Frank v. Assessors of Skowhegan

• Decision Date: 02 December 1974
• Citation: 329 A.2d 167
• Parties: Laser FRANK, formerly Skowhegan Village Shopping Center v. ASSESSORS OF SKOWHEGAN and The Inhabitants of the Town of Skowhegan.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 167

329 A.2d 167

Laser FRANK, formerly Skowhegan Village Shopping Center v. ASSESSORS OF SKOWHEGAN and The Inhabitants of the Town of Skowhegan.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 2, 1974.

Jolovitz & Niehoff, Lester T. Jolovitz, Waterville, for plaintiff.

Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, Barnett I. Shur, Portland, for defendants.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

POMEROY, Justice.

This action was originally brought by Skowhegan Village Shopping Center ¹ against the Assessors of the Town of Skowhegan and the Inhabitants of the Town of Skowhegan. ² A tax abatement was sought. The appeal from the Assessors' refusal to abate was taken seasonably to the Superior Court of Somerset County pursuant to 36 M.R.S.A. 845. By agreement of the parties, the matter was heard by a Referee with objection rights reserved. ³ The Referee's report was accepted by the Court over defendant's objections. Plaintiff appeals from the decision to uphold the tax assessment.

We deny the appeal.

When appeal was taken to the Superior Court under authority of 36 M.R.S.A. 845 what issues were before the Court?

All action with respect to the taxpayer's assessment prior to the appeal to the Superior Court was taken by administrative officers, i. e., tax assessors.

By appeal to the Superior Court the taxpayer sought judicial review of the conclusions of administrative agents.

By this appeal to us we are required to review the conclusions reached by the Superior Court. To do this we must determine the scope of the review which the statute (36 M.R.S.A. 845) authorized to be had by the Superior Court.

The statute itself merely provides that

'Any person entitled to appeal to a board of assessment review or to the county commissioner for an abatement of his taxes may, if he so elect, appeal under the same terms and conditions from the decision of the assessors to the Superior Court in and for that county.'

The provision which follows states that the appeal granted in Section 845.

'. . . shall be tried, heard, and determined by the court without a jury in the manner and with the rights provided by law in other civil cases so heard.' 36 M.R.S.A. 846.

Rule 80B, M.R.Civ.P., supplies the procedural framework for review of all administrative action where, as here, the petitioner's right to such review is provided by statute. There is nothing in the particular statute with which we are concerned nor in Rule 80B which specifically defines the scope of judicial review of tax assessments.

Generally speaking, unless a statute provides otherwise, ⁴ judicial review of any administrative decision is limited to complete review of questions of law and to limited review of questions of fact only to test the reasonableness of the conclusions reached. ⁵

Absent specific legislative directions otherwise, orders of an administrative agency are final unless the action taken is

(1) beyond the power which it could constitutionally exercise (Anheuser-Busch Inc. et al. v. Walton et al., 135 Me. 57, 190 A. 297 (1937)), or

(2) beyond its statutory power (Girouard's Case, 145 Me. 62, 71 A.2d 682 (1950)), or

(3) taken without according procedural and substantive due process (Kovack v. Licensing Board, City of Waterville, 157 Me. 411, 173 A.2d 554 (1961)), or

(4) based upon an erroneous interpretation of the Law (Central Maine Power Co. v. Public Utilities Com'n., 153 Me. 228, 230, 136 A.2d 726, 729 (1957)); Larry K. Harlow v. Agway, Inc., &/or Travelers Insurance Company, Me., 327 A.2d 856 (November 7, 1974), or

(5) based upon conclusions of fact which have no substantial evidence in support thereof (In re Maine Clean Fuels, Inc., Me., 310 A.2d 736 (1973)).

To determine whether the administrative body reasonably exercised its discretion, the reviewing court is confronted at the start with the problem of what evidence it may properly receive.

In Lovely v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the City of Presque Isle, Me., 259 A.2d 666 (1969), we had occasion to discuss the responsibility of the court reviewing decisions of the zoning board of appeals under a statute similar to the one authorizing appeal in this case. We said, where there was no record of the administrative proceedings, the review was 'de novo' in the sense that the court may hear new evidence. However, such evidence which is adduced must relate to the limited issue of the reasonableness of the administrative decision. Such review, the Court said, provided,

'a rational and practical means of dealing with appeals from quasi-judicial decisions of municipal agencies.' 259 A.2d at 668.

