KT Winneburg, LLC v. Roth
| Decision Date | 07 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 4-19-0274,4-19-0274 |
| Citation | 2020 IL App (4th) 190274,445 Ill.Dec. 810,168 N.E.3d 685 |
| Parties | KT WINNEBURG, LLC, a Missouri Limited Liability Company Registered to Do Business in the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lisa ROTH, in Her Official Capacity as Collector and Treasurer of Calhoun County, Illinois, and Calhoun County, Defendants-Appellees (The Board of Education of Brussels Community Unit School District No. 42, Intervenor-Appellee). |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Elliott L. Turpin, of Carrollton, for appellant.
Richard J. Ringhausen, State's Attorney, of Hardin (Patrick Delfino, of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), and Christopher E. Sherer and John M. Galaba, of Giffin, Winning, Cohen & Bodewes, P.C., of Springfield, for appellee Lisa Roth.
H. Allen Yow and Koert J. Brown, of Rammelkamp Bradney, P.C., of Jacksonville, for other appellee.
¶ 1 Plaintiff, KT Winneburg, LLC, owns some platted and subdivided land in Calhoun County, Illinois. For the 2013 tax year, the Calhoun County Board of Review classified the land as entirely residential, even though the land was unimproved and, to the extent it was not timberland, had been used for the growing and harvesting of crops. Plaintiff filed a tax objection complaint in the Calhoun County circuit court, naming, as defendant, Lisa Roth, in her official capacity as Collector and Treasurer of Calhoun County, Illinois. Also, the Board of Education of Brussels Community Unit School District No. 42 obtained leave to intervene, and on plaintiff's motion for joinder, Calhoun County, Illinois (the county) was added as a defendant. Against those three entities (collectively, defendants), plaintiff maintained that the land should have been classified in the 2013 tax year as farmland—a classification that would have resulted in a lower assessment and, hence, a lower property tax.
¶ 2 After granting a section 2-619 motion by defendants to dismiss, with prejudice, count II of plaintiff's amended complaint (see 735 ILCS 5/2-619 (West 2016) ), the circuit court held a bench trial on the remaining count. In its written decision, the court found, pursuant to a stipulation by the parties, that 5 of the 89 parcels should be classified as common ground. See 35 ILCS 200/10-35 (West 2018). As for the remaining 84 parcels, the court found a failure to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the residential classification was incorrect. Plaintiff appeals on two grounds.
¶ 3 First, plaintiff argues that the circuit court erred by granting defendants' motion to dismiss count II of the amended complaint. In count II, plaintiff sought to enforce an alleged settlement agreement with the county—as plaintiff previously tried to do, without success, in litigation before the Property Tax Appeal Board. Because of the unappealed final decision in that administrative litigation, we find plaintiff to be collaterally estopped from asserting the enforceability of the settlement agreement. Thus, we affirm the dismissal of count II.
¶ 4 Second, plaintiff argues that the circuit court clearly erred by confirming the county board's assessments of the non-common-ground parcels as residential property. We agree. No one lived on the land or built a house on it. To the extent the land was used at all, it was used only as farmland. To be assessed as farmland, land must be used as farmland for three consecutive years, that is, not only for the tax year in question but also for the preceding two years. 35 ILCS 200/10-110 (West 2012). To the extent that the 84 non-common-ground parcels were not timberland, the only use to which they were put from 2011 to 2013 was the growing and harvesting of crops. The cropland and the timberland alike met the statutory definition of farmland. See id. §§ 1-60, 10-110, 10-125(a), (c).
¶ 5 Therefore, we affirm in part and reverse in part the circuit court's judgment.
¶ 7 The amended complaint had two counts.
¶ 8 In count I, plaintiff alleged that, for the 2013 tax year, the Calhoun County Board of Review assessed the land as residential property whereas the land always had been used, and continued to be used, as farmland. Plaintiff also claimed to be entitled to a developer's exemption. (We will explain all these terms in a moment.)
