Cohn v. City

• Decision Date: 18 April 1944
• Citation: 37 A.2d 237,130 Conn. 699
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: COHN v. CITY AND TOWN OF HARTFORD.

130 Conn. 699

37 A.2d 237

COHN

v.CITY AND TOWN OF HARTFORD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 18, 1944.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Quinlan, Judge.

Action by Mary Cohn against the City and Town of Hartford for a reduction of the assessment of plaintiff's real property and for other relief. The matter was referred to Hon. George E. Hinman, state referee, and on his report judgment was rendered for defendant, from which plaintiff appeals.

Error in part, and case remanded, with directions.

Morton E. Cole and Cyril Cole, both of Hartford, for appellant.

Frank A. Murphy, Asst. Corp. Counsel, of Hartford (Joseph B. Griffin, Corp. Counsel, and Samuel H. Aron, Asst. Corp. Counsel, both of Hartford, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

DICKENSON, Judge.

The plaintiff brought this action to the Superior Court, alleging that her real estate and buildings on South Main Street in Hartford were inequitably and unjustly assessed for the year 1939, that the defendant's assessors were guilty of malfeasance or misfeasance in failing to make a general revision of assessments, and that the assessment was manifestly excessive and could not have been arrived at without disregarding the statutory provisions for determining value. She asked for a judgment declaring the assessment inequitable and unjust and fixing the amount that should be allowed for depreciation and obsolescence on her buildings in future years, and also for a reduction of the assessment and an injunction enjoining the board of assessors from increasing the corrected assessment. A second count was added for the year 1940 containing similar allegations.

The defendant denied any illegal assessment. The matter, by stipulation, was referred to a state referee as a companion case to others also referred to him covering the years 1932 to 1938. The referee conducted hearings and found the ‘true and actual value’ of the plaintiff's property for the years 1932 to 1940, inclusive, that the assessors had made some revision of valuation in 1939 and that a general revaluation was now being made. The referee found that in every year the assessments exceeded the actual value of the property; the assessors valued the property in 1932 at $100,984, in 1933 and 1934 at $97,164, and in the other years at $98,164; the referee found that in 1932 the assessment exceeded the actual value of the property by $13,294, and in the other years by smaller sums varying from $3,907 to $7,698. His values were based upon the testimony of experts of both parties which in turn was based upon the cost of reproduction less allowance for depreciation and obsolescence, the referee finding that there was no satisfactory evidence as to value based on sales or capitalization of income. The plaintiff filed a remonstrance to the report and the defendant pleaded to the remonstrance. The trial court, however, accepted the report and directed judgment for the defendant, finding that the claim of the plaintiff that the assessments were manifestly excessive was untrue.

The plaintiff's contention is that the action is not based upon statutory grounds alone but is one at common law and in equity as well, and that therefore it was within the province of the court to fix reduced assessments. Our statutes provide a method by which an owner of property may directly call in question the valuation placed by assessors upon his property by an appeal to the board of relief, and from it to the courts. General Statutes, §§ 1193-1195; Cum.Supp.1935, § 374c. These statutes limit to a short period the time within which the property owner can seek relief under them, and the purpose of this is undoubtedly to prevent delays in the ultimate determination of the amounts a municipality can collect as taxes. The remedy given by the statute involved in this case, Cum.Supp.1935, § 375c, which may be invoked up to the expiration of one year, not from the making of the assessment but from the time when the tax became due, certainly could not have been intended as a remedy alternative to an appeal to the board of relief where the claim is merely that the property has been overassessed; it is rather to be regarded as a remedy to meet situations of a different character. In Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Oxford, 101 Conn. 383, 391, 392, 126 A. 1, 4, it is pointed out that the statute created no new right, or even a new remedy except in form, but was ‘merely declaratory of existing legal and equitable rights.’ The right and remedy to which reference is made in that decision was one accorded a taxpayer where there was misfeasance or nonfeasance by the taxing authorities or the assessment was arbitrary or so excessive or discriminatory as in itself to show a disregard of duty on their part. 4 Cooley, Taxation, 4th Ed., § 1645. The mere fact that the assessors overvalued the property is not ground for relief, aside from the statutory remedies by appeal from the board of relief. Stanley v. Board of Supervisors of Albany County, 121 U.S. 535, 550, 7 S.Ct. 1234, 30 L.Ed. 1000; Maish v. Arizona, 164 U.S. 599, 611, 17 S.Ct. 193, 41 L.Ed. 567; People's Gas Light & Coke Co. v. Stuckart, 286 Ill. 164, 174, 121 N.E. 629; Royal Salt Co. v. Board of Com'rs of Ellsworth County, 82 Kan. 203, 205, 107 P. 640; Sunday Lake Iron Co. v. Township of Wakefield, 186 Mich. 626, 632, 153 N.W. 14. Where the basis of the claim for relief is the illegal overvaluation of the property, recourse apart from such remedy could only be had to equity, because the only remedies which could be afforded are those obtainable in an equitable proceeding. Johnson v. Wells Fargo & Co., 239 U.S. 234, 244, 36 S.Ct. 62, 60 L.Ed. 243; Continental National Bank v. Naylor, 54 Utah 49, 58, 71, 179 P. 67; County of Los Angeles v. Ballerino, 99 Cal. 593, 597, 32 P. 581, 34 P. 329; Burton Stock Car Co. v. Traeger, 187 Ill. 9, 12, 58 N.E. 418. When § 375c of the Cumulative Supplement, 1935, states that relief will be accorded where the tax was laid on an assessment which, ‘under all the circumstances, was manifestly excessive and could not have been arrived at except by disregarding the provisions of the statutes for determining the valuation of such property,’ it briefly defines the circumstances under which relief could be given in equity in the absence of the statute. As the statute was clearly intended to take the place of the remedy in equity based on an overvaluation of the property and as all the relief can be obtained under it which could be afforded by equity, it precludes a resort to equity generally in such a case as the one before us. Rowe v. Hampton, 75 N.H. 479, 480, 76 A. 250; see Wilcox v. Madison, 106 Conn. 223, 227, 137 A. 742.

The claim of the plaintiff that there is no proper basis in the evidence for the finding of values...