Garrett v. Bamford

• Decision Date: 11 August 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-2556,77-2556
• Citation: 582 F.2d 810
• Parties: Donald F. GARRETT, Sharon B. Garrett, Vera A. Turpin v. James B. BAMFORD, Chairman, David Shirey, Stewart DeTurk, Board of Assessment Appeal, County of Berks. Donald F. Garrett, Sharon B. Garrett, Vera A. Turpin, Annie Louise Inman, Nancy Anne Johnston, Clarence G. Coad, Marilyn C. Coad, Gable Gidden and William Crawford, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 810

582 F.2d 810

Donald F. GARRETT, Sharon B. Garrett, Vera A. Turpin v. James B. BAMFORD, Chairman, David Shirey, Stewart DeTurk Board of Assessment Appeal, County of Berks Donald F. Garrett, Sharon B. Garrett, Vera A. Turpin, Annie Louise Inman, Nancy Anne Johnston, Clarence G Coad, Marilyn C. Coad, Gable Gidden and William Crawford, Appellants.

No. 77-2556.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued June 23, 1978.

Decided Aug. 11, 1978.

Harold E. Kohn, Stuart H. Savett, Donald L. Weinberg, Kohn, Savett, Marion & Graf, P.C., Philadelphia, Pa., for appellants.

Edwin P. Rome, Matthew J. Siembieda, Blank, Rome, Klaus & Comisky, Philadelphia, Pa., Joseph E. DeSantis, Terry D. Weiler, McGavin, DeSantis & Koch, Reading, Pa., for appellees.

Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, and ALDISERT and HUNTER, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.

When this case was previously before us in 1976, Garrett v. Bamford, 538 F.2d 63, (Garrett I ), we determined that the Pennsylvania statutory procedure to review county real estate tax assessments did not provide appellants with the "plain, speedy and efficient remedy" in Pennsylvania courts to make operative the prohibition of the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341. Thereafter, in 1977, obviously in response to our decision, Pennsylvania amended the tax assessment statutory review procedure. This appeal requires us to decide if the legislative solution has met the concerns identified in Garrett I. The district court held that it did and dismissed the action; the plaintiffs again appeal. We hold that the district court correctly evaluated the subsequent change in Pennsylvania law, and that the court properly abstained from further proceedings, but that the court should have retained jurisdiction pending state court proceedings by the appellants.

I.

Here, as before, we are required to interpret the congressional mandate expressed in the 1937 Tax Injunction Act The district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.

28 U.S.C. § 1341.

Appellants have requested a federal forum to adjudicate a Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection claim on behalf of a class of owners and occupants of residential property in areas of substantial concentrations of non-white population within Berks County, Pennsylvania. Their complaint alleges that the properties owned or occupied by them and class members are assessed for purposes of real estate taxes at values which are higher than the values assigned to similar properties in predominantly or exclusively white areas of the county; moreover, they allege that the assessments on their properties constitute a greater percentage of their actual value than is the case with properties in white areas generally. Appellants seek a nondiscriminatory assessment of Berks County residential property.

We previously determined that if appellants were able to bring their "action in the Pennsylvania courts of equity, they would have an adequate remedy," 538 F.2d at 68. But we also stated that there was "substantial uncertainty as to the availability of a Pennsylvania equity forum. . . ." 538 F.2d at 70. We adhere to this view. Our present inquiry, therefore, tracks a narrow compass. We are required to decide if the state procedure affording administrative appeal with judicial review which we previously deemed inadequate only because class action relief was unavailable and the legal remedies required multiple suits involving identical issues against the same defendants, 538 F.2d at 71 now meets the congressional test of "a plain, speedy and efficient remedy."

To understand the 1977 Pennsylvania amendment, it is necessary to consider the state's statutory schema of reviewing assessments and assessment procedures. In Garrett I, we described these procedures as follows:

The statutory remedy . . . is contained in the assessments legislation for counties of the third class, 72 P.S. § 5342 et seq. (Supp.1975). The statute creates a three-member Board of Assessment Appeals, 72 P.S. § 5342 (Supp.1975), which must cause annual assessment of property within its jurisdiction. 72 P.S. § 5344 (Supp.1975). Assessments must be completed by the fifteenth of August of each year, 72 P.S. § 5347 (1968), and property owners must be duly notified. 72 P.S. § 5348 (1968). "Any person aggrieved by any assessment, whether or not the value thereof shall have been changed since the preceding annual assessment . . . may appeal to the board for relief." 72 P.S. § 5349(c) (Supp.1975). Parties must be notified of hearings and the board has "the power to compel the attendance of witnesses and the furnishing of documents." 72 P.S. § 5349(d) (Supp.1975). A final decision of the board may be appealed to the court of common pleas, which may proceed de novo. 72 P.S. § 5350 (Supp.1975).

