GWINNETT COUNTY BOARD v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CAP. COMPUTER SERVS.

• Decision Date: 13 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. S00G0406., No. S00G0405
• Parties: GWINNETT COUNTY BOARD OF TAX ASSESSORS v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CAPITAL COMPUTER SERVICES (Two Cases).
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

538 S.E.2d 746

273 Ga. 175

GWINNETT COUNTY BOARD OF TAX ASSESSORS v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CAPITAL COMPUTER SERVICES (Two Cases).

Nos. S00G0405, S00G0406.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

November 13, 2000.

Reconsideration Denied November 30, 2000.

Carothers & Mitchell, Richard A. Carothers, Thomas M. Mitchell, Buford, for appellant.

Ragsdale, Beals, Hooper & Seigler, David K. Beals, Lisa F. Stuckey, Atlanta, Karen G. Thomas, County Attorney, for appellee.

HINES, Justice.

We granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in General Electric Capital Computer Services v. Gwinnett County Board of Tax Assessors, 240 Ga.App. 629, 523 S.E.2d 651 (1999), cases involving the freeport exemption in OCGA § 48-5-48.2(b),¹ to address whether the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars the litigation of a tax issue litigated in a prior year where there has been no significant factual change, but where there has been a change or development in the law. We conclude that collateral estoppel may not pose a bar under such circumstance; but, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals in these cases because there has not been such an intervening change or development in the law.

The history of this litigation is chronicled in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. In the early 1990's, General Electric Capital Computer Services (GECC) wished to establish a Georgia warehouse facility to store testing and measuring equipment which it held for sale, lease, and rental to customers in and out of Georgia. GECC was assured its inventory would be exempt from ad valorem taxes under OCGA § 48-5-48.2, and GECC located its warehouse facility in Gwinnett County and was granted the promised freeport exemption for tax year 1992. However, in tax year 1993, the Gwinnett County Board of Tax Assessors denied GECC's application for the freeport exemption. GECC appealed to the superior court, which, by a final order and judgment entered in June, 1994, reversed the Board's decision.² In 1995, the Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion the superior court's 1994 decision.³

A year later, the parties entered into a consent order to resolve disputes which arose after entry of the 1994 order. The Board of Tax Assessors agreed to refund to GECC ad valorem taxes paid in 1993 to the extent these were determined to be subject to the freeport exemption, and granted GECC's 1994 and 1995 applications for the exemption. GECC agreed to waive its right to seek additional sums and all counterclaims were dismissed without prejudice.

The present actions arise from the Board's denial of GECC's applications for the freeport exemption in tax years 1996 and 1997 upon the finding that GECC's Gwinnett County warehouse inventory did not qualify for the exemption because of a failure to meet the requirements of OCGA § 48-5-48.2. Before the superior court, GECC argued that the Board was precluded as a matter of law from pursuing payment of ad valorem taxes on GECC's inventory because of the 1994 ruling. The superior court found that GECC's inventory in question was the same type that was at issue in the court's 1994 ruling and that none of the material facts or circumstances concerning GECC's business had changed since the earlier decision; however, citing Apollo Travel Services v. Gwinnett County Board of Tax Assessors, 230 Ga.App. 790, 498 S.E.2d 297 (1998), the superior court concluded that the inventory was not eligible for the freeport exemption.⁴ GECC challenged the superior court's denial of its motions for summary judgment and its grant of the Board's cross-motions for summary judgment regarding its applications for the freeport exemption in tax years 1996 and 1997. GECC argued to the Court of Appeals that the doctrine of collateral estoppel precluded the relitigation of the question of the eligibility of its warehouse inventory for the freeport exemption. The Court of Appeals agreed; it concluded that the superior court's grant of summary judgment to the Board based upon Apollo constituted an impermissible relitigation of GECC's eligibility for the freeport exemption, the issue the Board was estopped to deny by the 1994 order. The Court of Appeals explained that while it had denied the taxpayer the freeport exemption in Apollo, finding its inventory ineligible for exemption as "stock in trade" under OCGA § 48-5-48.2(a)(4),⁵ the 1994 order in this instance ruled to the contrary as to at least a portion of GECC's inventory, and that the evidence was that thereafter no change occurred in the relevant inventory. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that the superior court erred as a matter of law in granting summary judgment to the Board and denying summary judgment to GECC. ⁶

1. The doctrine of collateral estoppel "precludes the re-adjudication of an issue that has previously been litigated and adjudicated on the merits in another action between the same parties or their privies. Like res judicata, collateral estoppel requires the identity of the parties or their privies in both actions. However, unlike res judicata, collateral estoppel does not require identity of the claim—so long as the issue was determined in the previous action and there is identity of the parties, that issue may not be re-litigated, even as part of a different claim." Waldroup v. Greene County Hosp. Auth., 265 Ga. 864, 866(2), 463 S.E.2d 5 (1995). See also Jebco Ventures v. City of Smyrna, 259 Ga. 599, 601(1), 385 S.E.2d 397 (1989).

