Curly Const. Co. v. Town of Darien
| Decision Date | 28 April 1960 |
| Citation | 160 A.2d 751,147 Conn. 308 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | CURLY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, Inc. v. TOWN OF DARIEN (two cases). Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut |
E. Gaynor Brennan, Stamford, with whom, on the brief, were Melvin M. Dichter and E. Gaynor Brennan, Jr., Stamford, for appellant (plaintiff).
Robert T. Gilhuly, Fairfield, with whom, on the brief, was George F. Lowman, Stamford, for appellee (defendant).
Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, MELLITZ and SHEA, JJ.
The plaintiff, a New York corporation, maintains its headquarters and principal place of business in New Jersey. In 1956 and 1957, it was engaged as a subcontractor in construction work in Darien and Stamford on the Connecticut turnpike. It set up a field office in Darien for this job and utilized bulldozers, trucks, graders and other pieces of mobile road building equipment in performing its contract. During this same period of time, it was also engaged in four other jobs of the same nature, two in New York state and one each in New Jersey and Massachusetts. The equipment was moved back and forth from one job to another as needed, or to the home office. The tax assessor in Darien observed the equipment on the job about once each week and requested the plaintiff to file a tax list each year on the assessment date, the first of October. The plaintiff refused, claiming that the movable equipment had not acquired a tax situs in this state. Under what is now General Statutes § 12-53, the assessor filled out a list of the property which he had reason to believe was owned by the plaintiff and liable to taxation in Darien. The plaintiff refused to pay the taxes levied as of October 1, 1956, and October 1, 1957, on the property so listed. With respect to each assessment, it applied to the Court of Common Pleas for relief from a wrongful assessment. § 12-119. The cases were tried together. Judgment was rendered for the defendant on each complaint. The plaintiff has appealed.
In 1956, after the plaintiff had refused to file a tax list, the assessor obtained information concerning the equipment and its value from conditional bills of sale and rental contracts on file in the town clerk's office in Darien. General Statutes § 42-77 required the filing of the conditional bills of sale, if not of the rental contracts, in the town where the vendee resided. After the plaintiff had refused to file a list in 1957, the assessor subpoenaed its president for the purpose of obtaining information, under § 12-53, concerning the plaintiff's property then subject to taxation in Darien. He refused to furnish the information, persisting in his claim that the equipment was not taxable in Darien. Thereupon the assessor listed the equipment on the 1957 list at the same valuation at which it had been listed in 1956.
The plaintiff seems to have acted throughout as though the burden was upon the defendant to establish that the equipment was taxable in Darien. Such is not the case. Every owner of taxable property, whether an individual or a corporation, is required by law to file a list of that property with the assessor on the first day of October in each...
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United Church of Christ v. Town of West Hartford, 13127
...that the burden of proving entitlement to a claimed tax exemption rests upon the party claiming the exemption. Curly Construction Co. v. Darien, 147 Conn. 308, 160 A.2d 751 (1960); Burritt Mutual Savings Bank v. New Britain, 146 Conn. 669, 154 A.2d 608 (1959); Cooley Chevrolet Co. v. West H......
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United Church of Christ v. Town of West Hartford
...that the burden of proving entitlement to a claimed tax exemption rests upon the party claiming the exemption. Curly Construction Co. v. Darien, 147 Conn. 308, 160 A.2d 751 (1960); Burritt Mutual Savings Bank v. New Britain, 146 Conn. 669, 154 A.2d 608 (1959); Cooley Chevrolet Co. v. West H......
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HORSE OF CONNECTICUT, INC. v. Washington
...that the burden of proving entitlement to a claimed tax exemption rests upon the party claiming the exemption. Curly Construction Co. v. Darien, 147 Conn. 308, 160 A.2d 751 (1960); Burritt Mutual Savings Bank v. New Britain, 146 Conn. 669, 154 A.2d 608 (1959); Cooley Chevrolet Co. v. West H......
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Faith Center, Inc. v. City of Hartford
...that the burden of proving entitlement to a claimed tax exemption rests upon the party claiming the exemption. Curly Construction Co. v. Darien, 147 Conn. 308, 160 A.2d 751 (1960); Burritt Mutual Savings Bank v. New Britain, 146 Conn. 669, 154 A.2d 608 (1959); Cooley Chevrolet Co. v. West H......