Martha's Vineyard Land Bank Commission v. Board of Assessors of West Tisbury, No. 02-P-1638 (MA 9/15/2004)

• Decision Date: 15 September 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-P-1638.,02-P-1638.
• Citation: 62 Mass. App. Ct. 25
• Parties: MARTHA'S VINEYARD LAND BANK COMMISSION vs . BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF WEST TISBURY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1

MARTHA'S VINEYARD LAND BANK COMMISSION vs. BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF WEST TISBURY.

No. 02-P-1638.

Court of Appeals of Massachusetts.

Suffolk.

February 2, 2004.

September 15, 2004.

Martha's Vineyard Land Bank Commission. Taxation, Real estate tax: abatement, Real estate tax: exemption.

Appeal from a decision of the Appellate Tax Board.

Adam P. Kahn for the plaintiff.

Ellen M. Hutchinson for the defendant.

Present: Laurence, Kaplan, & Beck, JJ.

LAURENCE, J.

The Martha's Vineyard Land Bank Commission (commission) has appealed a decision of the Appellate Tax Board (ATB) that denied the commission's petition for abatement of the last two quarterly payments of the real property tax assessed for fiscal year 2002 on a piece of land in West Tisbury then owned by the commission. The ATB's decision was unaccompanied by findings (unsurprisingly, since the parties had stipulated to the material facts) or opinion. It upheld a decision of the board of assessors of West Tisbury (assessors) that had denied — also without findings or opinion — the commission's application for abatement.

The tax in question had been duly assessed as of January 1, 2001 (pursuant to G. L. c. 59, §§ 11 & 21), on the land in question, which was owned of record on that date by a private party, who subsequently made the first two preliminary tax payments on the assessment. That private owner then sold the property to the commission on October 30, 2001. The last two quarterly tax bills, addressed to the original owner but sent to the commission, remain unpaid. See G. L. c. 59, § 64, allowing appeal without payment of the tax if it is less than $3,000.

The commission takes the position that its enabling act, St. 1985, c. 736, as amended by St. 1987, c. 673, explicitly provides for an exemption from the tax as of and from the date it acquired the property.¹ The assessors assert that the taxable status of property within the municipality for the fiscal year is fixed as of the January 1 assessment date according to the tax status of the record owner. Therefore, the assessors contend, the land at issue here, being taxable as of January 1, 2001, continued to be subject to the tax through the remainder of the fiscal year, although the assessors also cryptically state that "there is no obligation imposed on [the commission], by the town of West Tisbury, to pay the [fiscal year] 2002 taxes."²

We conclude that, under the plain and unambiguous language of its enabling act, the commission is exempt from and does not have to pay any taxes, including the tax at issue.³

As always when the meaning of a statute is at issue, the initial inquiry focuses on the actual language of that statute. International Fid. Ins. Co. v. Wilson, 387 Mass. 841, 853 (1983). "Where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, it is conclusive as to legislative intent," Pyle v. School Comm. of S. Hadley, 423 Mass. 283, 285 (1996); and "the courts enforce the statute according to its [plain] wording," Weitzel v. Travelers Ins. Cos., 417 Mass. 149, 153 (1994), which "`we are constrained to follow' . . . [so long as] its application would not lead to an `absurd result' . . . ." Commissioner of Rev. v. Cargill, Inc., 429 Mass. 79, 82 (1999), quoting from White v. Boston, 428 Mass. 250, 253 (1998). "[W]hen a statute speaks with clarity to an issue[,] judicial inquiry into the statute's meaning, in all but the most extraordinary circumstance, is finished." Beaupre v. Cliff Smith & Assocs., 50 Mass. App. Ct. 480, 491 (2000), quoting from Estate of Cowart v. Niklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. 469, 475 (1992). "[We] need not look beyond the words of the statute itself" in such a case, Massachusetts Broken Stone Co. v. Weston, 430 Mass. 637, 640 (2000), even if "we . . . recognize a potential unfairness within a statute's clear language . . . . [or] that a statute creates a potential anomaly." Commonwealth v. Mandell, 61 Mass. App. Ct. 526, 528 (2004).

