Schneider National, Inc. v. State

• Decision Date: 16 August 2006
• Docket Number: No. 25,530.,25,530.
• Citation: 2006 NMCA 128,144 P.3d 120
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico
• Parties: SCHNEIDER NATIONAL, INC., a Wisconsin Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE of New Mexico, TAXATION AND REVENUE DEPARTMENT, and Jan Goodwin, Secretary of the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, Defendants-Appellees.

144 P.3d 120

2006 NMCA 128

SCHNEIDER NATIONAL, INC., a Wisconsin Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE of New Mexico, TAXATION AND REVENUE DEPARTMENT, and Jan Goodwin, Secretary of the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 25,530.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

August 16, 2006.

Kennedy & Han, P.C., Paul J. Kennedy, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellant.

Patricia A. Madrid, Attorney General, Bruce J. Fort, Special Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellees.

OPINION

WECHSLER, Judge.

{1} In this tax refund case, we consider whether the statutory period to pursue a remedy under NMSA 1978, 7-1-26(B)(1) (2003) begins from the delivery of a notice of denial of refund when the State of New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department mails, rather than hand delivers, the notice. We also consider the propriety of summary judgment for failure to file within the statutory filing period when the Department presents evidence of mailing notice by affidavits stating its employees' office practices. We determine that the filing period begins from the date of mailing and that the Department's evidence was sufficient to support summary judgment. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} Schneider National, Inc. filed an administrative claim for refund of motor transportation fees paid to the Department. The Department partially denied the claim. Schneider then filed a complaint for refund in district court. The Department moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, contending that Schneider failed to meet the statutory deadline for filing its complaint. According to the Department, it mailed the partial denial of refund to Schneider on December 15, 2003, requiring Schneider to file its complaint on or before March 15, 2004. The complaint was filed on March 22, 2004.

{3} The Department supported its motion to dismiss with the affidavits of two Department employees. Norman Purdy, manager of the Department's Motor Vehicle Division, Commercial Vehicles Bureau, stated that he prepared the partial denial letters dated December 15, 2003, and that the warrants, dated December 12, 2003, and a notice of taxpayer remedies were enclosed with the letters. With regard to mailing, he stated:

Although I do not remember specifically mailing the Schneider partial denial letters, it is my business practice to mail the letters the same business day by depositing them in our office mailbox. That box is collected several times a day for mailing by our mail room.

It is possible that the Schneider partial denial letters would have been collected from our office on the morning of December 16, 2003.

{4} Joseph M Fletcher, Bureau Chief of the Department's Postal Processing Center, stated in his affidavit that, based on established business practices, his employees would have made two or more trips to the outgoing mailbox of the Commercial Vehicle Bureau on December 15 and 16, 2003 to pick up mail and that ordinary mail picked up on those days would have been mailed the same day.

{5} In its amended response to the Department's motion, Schneider asserted that its refund notices "were not delivered ... within [the] 90-day period" and that its complaint was timely if it was filed within ninety days of delivery of the partial denial. Schneider asserted that the Department's affidavits did not establish that the partial denial was mailed on December 15 or 16, 2003, and submitted the affidavit of an attorney, who stated that the Department's counsel had not mailed two pleadings in other cases to him, despite stating otherwise in certificates of service on the pleadings. In its amended response, the Department responded to Schneider's assertion that the refund notices were not received within ninety days of December 15 or 16, 2003, with the supplemental affidavit of Norman Purdy, in which Purdy additionally stated that the Department's records indicated that the ten warrants he included with the partial denial letters were redeemed by the taxpayers on January 9, 2004. Purdy further stated that in 2003 he mailed at least fifty partial denial and denial letters for claims similar to those of Schneider and, to his knowledge, no other recipient claimed that it had not received the letters.

{6} The district court treated the motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment by virtue of the affidavits. It entered findings of fact and conclusions of law that the material facts were not in dispute, that the Department mailed notices of partial denial on December 15 or 16, 2003, that Schneider received the partial refund warrants mailed with the notices on or before January 9, 2004, when it negotiated the warrants, that Schneider did not file its complaint within ninety days of the mailing of the partial denial notices, and that, as a result, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction entitling the Department to judgment as a matter of law. It entered summary judgment dismissing the complaint with prejudice.

