Pitt v. City of Stamford

• Decision Date: 08 August 1933
• Citation: 117 Conn. 388,167 A. 919
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: PITT v. CITY OF STAMFORD. SAME v. TOWN OF STAMFORD.

167 A. 919

117 Conn. 388

PITT v. CITY OF STAMFORD.

SAME v. TOWN OF STAMFORD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

August 8, 1933

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Frank P. McEvoy Judge.

Two separate actions by William H. Pitt, individually and as administrator of the estate of Washington H. Pitt, deceased against the City of Stamford and against the Town of Stamford to recover money alleged to have been paid as taxes under mutual mistake, brought to the superior court and tried together to the court. Judgment rendered in each case for the plaintiff, and appeal by each defendant.

Error and judgment for defendant in each case directed.

Maurice J. Buckley, of Stamford, for appellant City of Stamford.

Thomas J. Ryle, of Stamford, for appellant Town of Stamford.

Raymond E. Hackett, of Stamford, for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY, JJ.

HINMAN, Judge.

The plaintiff is administrator of the estate and sole heir of Washington H. Pitt, who died April 11, 1931. For many years the decedent owned a tract of land located on the corner of Main and Pacific streets in Stamford, having a frontage on Main street of approximately one hundred and one feet and three inches, and a depth on one side of sixty feet and on the other side of seventy-three and one-half feet. In October, 1925, Pitt filed a tax list in which he designated this property as consisting of one house lot, and described it as being one hundred feet and having an average depth of fifty feet. No owner's valuation was given. The assessors, for purposes of taxation, divided the tract into two lots, one being allocated a frontage on Main street of forty-two feet and the other a frontage of fifty-eight feet, and placed a valuation of $46,400 on the second lot, which is the one to which the present controversy relates. In 1926, 1927, and 1928 Pitt filed tax lists the same as in 1925, and in each of these years the same action was taken by the assessors and the same valuation placed upon the premises. Pitt neglected to file a list for 1929, and the assessors made one for him, listing his property as consisting of two lots having a frontage of forty-two feet and fifty-eight feet respectively. The valuation ascribed by the assessors to the second lot was $92,800, and to this there was added a 10 per cent. penalty. In 1930 Pitt filed a list in which his property was described as two lots of a frontage of forty-two feet and fifty-eight respectively, no owner's valuation was stated, and the valuation placed by the assessors on the second tract was $81,200.

In 1925 the assessors inaugurated a new land valuation system under which unit front foot valuations were applied where the lot was of a normal or 100 per cent. depth, and the normal depth of lots situated on Main street was established at one hundred and twenty-five feet, with the proviso that a lot having a depth of between one hundred and ten feet and one hundred and twenty-five feet would be assessed as a normal lot, but a lot having a seventy-three and one-half foot depth would be assessed at 75 per cent. of the valuation that would be ascribed to it if of the normal depth. A general tax map delineating the sizes, dimensions, and shapes of the various parcels of land located in Stamford and subject to assessment therein was used by the assessors in making their assessments and was considered by them as accurate. This map erroneously showed Pitt's second lot as having an average depth of one hundred and fourteen feet, and the lot was accordingly assessed at a normal of 100 per cent. valuation instead of 75 per cent. as it should have been, having a depth of but seventy-three and one-half feet. In assessing the plaintiff's property upon the basis of a depth of one hundred and fourteen feet, the assessors acted in good faith, but an inspection of a map of the property which had been filed by Pitt in the town clerk's office in 1921 would have disclosed that the premises were, instead, seventy-three and one-half feet in depth. The taxes payable by Pitt to the defendant were computed upon the basis of the valuations so placed on the lot, and bills therefor were paid by the plaintiff or his intestate without question. As a result, taxes were paid to the city from 1925 to 1930, inclusive, aggregating, with interest, $1,728.22 and to the town $1,800.78 more than if the property had been assessed on a basis of 75 per cent. of normal depth.

Upon the facts found, including those above outlined and others hereinafter mentioned, the trial court concluded that the mistake resulting in the overassessment arose solely from the conduct of the defendants' agents, that the overpayments were made by the plaintiff and his intestate under mistake as to their rights and duties and were not voluntary, and that the plaintiff is entitled to recover them. Attack upon these conclusions is the substance of this appeal, the ultimate question presented being whether payments made under such circumstances are recoverable as having been made under mistake.

Under the settled general rule, if the plaintiff, with knowledge of the facts, paid the taxes voluntarily, he could not recover them back, even though they were in amount in excess of what he should have been required to pay. Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 92 Conn. 199, 203, 102 A. 600; Morris v. New Haven, 78 Conn. 673, 675, 63 A. 123; Sheldon v. South School District, 24 Conn. 88, 91; 3 Cooley, Taxation (4th Ed.) § 1283, p. 2566. There is no claim or suggestion that payment of these taxes was made under threat of levy, or to avoid irreparable injury through enforcement of onerous penalties, or under other coercive circumstances such as have characterized payments of taxes held not to have been voluntary, and therefore not within the above-mentioned rule. Verran Co. v. Stamford, 108 Conn. 47, 49, 142 A. 578; Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Oxford, 101 Conn. 383, and cases cited at page 391, 126 A. 1; Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, supra; note, 64 A.L.R. page 10 et seq. If there is a right of recovery, it must arise from such mistake of fact and lack of knowledge and means of knowledge thereof on the part of the plaintiff's decedent as would permit recovery, notwithstanding that the payments were voluntary in all other respects. The mistake must be that of the taxing officers and not made by the taxpayer, materially contributed to by him, or attributable to his own neglect of some legal duty. 3 Cooley, Taxation, § 1295, p. 2582; 61 C.J. p. 991. Obvious reasons of public policy require limitation of recovery back because of mistake in assessment of taxes voluntarily paid, particularly where the error relates to facts which are within the actual or imputed knowledge of the individual property owner. Assessors have to deal with a multitude of tax lists, involving many pieces of property, the details as to which, relevant and largely determinative of the valuation to be placed upon them, are familiar to the owner, who is therefore in a position to give accurate information regarding them, while the practical limitations upon the assessors as to time and in other respects preclude resort to land records and other sources of information as to the property covered by these lists. To accord a right of recovery in every case where, after assessments have been made without appeal; budgets and tax rates predicated thereon, the taxes paid without objection or protest, and the moneys expended for the public purposes, it afterward develops that some mistake has been made in the assessment, would work disastrous results. It must of necessity be confined to extreme and exceptional cases. Miner v. Clifton Township, 30 S.D. 127, 137 N.W. 585.

Our statutory provisions clearly indicate that the burden as to furnishing the facts upon which valuations for taxing purposes are to be based is upon the property owner....