Gwinnett County v. Gwinnett I Ltd. Partnership
| Decision Date | 30 June 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. S94G1822,S94G1822 |
| Parties | GWINNETT COUNTY, Georgia et al. v. GWINNETT I LIMITED PARTNERSHIP. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Caryl Brinson Sumner, County Atty., Michael Van Stephens, II, Frederick D. Burkey, Gwinnett County Dept. of Law, Lawrenceville, for Gwinnett County Ga., et al.
T. Michael Tennant, Timothy J. Peaden, Lori P. Hughes, G. Conley Ingram, Alston & Bird, Atlanta, for Gwinnett I Ltd. Partnership.
In 1990, Gwinnett I Limited Partnership (GILP) bought an apartment complex in a foreclosure sale and paid the 1989 property taxes under protest. Although the previous owner had not challenged the property tax assessment when it was made, GILP filed a claim for a refund of almost half the tax it had paid, asserting that the 1989 assessment was illegal and erroneous because of improper valuation, lack of uniformity, and lack of equalization. When the claim was denied, GILP filed a refund suit against Gwinnett County and the county officials involved (collectively, the County). The trial court granted summary judgment to the County, concluding that issues of valuation, uniformity, and equalization could be addressed only by means of the appeal process provided in OCGA § 48-5-311. The Court of Appeals, relying largely on Marconi Avionics, Inc. v. DeKalb County, 165 Ga.App. 628, 302 S.E.2d 384 (1983), reversed that judgment, holding that OCGA § 48-5-311 is not the exclusive method of challenging assessments on the grounds raised by GILP. Gwinnett I, LTD v. Gwinnett County, 214 Ga.App. 248, 447 S.E.2d 679 (1994). We granted the writ of certiorari to consider whether a taxpayer may raise issues of valuation, uniformity, and equalization in an action under OCGA § 48-5-380 seeking a refund of ad valorem real property taxes. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that those issues may be raised in such a refund action, but only if the claim is based on an assertion of illegality in the procedure employed or on a factual inaccuracy in the record.
In Marconi Avionics, supra, the Court of Appeals held that a refund action was an appropriate vehicle for challenging the taxability of property, notwithstanding the taxpayer's failure to follow the appellate process which specifically includes taxability as an issue appropriate for appeal. See OCGA § 48-5-311(e)(1). In the present case, the Court of Appeals concluded that there is no basis for distinguishing between taxability and the other grounds mentioned in § 48-5-311(e)(1), value and uniformity. We agree with the Court of Appeals that there is no valid distinction which would warrant forbidding refund actions based on the two latter grounds but not those based on the first.
There is, however, a distinction to be drawn between the two types of action. The difference between the two statutory procedures may most readily be seen in the nature of the proceedings. A property owner who receives an assessment and is dissatisfied with it or believes the assessed property is not taxable or that uniformity and equalization have not been achieved may take up the issue under the procedure supplied by § 48-5-311, where a mutually acceptable resolution is sought by expedited processes less formal than litigation. Although that procedure may result in litigation and lead to an adjudication, it does so only where the parties are not able to reach agreement. A claim under the refund statute, on the other hand, starts in the formal adversarial context of making a claim for relief based on an assertion that taxes have been collected through error or illegality, and proceeds from there to superior court. Also basic to the differing natures of the two procedures are the time periods involved. An appeal from an assessment is governed by time periods measured in days, and jury trials in such appeals are to be heard at the first term following the filing of the appeal. OCGA § 48-5-311(e)(2)(A) and (g)(4)(A). A refund action, though, may be brought any time within three years of the payment of taxes (OCGA § 48-5-380(b)); that time is extended further by provisions giving the governing authority of the county a year to decide the claim (assuming there are no extensions, which the statute also permits) and giving the taxpayer another year after that denial to file the action in superior court (id., subsection (b)); and there is no statutory requirement that the action be expedited in superior court.
We conclude that the legislature intended the two...
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