Montgomery Cnty. v. Hamilton
| Decision Date | 21 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | A16A0541 |
| Citation | 788 S.E.2d 89,337 Ga.App. 500 |
| Parties | Montgomery County v. Hamilton |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Howard C. Kaufold Jr., Kaufold & Everett, Vidalia, Michael A. O'Quinn, Jacob Stalvey O'neal, O'Quinn & Cronin, McDonough, for Appellant.
Thomas Alexander Peterson IV, Vidalia, James L. Roberts IV, Roberts Tate, LLC, St. Simons Island, for Appellee.
Montgomery County, Georgia (the “County”) appeals from the trial court's denial of its motion for summary judgment, as well as the court's grant of summary judgment against it in this class-action lawsuit seeking a tax refund on behalf of S. Keith Hamilton and similarly situated taxpayers residing in the unincorporated area of the County (the “unincorporated area”). Specifically, Hamilton sought a refund of Insurance Premium Tax proceeds (“IPTP”) that he alleged were used unlawfully by the County to fund certain “convenience centers” for the purpose of collecting and disposing of solid waste. On appeal, the County argues that the trial court erred in holding that its use of IPTP to pay the operating costs of the convenience centers was unauthorized under OCGA § 33–8–8.3, in ordering the County to refund those proceeds to Hamilton and the other class members (collectively, the “plaintiffs”), and by including its expenditure of IPTP from tax years 2006 through 2009 in the total amount of the awarded refund. For the reasons set forth infra , we reverse the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the plaintiffs and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The material facts underlying this appeal are undisputed.1 Since 1998, the County has funded, staffed, and maintained five convenience centers,2 which are located in the unincorporated area of the County and used for the purpose of collecting and disposing of solid waste. Thereafter, the County did not collect garbage or solid waste from the curbside of any residence or from the site of any property located in the unincorporated area. In fact, the County required the residents of that area to bring their trash to one of the five convenience centers for disposal. However, the County allowed anyone wishing to dispose of trash to use the centers. In 2005, the County began using IPTP to offset the cost of staffing and operating the convenience centers. Specifically, for the tax years of 2006 through 2014, the County spent the following amounts of IPTP in connection with operating the centers:
| 2006: | $59,680.26 |
| 2007: | $115,721.11 |
| 2008: | $136,424.45 |
| 2009: | $122,677.55 |
| 2010: | $131,420.59 |
| 2011: | $119,750.07 |
| 2012: | $142,526.00 |
| 2013: | $127,360.70 |
| 2014: | $151,479.60 |
On September 9, 2013, Hamilton submitted a request for a tax refund to the Montgomery County Commissioners for the years 2007 through 2009, for a total amount of $2,257.04. According to Hamilton, this amount represented the taxes levied on him “through the failure of Montgomery County Commissioners to correctly roll back the Insurance Premium Tax on inhabitants of the unincorporated area of Montgomery County.” On September 25, 2013, the County denied Hamilton's request and informed him that the IPTP had been allocated to fund services that primarily benefit the inhabitants of the unincorporated area of the County. Hamilton then requested a tax refund from the County on behalf of himself and the other property owners in the unincorporated area for the tax years 2006 through 2013, again alleging that the County had improperly levied taxes for those years. But the County denied this second request as well. Subsequently, Hamilton revised his refund request to include the 2014 tax year, and yet again, the County denied his request.
On December 18, 2013, Hamilton filed a “verified class action complaint” against the County, seeking a refund of a portion of IPTP for the tax years 2007 through 2012, which he contended had been used by the County for unauthorized purposes. Hamilton sought to initiate the action on his own behalf and other similarly situated property owners in the unincorporated area of the County. In addition to his request for a tax refund, Hamilton also asserted claims for declaratory relief, mandamus, permanent injunctive relief, and attorney fees for bad faith and stubborn litigiousness. The County answered, denying any wrongdoing and asserting several affirmative defenses. Hamilton then filed an amended complaint, alleging, inter alia , that the County's use of IPTP to fund the convenience centers was unauthorized under OCGA § 33–8–8.3 because that statute only permits the County to use such funds for “curbside or on[-]site residential or commercial garbage and solid waste collection.” As a result of the allegedly unauthorized funding of the convenience centers, Hamilton claimed that the class was entitled to a refund of these impermissible expenditures for the tax years 2006 through 2013.
Discovery ensued, after which the parties reached an agreement as to several of the allegations in the amended complaint, and the trial court issued a consent order memorializing their agreement. Consistent with this agreement, the court granted Hamilton's requests for mandamus, declaratory, and injunctive relief in some respects and denied them in others. In addition, the court granted Hamilton's request for class certification, ordering that the class would consist of property owners in the unincorporated area who paid property taxes in any year from 2006 through 2014. The certified class included three subclasses of property owners: those who paid property taxes during 2006 and 2007; those who paid property taxes during 2008 and 2009; and those who paid property taxes between 2010 and 2014. As a result of the consent order, the only unresolved issues in the case were: (1) whether OCGA § 33–8–8.3 authorized the County to use IPTP to pay the costs of operating its convenience centers for collecting solid waste; and (2) if not, what amount of ad valorem taxes must be refunded to Hamilton and the class of persons he represents? The court reserved ruling on these issues and ordered the parties to file cross-motions for summary judgment, addressing each issue, and to submit a set of stipulated facts.
Thereafter, in compliance with the consent order, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment and a set of stipulated facts. After the parties filed responses, the court issued an order, granting the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and denying the County's cross-motion. The court awarded the plaintiffs a total tax refund of $1,107,043.33, which represented the amount of IPTP used to operate the convenience centers from 2006 to 2014. The County then moved for reconsideration, arguing, inter alia , that due to the three-year statute of limitation for seeking tax refunds, the plaintiffs, who initiated this action in 2013, could not be awarded a refund for any taxes paid prior to 2010.3 In connection with the motion for reconsideration, the County also filed a motion to partially set aside the court's judgment as to the tax years 2006 through 2009. Ultimately, the court denied both motions. This appeal follows.
At the outset, we note that on appeal from the grant of summary judgment, “we construe the evidence most favorably towards the nonmoving party, who is given the benefit of all reasonable doubts and possible inferences.”4 And the party opposing summary judgment is not required to produce evidence demanding judgment for it, but is “only required to present evidence that raises a genuine issue of material fact.”5 But when only a question of law is at issue, as here, we “owe no deference to the trial court's ruling and apply the ‘plain legal error’ standard of review.”6 Indeed, as recently noted by our Supreme Court, “[t]he interpretation of statutes ... presents a question of law for the court.”7 With these guiding principles in mind, we turn now to the County's specific claims of error.
1. The County first argues that the trial court erred in ruling that its use of IPTP to staff and operate its convenience centers is unauthorized by OCGA § 33–8–8.3. We agree.
When we interpret any statute, we necessarily begin our analysis with “familiar and binding canons of construction.”8 In considering the meaning of a statute, our charge as an appellate court is to “presume that the General Assembly meant what it said and said what it meant.”9 Toward that end, we must afford the statutory text its plain and ordinary meaning,10 consider the text contextually,11 read the text “in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would,”12 and seek to “avoid a construction that makes some language mere surplusage.”13 And when the language of a statute is “plain and susceptible to only one natural and reasonable construction, courts must construe the statute accordingly.”14 Finally, we note that when a taxing statute has doubtful meaning, it must be construed forgivingly “in favor of the taxpayer and against the State.”15
Turning to the specific statute at issue here, OCGA § 33–8–8.3(a) provides:
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