Hayward v. Board of Assessors of City of Boston
| Decision Date | 28 November 1939 |
| Citation | 304 Mass. 355,23 N.E.2d 917 |
| Parties | GEORGE B. HAYWARD, trustee, v. ASSESSORS OF BOSTON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
May 3, 1939.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., QUA, DOLAN COX, & RONAN, JJ.
Appellate Tax Board. Tax, Abatement.
Under G.L. (Ter Ed.) c. 58A, Section 13, as amended, no appeal lies to this court from a denial by the Appellate Tax Board of a petition for lease to file an appeal from a refusal of assessors to abate a tax on real estate.
APPEAL, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on March 23, 1939, "from the final decree and order of the Appellate Tax Board dated March 22, 1939 refusing to permit the filing of the appellant's petition for abatement of taxes in this case."
On March 17, 1939 the appellant filed with the Appellate Tax Board a petition, entitled "Petition for Leave to File," representing that the clerk had refused to receive for filing a "petition . . . for abatement of real estate tax." Accompanying this petition "for Leave to File" was a "Petition under Formal Procedure," with averments as to overassessment, that the assessors had failed to act upon the appellant's application for abatement "within four months after the date of the filing thereof and the application therefore is deemed to be denied," and that the appellant was aggrieved thereby; a summary recital of provisions of St. 1938, c. 478, as to appeal from a refusal of assessors to abate a tax of more than $1,000 on real estate; and further averments that the appellant was "unable to comply with the requirements of St. 1938, c. 478," as to paying said tax or half of the same, and that the statute was unconstitutional in its requirements of payments as a prerequisite to a right to appeal. The petition "under formal procedure" closed as follows: "Wherefore this petitioner demands that this petition be filed and heard and acted upon by this board and this petitioner offers and presents herewith the statutory filing fee of this petition in the amount of $8 in lawful money." A single member of the board caused to be entered an order denying the petition to file appeal "on the ground that it appears by the petition that it is an appeal seeking an abatement of a tax on real estate, that said petitioner is not entitled to file an appeal under the provisions of G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 59, Section 65B, as added by St. 1938, c. 478, Section 3, in that no part of said tax has been paid."
A. W. Blakemore, (C.
Hamilton with him,) for the taxpayer.
R. H. Hopkins, Assistant Corporation Counsel, (E.
K. Nash, Assistant Corporation Counsel, with him,) for the assessors.
This appeal is not properly before us....
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