It is plain that collateral estoppel applies to successive years in regard to the freeport exemption for such years based upon substantially the same facts. Fulton County Tax Commissioner v. General Motors Corporation, 234 Ga.App. 459, 465(1), 507 S.E.2d 772 (1998). Compare Hawes v. Superior Pine Products Co., 225 Ga. 392, 169 S.E.2d 126 (1969), which involved an amendment to the contract at issue as well as an amendment to the revenue laws. And the Court of Appeals has, in the context of a dispute about the distribution of sales and use tax revenues, cursorily noted that collateral estoppel would not be a bar when there has been an intervening and significant change in the law. Jackson v. City of College Park, 230 Ga.App. 487, 490(1), 496 S.E.2d 777 (1998).

The Supreme Court of the United States has addressed the role of collateral estoppel in a tax dispute. In Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948), a case involving the question of federal income tax consequences of intra-family assignments of income, the Court observed that collateral estoppel operates to relieve both the government and the taxpayer of redundant litigation of the same question of a statute's application to the taxpayer's status. Id. at 599, 68 S.Ct. 715. However, the Court stated that the salutary purpose of the doctrine ceased in situations of "a subsequent modification of the significant facts or a change or development in the controlling legal principles" which would render the past determination "obsolete or erroneous, at least for future purposes." Id. The Court contemplated a situation that is "vitally altered" between the times of the first and second judgment. Id. at 600, 68 S.Ct. 715.

In the subsequent case of Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 99 S.Ct. 970, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979), involving the constitutionality of the imposition of a gross receipts tax, the Supreme Court emphasized that application of collateral estoppel along with the doctrine of res judicata was "central to the purpose for which civil courts have been established, the conclusive resolution of disputes within their jurisdiction." Id. at 973(II). Thus, the Montana Court concluded that the Government's reliance on Sunnen to void preclusion was misplaced absent "major changes" in the applicable law. Id. at 977(III)(B). It elaborated that, "[u]nderlying the Sunnen decision was a concern that modifications in `controlling legal principles,' ... could render a previous determination inconsistent with prevailing doctrine...."

Such considerations are not present in this case.

2. Both the Court of Appeals and the trial court found that there was no factual change in GECC's inventory. And there is no dispute that there has been no change in the relevant provisions of OCGA § 48-5-48.2. Thus, the question of preclusion focuses on Apollo. Pretermitting any question of similarity of GECC's inventory to that in Apollo, the analysis in Apollo does not reveal a change in the law regarding the freeport exemption, much less a major change or a modification of such significance so as to render prior determinations under the exemption erroneous or obsolete. The Apollo court framed the central issue in the appeal as "whether the computers that Apollo claims should be exempted from taxation, constituted inventory of finished goods within the meaning of the freeport exemption." Apollo at 792(4), 498 S.E.2d 297. The analysis then merely quoted the extent of the exemption as stated in OCGA § 48-5-48.2(b)(3), and the definitions of "finished goods" and "stock in trade of a retailer" in subsections (a)(2)⁷ and (4) of the statute. The Court of Appeals concluded that the computers in question did not meet the definition of "inventory of finished goods" as contemplated by OCGA § 48-5-48.2 because they were not goods being held for shipment to final destinations outside Georgia for resale; instead, the computers were in the nature of Apollo's stock-in-trade which Apollo was holding for shipment to its retail customers. Apollo at 793(4), 498 S.E.2d 297. Thus, the Court of Appeals was merely applying the express terms of OCGA § 48-5-48.2 to the circumstances at hand and ruling on the facts of Apollo's inventory. That Apollo signaled no change in the law regarding the freeport exemption is further borne out by the fact that in finding Apollo not entitled to the freeport exemption, the Court stated that it was "reading the statute according to the natural and...