In the case of real property, the court shall determine, from the evidence submitted at the hearing, what ratio of assessed value to actual value was used generally in the taxing district, and the court shall direct the application of the ratio so found to the value of the property which is the subject matter of the appeal . . . .

Id. Decisions of the court of common pleas may be appealed. Id.

538 F.2d at 70 (footnote omitted).

Isolating the deficiency in this procedure, we noted that the "statutory remedy is clearly designed for an Individual taxpayer to appeal his Individual assessment," 538 F.2d at 70 (emphasis added). Thus, in 1977, the Pennsylvania legislature sought to remove this deficiency by enacting an addition to 72 P.S. § 5349(c)(2):

For the purpose of assessment appeals under this act, the term "person" shall include, in addition to that provided by law, a group of two or more persons acting on behalf of a class of persons similarly situated with regard to the assessment.

As amended 1977, Aug. 5, P.L. 182, No. 48, § 1, imd. effective.

II.

In arguing that the 1977 amendment does not solve their problem, appellants present five contentions: (a) the amended statute does not provide for class action assessment appeals in the state courts, but only at the administrative level; (b) the state remedy still fails to provide for the elimination of the discrimination; (c) the state remedy still fails to provide ongoing relief; (d) plaintiffs are time-barred from bringing this action in the state courts; and (e) the district court's dismissal violated the rule that jurisdiction is determined conclusively at the time of the filing of the complaint and the principle that acts of state legislatures cannot restrict or destroy federal jurisdiction.

A.

Appellants contend that although the 1977 amendments create a class action procedure in the administrative context, the amendments do not extend that procedure to judicial review of the agency action. Appellants believe that the legislative history of the amendments requires the anomalous conclusion that the Pennsylvania legislature intended that its newly-created class procedure before the Board of Assessment Appeals cannot continue as a class action in the state courts on appeal from an adverse agency decision. They rely on the fact that the following language was deleted from the initial bill during legislative debate prior to enactment:

(A)ny group of dissatisfied taxables, constituting a class, may, within thirty days from the final fixing of their assessments and valuations, appeal therefrom on behalf of the class, to the court of common pleas of said county, in the manner provided by law for appeals from assessments; . . .

H.R. 366, As reported from Comm. on Finance, H.R., as amended, April 18, 1977, Sess. 1977, 161st Gen. Assembly § 2 (1977). As enacted, the statute grants this right only to "any dissatisfied taxable or taxing district." 72 P.S. § 5350(a). They argue that failure to enact the proposed language indicates that the class provision is to apply only in the agency context. We think such misgivings are groundless for several reasons.

First, we categorically reject appellants' insinuation that "(e)ven in the procedural details the legislature has sought to get by with an inferior remedy, in the hope that this Court would find it nonetheless adequate." Reply Brief of Appellants at 6-7. Legislative history does indeed indicate that the legislature adopted the amendments in response to the court's previous decision, but there is absolutely no reason to suspect any motive other than to establish the means of obtaining complete relief in the state courts.

Second, other compelling reasons prevented the legislature from explicitly providing that the administrative class action may proceed as such on appeal to the state courts. The first, and independently conclusive, reason is that the Pennsylvania Constitution gives the state's supreme court exclusive power to establish rules of procedure for state courts; although the legislature makes substantive law, it is without power to control procedure. Pa.Const. Art. V, § 10(c). Thus, although the legislature was free to provide, as it did, for class proceedings before the administrative agency, it was not free to extend that procedure to appeals in the courts. In addition, even if rules of civil procedure were within the province of the legislature, it may well have deleted the provision cited by appellants only because it was deemed superfluous. As the law is written, a "taxable" may appeal to court; the legislature may have intended "taxable" to include a group of taxpayers who had challenged their assessments as a class in the agency proceedings. Be that as it may, the general assembly could not legislate the procedure to be followed in the state court.

The question thus becomes whether the existing rules of civil procedure which govern class actions, adopted by the state supreme court, Pa.R.C.P. No. 1701 Et seq., 42...