Geneva Towers Ltd. Partnership v. City and Cty. of San Francisco, S090136.

• Citation: 129 Cal.Rptr.2d 107,29 Cal.4th 769,60 P.3d 692
• Decision Date: 09 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. S090136.,S090136.
• Parties: GENEVA TOWERS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: California Supreme Court

129 Cal.Rptr.2d 107

29 Cal.4th 769

60 P.3d 692

GENEVA TOWERS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Defendant and Respondent.

No. S090136.

Supreme Court of California.

January 9, 2003.

Divelbiss, Divelbiss & Bonzell, Robert Owen Divelbiss, Mark J. Divelbiss, Oakland; and Robert S. Beach, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Bewley, Lassleben & Miller, Jeffrey S. Baird, Whittier, and Joseph A. Vinatieri as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant. Dennis J. Herrera and Louise H. Renne, City Attorneys, Patrick J. Mahoney, Jeffrey I. Margolis, Julie Van Nostern, Ellen Forman, Joseph M. Quinn and Owen Martikan, Deputy City Attorneys, for Defendant and Respondent.

Ruth Sorensen, Alturas, for California State Association of Counties as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Timothy G. Laddish, Assistant Attorney General; and David H. Levine for California State Board of Equalization and California Franchise Tax Board as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

MORENO, J.

In this case, we consider what statute of limitations applies when a county or city fails to act upon a claim for refund of property taxes within six months and the taxpayer elects under Revenue and Taxation Code section 5141, subdivision (b) to "consider the claim rejected and bring an action" in superior court. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the applicable statute of limitations is the six-month period set forth in Revenue and Taxation Code section 5141, subdivision (a), rather than the general four-year statute of limitations set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 343 applied by the Court of Appeal.

We also consider when the applicable statute of limitations begins to run. The Court of Appeal held that the limitations period begins to run on the first day the taxpayer could consider the claim rejected, i.e., six months after the claim for refund was filed. We disagree. As explained below, the limitations period begins to run when the county or city rejects the claim for refund in whole or in part or, if the public entity fails to act within six months, when the claimant elects to consider the claim rejected and bring an action for a tax refund. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

FACTS

On November 27, 1991, plaintiff Geneva Towers Limited Partnership submitted a claim for a refund of property taxes to defendant City and County of San Francisco, asserting the assessed value of the apartment building it owned was too high and seeking a partial refund of the property taxes it paid for the tax years 1987-1988 through 1990-1991.

More than seven years later, on January 26, 1999, plaintiff filed an action for a tax refund in superior court. In an amended complaint, plaintiff alleged that after it acquired the property in August, 1987, the Assessor-Recorder of the City and County of San Francisco set a new base year value for the property of $22,888,888. Following hearings before the Assessment Appeals Board, the base year value was reduced to $10,343,712. Plaintiff apparently believed the assessed value should have been reduced further and alleged that it paid the taxes in dispute and filed a Claim for Refund pursuant to section 5097 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, but no refund had been paid. The amended complaint does not state whether or when plaintiffs claim for refund was denied.

Defendant demurred, claiming that the action was barred by the statute of limitations, both under Revenue and Taxation Code section 5141, subdivision (a), which provides that an action for a tax refund "shall be commenced within six months from and after the date that the board of supervisors or city council rejects a claim for refund in whole or in part," and under Code of Civil Procedure section 343, which provides that an action for which a limitation period is not otherwise provided, "must be commenced within four years after the cause of action shall have accrued."

The superior court sustained defendant's demurrer without leave to amend on the ground that the action was barred by the six-month statute of limitations set forth in Revenue and Taxation Code section 5141, subdivision (a). The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment but disagreed with the trial court's reasoning, holding instead that the action was barred by the four-year statute of limitations set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 343 which, according to the Court of Appeal, began to run on the first day plaintiff could have considered the claim rejected, i.e., six months after the claim for refund was filed. We granted review.