Section 4G of the commission's enabling act, inserted by St. 1987, c. 673, § 9, see note 1, supra, contains just such plain, clear, and unambiguous language⁴ that puts an end to the controversy. As if anticipating this very situation, the Legislature provided the commission with exemptive suspenders as well as a belt. The commission's real property is first imbued with a mandatory general exemption from taxation of any sort during the period when it is "used solely . . . in furtherance of its public purposes" — a use that the parties stipulated was in fact made of the property here at issue from and after October 30, 2001. Then, that categorical exemption is functionally reinforced by the immediately following language, which explicitly frees the commission from having to pay any State or local tax or assessment on its real property so used or otherwise.⁵

The assessors' primary argument against the extent of the tax exemption claimed by the commission rests upon a comparative reference to the tax exemption provision in the enabling act of the Nantucket Islands Land Bank, a public instrumentality created with essentially the same purposes and powers as, and almost contemporaneously with, the commission. That provision, as appearing St. 1987, c. 666, § 3 (amending St. 1983, c. 669, § 8), states that the Nantucket Islands Land Bank's "[r]eal property held in [its] name . . . or [in the name of] its designee shall be exempt from property taxes as of the date of acquisition of title by the . . . land bank or its designee; and any taxes assessed against such real property interests shall be abated for that portion of any fiscal year during which the real property interests was [sic] owned by . . . land bank or its designee."⁶

The assessors direct us to the canons of statutory construction teaching that related statutes are to be construed together to produce a harmonious, systemic whole and that differences in language between such statutes must reflect different intended meanings. Relying on those maxims, the assessors assert that the absence of the words "as of the date of acquisition of title" from the commission's exemption provision demonstrates that the commission's tax exemption must be narrower and, with respect to property acquired after January 1, 2001, cannot arise until the following fiscal year's assessment, January 1, 2002.

The assessors' invocation of those canons is, however, inapposite. Like all such interpretive principles, they "do[] not apply when (as here) the statutory language is so clear as to make extrinsic aids unnecessary, especially . . . aid[s] whose application would be contrary to the Legislature's undoubted purpose." Petrucci v. Board of Appeals of Westwood, 45 Mass. App. Ct. 818, 823 n.8 (1998). See Brook House Condominium Trust v. Automatic Sprinkler Appeals Bd., 414 Mass. 303, 306 (1993). When "statutory language . . . is sufficiently clear . . . we need not seek further enlightenment from other sources." New England Med. Center Hosp., Inc. v. Commissioner of Rev., 381 Mass. 748, 750 (1980).⁷

"Although [the] clear statutory language . . . [in this case] obviates the need to resort to rules of interpretation" meant to help resolve ambiguities, such rules can "be referenced by way of supplementary confirmation of the intent reflected in the words used." Petrucci v. Board of Appeals of Westwood, 45 Mass. App. Ct. at 822 n.7. Such confirmation is here provided by the statutory context, see note 4, supra, particularly the Legislature's buttressing of the commission's powers with the explicit declarations that their exercise is to be deemed "an essential governmental function" and that the entire enabling act is to be "liberally construed" to effect the public purposes set forth therein for the welfare of the inhabitants of Martha's Vineyard. See note 1, supra.

"The doctrine of essential governmental functions prohibits municipalities from regulating entities or agencies created by the Legislature in a manner that interferes with their legislatively mandated purpose . . . or otherwise hinders the accomplishment of [the] statutory mandate." Greater Lawrence Sanitary Dist. v. North Andover, 439 Mass. 16, 21-22 (2003). "The scope of the immunity [provided by that doctrine] is broad," and extends to agency actions that are "reasonably related" to fulfilling its essential governmental function. Bourne v. Plante, 429 Mass. 329, 332 (1999). Although this doctrine "does not . . . [provide an agency with] absolute immunity from all local regulations," it does apply to municipal actions that in fact "interfere with [the agency's] essential governmental purposes" and have more than "a negligible effect on its operations." Greater Lawrence Sanitary Dist. v. North Andover, supra at 22. Subjecting the commission's revenues to up to a year's real estate taxation by each of the several municipalities on Martha's Vineyard every time the commission acquires property on a date other than January 1 of each year would manifestly strike at the commission's raison d'etre and could significantly erode its intended utility, by reducing its revenues available for increasing the island's land reserves dedicated to the environmental, conservation, and other vital public purposes specified in its enabling act. See note 1, supra.⁸

The provision mandating liberal construction has been held, in the case of this very commission, to modify the conventional presumptions of statutory construction in favor of the commission in order to effectuate its stated purposes. See Long v. Martha's Vineyard Land Bank Commn., 35 Mass. App. Ct. 546, 549 (1993). Moreover, the principle of liberal construction militates against any interpretation or application that would create results inconsistent not only with the words but also with the public purposes expressed in the underlying statute. See Gross v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 48 Mass. App. Ct. 115, 120 (1999). Cf. Assessors of Newton v. Pickwick Ltd., 351 Mass. 621, 624-626 (1967) (a stat...