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

{7} The Department moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction if the complaint was not filed within the period required by Section 7-1-26(B)(1). NMSA 1978, § 7-1-22 (1995); see Kilmer v. Goodwin, 2004-NMCA-122, ¶ 16, 136 N.M. 440, 99 P.3d 690 ("The purpose of the time deadline in Section 7-1-26 is to avoid stale claims...."). A district court properly treats a motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment under Rule 1-056 NMRA when it considers matters outside the record, such as the affidavits in this case. Transamerica Ins. Co. v. Sydow, 97 N.M. 51, 54, 636 P.2d 322, 325 (Ct.App.1981).

{8} Schneider argues that the district court should not have granted summary judgment on three grounds: that the district court erroneously dismissed the complaint based on unsupported findings of fact, that the Department was not entitled to a presumption of mailing by placing the notices in the Department's "mailbox," and that the district court erred in finding that the period of filing under Section 7-1-26(B)(1) began with the Department's mailing rather than the delivery of the notices. Because these arguments raise legal issues concerning the propriety of summary judgment, we afford them de novo review. See Gormley v. Coca-Cola Enters., 2005-NMSC-003, ¶ 8, 137 N.M. 192, 109 P.3d 280.

A. INTERPRETATION OF SECTION 7-1-26(B)

{9} We address Schneider's third argument first because it raises an issue of statutory interpretation that is dispositive of the other issues if we decide it in Schneider's favor. Section 7-1-26(B)(1) provides that when the Department has denied a claim for refund in whole or in part, the taxpayer may pursue statutory remedies, including filing an action in district court, "within ninety days after either the mailing or delivery of the denial." Schneider would read Section 7-1-26(B)(1) to begin the filing period at the later of mailing or delivery. It posits that there is a reasonable inference that the notices were not delivered to it more than ninety days before it filed this action, although it has not submitted any evidence of the actual time of delivery. The Department reads Section 7-1-26(B)(1) to begin the filing period at the mailing, if mail is used, or at the delivery, if notice is delivered by other means. We agree with the Department.

{10} We interpret a statute to give effect to all of its terms and to avoid surplusage. Montoya v. Mentor Corp., 1996-NMCA-067, ¶ 19, 122 N.M. 2, 919 P.2d 410. Schneider's reading of Section 7-1-26(B)(1) renders meaningless the "mailing" language of the statute. If delivery were the basis for determining the start of the filing period when a notice is mailed, there would be no reason to state a mailing requirement in the statute because delivery would always take place after mailing. The only reasonable interpretation is that "delivery" applies to personal delivery, as opposed to receipt after mailing. The statute uses the disjunctive "or" to indicate that mailing and delivery are alternative acts. The Department may mail or deliver a notice. Under Section 7-1-26(B)(1), if a notice is mailed, the action must be filed within ninety days of mailing.

{11} In connection with this statutory interpretation argument, Schneider also argues on appeal that Section 7-1-26(B)(1) cannot be applied because it is unconstitutional if it requires suit to be brought within ninety days of the earlier of either mailing or delivery. Schneider asserts that Section 7-1-26(B)(1) is unconstitutional because it is unreasonable and void for vagueness. We do not address its argument that the statute of limitations is unreasonable because it did not preserve this argument below. See Garcia ex rel. Garcia v. La Farge, 119 N.M. 532, 539-42, 893 P.2d 428, 435-38 (1995) (applying preservation requirement to a claim that a statute of limitations was unreasonable and should not be applied). We briefly address Schneider's argument that Section 7-1-26(B)(1) is unconstitutionally void for vagueness. We do not express an opinion as to whether this issue was, or needed to be, preserved. See State v. Laguna, 1999-NMCA-152, ¶ 23, 128 N.M. 345, 992 P.2d 896 (reviewing a void-for-vagueness argument about a criminal statute despite a lack of preservation); State v. Duran, 1998-NMCA-153, ¶ 32, 126 N.M. 60, 966 P.2d 768 (reviewing a void-for-vagueness claim about a criminal statute despite no showing of preservation "assuming arguendo that the issue was preserved"). "Legislative enactments may be declared void for uncertainty if their meaning is so uncertain that the court is unable, by the application of known and accepted rules of construction, to determine what the legislature intended with any reasonable degree of certainty." State ex rel. Bliss v. Dority, 55 N.M. 12, 28-30, 225 P.2d 1007, 1017-18 (1950) (upholding as not unconstitutionally vague a statute providing that...