DISCUSSION

Revenue and Taxation Code section 5141, subdivision (a)¹ establishes a six-month statute of limitations for an action for a property tax refund, stating that such an action "shall be commenced within six months from and after the date that the board of supervisors or city council rejects a claim for refund in whole or in part." Subdivision (b) of that statute establishes a different six-month period, providing that "if the board of supervisors or city council fails to mail notice of its action on a claim for refund within six months after the claim is filed, the claimant may, prior to mailing of notice by the board of supervisors or city council of its action on the claim, consider the claim rejected and bring an action under this article." ((Id., § 5141, subd. (b).) The statute thus permits, but does not require, a claimant to deem its claim denied if the county or city fails to give notice of its action within six months of the filing of the claim. (Cf. Estate of Moore (1974) 43 Cal.App.3d 334, 339,117 Cal.Rptr. 571.)

Section 5141, subdivision (b) does not establish any limitation period within which the claimant must deem the claim denied if not acted upon. We agree with the Court of Appeal, therefore, that the present claim was not automatically deemed denied six months after it was filed, and the six-month statute of limitations contained in section 5141, subdivision (a), which commences upon the board's denial of a claim, was not triggered at that time. We disagree, however, with the Court of Appeal's holding that the four-year statute of limitations set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 343 applies and begins to run six months after the claim was filed if the county or city fails to act upon a claim for refund within that time.

Code of Civil Procedure section 343 states: "An action for relief not hereinbefore provided for must be commenced within four years after the cause of action shall have accrued." It is a catchall provision that provides a statute of limitations in situations where no specific limitations period applies. (Stoll v. Superior Court (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 1362, 1366, 12 Cal. Rptr.2d 354; 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1996) Actions, § 617, p. 793.) "The legislature has . . . specified the limitations applicable to a wide variety of actions, and then to rebut the possible inference that actions not therein specifically described are to be regarded as exempt from limitations, it has specified a four-year limitation upon `an action for relief not hereinbefore provided for' (sec.343). . .." (Bogart v. George K. Porter, Co. (1924) 193 Cal. 197, 201, 223 P. 959.) The Court of Appeal applied the catchall provision of Code of Civil Procedure section 343 in the present case because it concluded that the six-month period set forth in section 5141, subdivision (a) did not apply to lawsuits in which the claimant had considered the claim rejected under subdivision (b) of that statute. We disagree.

The six-month statute of limitations set forth in section 5141, subdivision (a) applies to all actions against cities and counties for property tax refunds. Such actions are governed by section 5140, which authorizes a taxpayer to "bring an action . . . to recover a tax which the board of supervisors of the county or the city council of the city has refused to refund on a claim filed pursuant to . . . this chapter." The six-month statute of limitation set forth in section 5141, subdivision (a) applies to "[a]n action brought under this article. . .." An action for a property tax refund is brought under that article whether the claim was rejected or the claimant elected to consider the claim rejected under section 5141, subdivision (b). Section 5141, subdivision (a) thus provides a specific statute of limitations for all actions for property tax refunds. Accordingly, the catchall provision of Code of Civil Procedure section 343 does not apply. And the statute of limitations imposed by section 5141, subdivision (a), begins to run on "the date that the board of supervisors or city council rejects a claim for refund in whole or in part."

Accordingly, we reject defendant's contention that the statute of limitations in the present case began to run six months after the claim was filed. (See Signal Oil & Gas Co. v. Bradbury (1960) 183 Cal. App.2d 40, 43, 6 Cal.Rptr. 736 ["Inasmuch as the question of the illegality of the taxes is in dispute, rejection of the claims must be made by the board before suit to recover can be maintained."].) It is true that under subdivision (b) of section 5141, the claimant "may . . . consider the claim rejected and bring an action" (italics added) if the board of supervisors or city council fails to mail notice of its action on a claim for refund within six months after the claim is filed, but the claimant is not required to do so. Unless the claimant chooses to consider the claim rejected and files suit, the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the public entity denies the claim for refund. (Bunker v. County of Orange (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 542, 553, 126 Cal.Rptr.2d 825.)

A considerable time ago, we confronted these same issues in the context of a similar statutory scheme. In Bank of Ukiah v. Shoemake (1885) 67 Cal. 147, 7 P. 420, we...