¶ 9 In count II, plaintiff accused the county of reneging on an oral settlement agreement. Allegedly, the county and plaintiff reached the agreement in February 2014, in a hearing before the Property Tax Appeal Board on the 2010 assessments. The alleged settlement covered not only the 2010 tax year but succeeding tax years. According to count II, the county, through Special Assistant State's Attorney Christopher E. Sherer, agreed as follows: "[F]or the tax years 2010 through 2013, the total assessment for the aggregate of all of the lots * * * would be $20,000.00; then beginning in tax year 2014, the property would be assessed as farmland or timber, whichever was the current use on each lot in question, until the use of the lots changed."
¶ 10 Pursuant to section 2-619 of the Code of Civil Procedure ( 735 ILCS 5/2-619 (West 2016) ), defendants moved to dismiss count II of the amended complaint. One of the grounds for the requested dismissal was collateral estoppel. The estopping decision, according to defendants, was the final decision by the Property Tax Appeal Board in the administrative litigation over the 2010 assessments. In its decision, the Property Tax Appeal Board adopted and incorporated its administrative law judge's denial of plaintiff's motion to enforce the settlement agreement. The rationale for the denial was that the oral agreement was nonbinding on the county because when Sherer presented the agreement to the county board, the agreement was voted down. (After the settlement negotiations, Sherer reported back to the administrative law judge: " ‘I have been informed by the County Board Chairman that the Intervenor (Calhoun County) will not be agreeing to stipulate in this matter.’ ") Therefore, the Property Tax Appeal Board decided, there was no meeting of the minds. Plaintiff never sought judicial review of the Property Tax Appeal Board's final decision. As a result, defendants argued in their section 2-619 motion, plaintiff now was collaterally estopped from asserting the enforceability of the settlement agreement. See id. § 2-619(a)(4). Defendants had a fallback argument for dismissing count II: they argued that Sherer had lacked authority from the county to enter into the oral settlement agreement.
¶ 11 In March 2018, the circuit court granted defendants' motion to dismiss count II with prejudice. While the court disagreed with defendants that Sherer lacked authority to settle for the 2010 tax year, the court agreed that he lacked authority to settle for tax years after 2010. The insufficiency of his authority, the court reasoned, lay in the open-endedness of the settlement agreement. The agreement purported to bind all the taxing districts, even though they had received no notice that any tax years other than 2010 were in dispute in the administrative litigation. Two further reasons the court gave for the dismissal of count II were collateral estoppel and (a point none of the defendants had raised) the lack of consideration to support a settlement contract. So, count II of the amended complaint was stricken, and count I was left standing.
¶ 12 In November 2018, a bench trial on count I commenced. The evidence tended to show the following.
¶ 13 In 2008, in a sheriff's sale, plaintiff bought some land that already had been platted and subdivided. The land was made up of 89 parcels organized into four subdivisions: Winneburg Estates, Deer Trail, Fox Run, and Eagle's Nest.
¶ 14 All of this land was zoned as residential: specifically, R-2, for single-family residences. There had been some development to prepare the land for residential use. Water lines and telephone lines ran along some of the streets. A water line ran part of the way into Deer Trail subdivision, but there were no water meters. There were some electrical boxes near Fox Run and Deer Trail subdivisions, but none of the parcels had electrical service. Thirty-five houses had been built adjacent to plaintiff's land. No houses stood on plaintiff's land. Even so, restrictive covenants required that plaintiff's land be used only in ways that would keep it attractive for residential purposes. The covenants forbade any commercial use of the land. From 2011 to 2013, plaintiff had been marketing the land as ideal for the construction of single-family residences. Plaintiff, however, had built no gutters, sidewalks, or sewers.
¶ 15 Instead, from 2011 to 2013, Bobby Weischaar, with plaintiff's permission, had been planting and harvesting corn and soybeans on 14 of the 89 parcels—even though, under the Calhoun County zoning ordinances, farming was impermissible in R-2 zones. Plaintiff had no crop share lease with Weischaar. Plaintiff bore none of the expenses of the farming and shared none of the profits. Plaintiff allowed Weischaar to farm the 14 parcels for free, to keep down the Johnson grass and to save on mowing. Crops looked better than weedy, overgrown parcels.
¶ 16 The 14 parcels in cultivation were in Winneburg Estates subdivision. They were farmed right up to the point where the terrain sloped down steeply into timber. The parties stipulated that the other three subdivisions—Deer Trail, Fox Run, and...
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