Like the situation in Lovely, appeal from a decision of the tax assessors presents the matter to the Superior Court in a somewhat different posture from that usually encountered in a judicial review of administrative action.

Tax assessors have a constitutional obligation to assess all property fairly and according to just value. Me.Const. art. IX, § 8. In actual practice assessors are not always men of special training or skills, especially in the smaller cities and towns. They are public officers who uaually bring to their job the intelligence, experience, and judgment of ordinary individuals whose knowledge of property values derives from their having lived and moved and had their being in the community, the property of which they are evaluating.

'Neither the constitution nor the statutes expect that a Board of Assessors could make an assessment with all values so exact that no 'expert' could disagree with them.' Sears, Roebuck v. Presque Isle et al., 150 Me. 181, 189, 107 A.2d 475, 479 (1954).

A presumption as to the good faith and conformity to the requirements of the law attaches to assessor's work. Cumberland County Power and Light Company v. Inhabitants of the Town of Hiram, 125 Me. 138, 140, 131 A. 594, 595 (1954).

Many of their decisions must of necessity be made without a formal hearing of which a complete record is made to indicate the factual basis for the judgment.

An appeal from a decision of tax assessors therefore, requires the Court to make its own independent inquiry into all relevant and material facts bearing on the ultimate issue of the fairness and rationality of the assessment.

In the absence of a record, the Court can properly act on the assumption that such evidence as it adduces on review was, in fact, the basis upon which the assessors reached their conclusions (Schultz v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Town of Berlin, 144 Conn. 332, 130 A.2d 789 (1957)), or even if it appears such evidence was not before the assessors, if the evidence before the Court does not compel the conclusion the assessors' judgment was irrational, their judgment should not be disturbed.

The administrative 'decision will be assumed to have been taken with full knowledge of material facts and in justification thereof.' Central Maine Power Co. v. Waterville Urban Renewal Authority, Me., 281 A.2d 233, 242 (1971), Milwaukee Co. of Jehovah's Witnesses v. Mullen, 214 Or. 281, 330 P.2d 5, 11 (1958).

Case law in this State ⁶ establishes that judicial review of a tax assessment is limited to whether or not the judgment of the assessors as to the amount of the tax is

'so unreasonable in the light of the circumstances that the property is substantially overvalued and an injustice results or that there is an unjust discrimination, or that the assessment was in some way fraudulent, dishonest or illegal.' 150 Me. at 189, 107 A.2d at 479.

In the case now before us, no claim is made that the assessors

(a) acted pursuant to the purported authority granted by an unconstitutional statute, or

(b) acted in excess of their legal authority, or

(c) denied substantive or procedural due process to the taxpayer.

The narrow issues before the trial court then became,

(1) Was it error of law for the assessors to use the 'reproduction cost less depreciation' approach in determining the fair market value of taxpayer's property, and

(2) If it was not error of law so to do, was the assessment so manifestly unreasonable as to constitute improper governmental action?

Unless it was error of law for the assessors to employ the appraisal approach which they used, it was the burden of the taxpayer in the Court below to establish by a fair preponderance of the evidence, that

(a) The conclusion as to value reached by the assessors was so unreasonable in the light of circumstances that the property was substantially overvalued and injustice resulted, or

(b) that the assessment was in some way fraudulent, dishonest or illegal.

Before us, the taxpayer is limited to a claim of error of law on the part of the trial Court. Specifically these are listed in the brief as that:

1. The Court below erred in not ruling as a matter of law that when assessing income-producing property assessors must use an 'income' or 'capitalization of income' approach.

2. The Referee erred in giving no weight to the value placed upon the property using the income approach.

3. The Court erred in finding that there was no improper delegation of the Assessors' statutory duty.

Plaintiff's property consists of land and buildings which comprise a shopping center unique in the town of Skowhegan. The property was assessed in the taxable year of 1970 at the fair market value of $699,580 which, at the tax rate of $50.00 per $1,000.00, resulted in a tax bill of $34,979. The assessment was based on a 'reproduction cost less depreciation' approach, a method employed uniformly as to all real property in Skowhegan, including residential, commercial, and industrial land and buildings.

The administrative assistant to the assessors testified he was the person who had done the 'leg work' on this assessment. He testified that he used a construction cost schedule supplied by an appraisal firm which had revalued all of the town's real property in 1956. Adjusting the manual's figures to reflect the increase in construction costs since 1956,...