District of Columbia v. Green

• Decision Date: 25 November 1975
• Docket Number: No. 8817.,8817.
• Citation: District of Columbia v. Green, 348 A.2d 305 (D.C. 1975)
• Parties: DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al., Appellants, v. Clarzell GREEN et al., Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

348 A.2d 305

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al., Appellants, v. Clarzell GREEN et al., Appellees.

No. 8817.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals. [Ad] Argued February 19, 1975.

Decided November 25, 1975.

Henry E. Wixon, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D. C., with whom C. Francis Murphy, Corp. Counsel, Kenneth A. Pels and Dennis M. McHugh, Asst. Corp. Counsels, were on the brief, for appellants.

Gilbert Hahn, Jr., Washington, D. C., for appellees.

Before REILLY, Chief Judge, and KERN and NEBEKER, Associate Judges.

NEBEKER, Associate Judge:

This is the second appeal in a class action brought by appellee-taxpayers in 1973 to enjoin appellant-District of Columbia from using unequal levels of assessment¹ of estimated market value in determining the assessment for taxation purposes of single-family residential properties. The trial court originally granted an injunction to appellees, prohibiting the District from using an assessment level other than 55% for single-family residential properties. This court sustained that injunction in District of Columbia v. Green; D.C.App., 310 A.2d 848 (1973). The District then undertook to comply with the injunction and mailed out adjusted real property tax bills to single-family residential taxpayers for fiscal year 1974. Appellees, however, filed a "Motion to Compel Respondents [the District of Columbia] to Correct and Reissue Real Property Tax Bills for Fiscal Year 1974, Or in the Alternative for Refunds". They asserted that the District had not complied with the injunction since the adjusted tax bills were not based on an exact 55% level of assessment. On August 6, 1974, the trial court granted this motion and ordered the District to recompute assessed values, correct the tax roll, and reissue supplementary tax bills or refunds within 90 days, using a method suggested by the trial court and designed to reach greater mathematical exactitude in the computation of real property taxes. After the District failed to comply within 90 days, the trial court again ordered compliance, this time by December 10, 1974. On December 9, 1974, the District complied with the order of August 6, 1974, and sent out supplementary tax bills or refunds based on the trial court's method of computation. The District of Columbia appeals from the trial court's order of August 6, 1974. We hold that the trial court correctly required the District of Columbia to use a method of calculation capable of reducing to a greater degree the mathematical error in the recomputation. We also hold it was not error in declining to view the differences in amounts of taxes between the two methods of computation to be de minimis.

A discussion regarding the mathematical process used² and the events leading up to the litigation will be helpful. First, a brief explanation of the components of the taxation process and their storage in the computer: The taxes owed to the District of Columbia each year by a real property owner are computed by multiplying the estimated market value (a unique value for each piece of real property, determined periodically by District tax assessors) by the level of assessment (the percentage of estimated market value upon which the tax will be levied). The product is expressed in dollars per hundred dollars of assessed value. The tax owed is then computed by multiplying the tax rate by the number of hundreds of dollars in the real property's assessed value. The computers used by the District in the tax computation process store the following three significant numbers: (1) the building value at the level of assessment rate; (2) the land area; and (3) a number, in dollars and cents at the level of assessment rate, representing the value of the land area per square foot (the "street rate").

Second, a brief explanation of the background of this litigation: The District of Columbia began a cyclical reassessment program in 1973 to raise by 5%-increments over several years the level of assessment for all single-family residential properties from 55% to 65%, the latter being the level of assessment for all multi-family residential, commercial, and industrial real properties. When the level of assessment for 44,485 single-family residences was changed for fiscal year 1974 from 55% to 60%, leaving nearly 19,000 other single-family residences with a level of assessment of only 55%, some of the group of 44,485 owners brought the original suit to enjoin the District from raising the level of assessment as to only some of the single-family property owners. The trial court then enjoined the District from using, for purposes of taxation of single-family residential properties within the District of Columbia, unequal levels of assessment . . . in determining the assessment . . . of such properties, and from assessing such properties at a level of assessment other than 55% of estimated market value unless and until an equal level of assessment is established by the District after full compliance with the . . . District of Columbia Administrative Procedure Act . . . . [District of Columbia v. Green, supra at 850; footnote omitted.]

See also Record at 1069 (Trial Court's Order of June 29, 1973). This court then, as previously mentioned, affirmed. District of Columbia v. Green, supra.

In attempting to comply with the original injunction and to recompute the taxes based on an assessment level of 55% rather than 60%, the District used the following four-step method: (1) by multiplying the "street rate" at 60% by .91667 (the decimal equivalent of fifty-five sixtieths (55/60ths) rounded to five figures), rounded to the nearest penny, to get the "street rate" at 55%; (2) by multiplying that "street rate" at 55% to the land area (square feet) to get the land value at 55%; (3) by multiplying the assessed building value at 60% by .91667 (again, the decimal equivalent of 55/60ths, rounded to five figures) to get the building value at 55%; and (4) by adding the building value at 55% of the land value at 55% to get total assessed value at 55% (Record at 1548, Opinion and Order of Trial Court, August 6, 1974). This method resulted in an overall average level of assessment for each piece of real property of 55.00772%. (Record at 228-29.)

After appellees filed their motion to compel the District to reissue tax bills or refunds, the method which the trial court ordered the District to use consisted of the following:

. . . [1] multiply the street rate by the Respondents' [District's] own factor of .91667 and retain that result as a five place figure after the decimal. [2] That five place figure is then multiplied by the number of square feet and this result, rounded to the nearest dollar, gives the land calculation. [3] The assessment of improvements is then multiplied by the factor of .91667 and this result is rounded to the nearest dollar. [4] The two results are added: land and improvements to give the correct answer as to how to adjust from 60% to 55%. [Record at 1552 (Order of Trial Court, August 6, 1974).]

The District used this method on December 9, 1974, and complied with the trial court's order of August 6, 1974. This method resulted in an overall average level of assessment for each piece of real property of 54.99908%. By comparing these methods it is apparent that a difference of potential significance (depending on the area of real property) originates in step (1) where the product of the street rate multiplied by .91667 is either carried to five decimal points or rounded to the nearest penny.

The District's contentions on appeal are that (1) there was substantial compliance by the District with the trial court's original order prohibiting the use of any level of assessment other than 55% where the adjusted tax bills achieved an average level of assessment of 55.00772%; (2) the trial court erred in ordering recomputation of real property tax bills, in view of the...