases in the 1970 (payable in 1971) levies and rates of municipal corporations within Marion County. After the instant action was commenced, the City of Indianapolis was permitted to intervene as an additional party-plaintiff.
On April 21, 1971, the trial court entered judgment against the plaintiffs and in favor of the State Tax Board. On May 24, 1971, the City of Indianapolis alone filed a motion to correct errors which was subsequently overruled. From this adverse determination the City of Indianapolis alone appealed. The Court of Appeals dismissed the City's appeal as moot. 294 N.E.2d 136. The Court of Appeals held that because the challenge of the State Tax Board's action was directed specifically to 1970 taxes payable in 1971, taxes which were presumably paid, the cause was no longer justiciable and should be dismissed as moot. We agree with the Court of Appeals that there is no justiciable appeal before us; however, we rest our decision on a more fundamental lack of 'justiciability.'
We hold that the City of Indianapolis, bringing the instant appeal on behalf of the City-County Council, has no standing on these facts to challenge the State Tax Board's action. It is axiomatic to declare that this Court has no power to determine question of law without the proper complainants before us. But that is, in effect, what we are asked to do in this case. Firmly embedded in Indiana law is the principle that this Court does not function to render advisory opinions:
.
Brewington v. Lowe (1848), 1 Ind. 21, 23--24.
For the disposition of cases and controversies, the Court requires adverse parties before it. Standing focuses generally upon the question of whether the complaining party is the proper person to invoke the Court's power. However, more fundamentally, standing is a restraint upon this Court's exercise of its jurisdiction in that we cannot proceed where there is no demonstrable injury to the complainant before us. Indeed, absent a we have no jurisdiction to proceed. Brewington v. Lowe, supra.
Furthermore, City of Indianapolis, a non-taxpaying municipal corporation, cannot successfully allege any injury to a legally protected interest via the State Tax Board's action. McFarland v. Pierce (1897), 151 Ind. 546, 45 N.E. 706. Accordingly, the City lacks the requisite standing to appeal here. Fadell v. Kovacik (1962), 242 Ind. 610, 181 N.E.2d 228; Lentz, etc. v. Trustee of Indiana University et al. (1966), 248 Ind. 45, 221 N.E.2d 883. Likewise, the City-County Council has no monetary interest in the budgets or levies of other governmental units within Marion County:
'. . . The only interest of the city in this controversy so far as the same appears from the petition for the writ, is that the 'city of Sheboygan * * * is and was at the times hereinafter stated a municipal corporation organized and existing under the laws of the state of Wisconsin, and is and was one of the taxing districts in said county of Sheboygan, Wis., paying according to the last equalized assessment of the county board 46.61 per cent. of the entire county tax of said county.'
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