Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Inhabitants of City of Presque Isle

• Decision Date: 21 July 1954
• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Parties: SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO. v. INHABITANTS OF CITY OF PRESQUE ISLE et al.

Page 475

107 A.2d 475

150 Me. 181

SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO. v. INHABITANTS OF CITY OF PRESQUE ISLE et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 21, 1954.

Jacobson & Jacobson, Sidney W. Wernick, Portland, for plaintiff.

James A. Bishop, Presque Isle, Hutchinson, Pierce, Atwood & Scribner, Portland, for defendants.

Before FELLOWS, C. J., and WILLIAMSON, TIRRELL, and WEBBER, JJ.

TAPLEY and BELIVEAU, JJ., did not sit.

FELLOWS, Chief Justice.

This claim for abatement of tax comes to the Law Court on report.

It appears that on the first day of April 1953 the plaintiff Sears, Roebuck & Company was operating a store in the City of Presque Isle, Maine. On April 16, 1953, in accordance with notice from John E. Henchey, Milton A. Wilson and Edmund G. Beaulieu, Assessors for the city, Sears, Roebuck & Co. made out and sent to the assessors a schedule showing stock in trade $302,900, furniture and fixtures $18,350, a total of $321,250. This list made by the plaintiff company represented the year's monthly average of stock in trade from March 26, 1952, to March 26, 1953. Sears Roebuck later received from the city a tax bill for 1953 in the sum of $10,687.47 which, at the tax rate of 41 mills, shows an assessment of $260,670 or approximately 80% of the amount stated by the company.

On October 9, 1953, Sears, Roebuck & Company sent to the Tax Collector a check for $6,191 for its tax, which amount represents about 47% of the amount stated in the schedule instead of the 80%. The claim of Sears, Roebuck & Company being, that real estate in Presque Isle was assessed at only 47% of its value, and that an assessment at 80% on this personal property operated unequally and unfairly, that the assessors 'did in fact deliberately, systematically and with design to operate inequitably and unequally upon said Sears, Roebuck & Co., did assess for the year 1953 real estate in the same locality, belonging to other taxpayers in accordance with the general scheme of equal apportionment to wit; on a valuation based upon real estate values which is approximately 47% of the true value thereof, but that said general scheme of apportionment was not followed in the assessment of personal property of said Sears, Roebuck & Co. This the plaintiff alleges is illegal, disproportionate, unjust and violates [Amendment] Article XXXVI, Article IX, Section 8, of the Constitution of the State of Maine and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, and said plaintiff thereby has been deprived of equal protection under the law with other taxpayers'. The City of Presque Isle gave credit to Sears, Roebuck & Company, on account of the 1953 tax, the amount of the check for $6,191.

The Sears, Roebuck & Company filed its petition for abatement with the assessors of the City of Presque Isle on November 12, 1953. At a meeting of the Board of Assessors November 24, 1953, the petition for abatement was denied. The petitioner then appealed to the Superior Court for Aroostook County. The evidence was taken out before a Justice of the Superior Court at the February Term 1954, and by agreement of parties, and by order of Court the case was reported to the Law Court, which court 'shall, upon so much of the evidence as is legally admissible, render such final decision as the rights of the parties require'.

All questions relating to election of assessors, the formal proceedings before them, the filing of petition for abatement, its denial, and the appeal to the Superior Court are admitted by both parties as taken in accordance with statutory requirements.

The case was well and fully tried by most capable counsel on both sides. The record is long and contains much contradictory testimony. The briefs are very comprehensive and fully show the claims and contentions of the parties. The applicable law presents little complication, and but little disagreement between the parties. The facts presented to the Court, however, for determination, and the applicability of the facts to the law are difficult. The evidence is a collection of opinions from experts and non-experts, with varying opinions of values and percentages, and varying opinions as to local economic conditions and the effect of the potato market, an air base, and other circumstances, together with the changes past and present, and possibilities of the future.

It is altogether the picture that confronts assessors in many towns and cities in Maine. How can assessments be made that are just and equitable under the law? 'Equality is equity', but on the practical side, assessors are ordinarily men of little experience. A majority of a newly elected board are often men who never had any experience in valuation of any kind of property, and men who are not expected to be 'full time' and are not paid to be. Popularity and not ability often elects many municipal officers. Necessarily, most assessors must get their facts on which to base their opinion as to property values from opinions of owners, and from incomplete, improper or prejudiced hearsay, with only an incomplete examination of the property itself. There are not hours enough in his term of office for an assessor to examine or to see every building from cellar to attic, nor to see anything of stock in trade beyond a few packages of hardware or groceries. These facts are well known to everyone who knows anything of local assessments. These facts were known by the people when the constitution and when its amendments were by them adopted. These facts are known to a great majority of the members of every Legislature because most Legislators have been at some time town or city officials.

Taxation must be practical. It must bring results. The gross amount that is necessary to raise for governmental purposes, depends on the price necessary to pay for the public demands for the protection and benefits of our civilization. The practical methods and results of honest, though inexperienced assessors, who live in the town or city, are much more valuable, and as likely to be correct, as are the theoretical contentions of expert political economists. See Nicol v. Ames, 173 U.S. 509, 516, 19 S.Ct. 522, 43 L.Ed. 786.

Article IX Section 8 of the Constitution of the State of Maine, as amended in 1875 and 1913, now reads as follows:

'All taxes upon real and personal estate, assessed by authority of this state, shall be apportioned and assessed equally, according to the just value thereof; but the legislature shall have power to levy a tax upon intangible personal property at such rate as it deems wise and equitable without regard to the rate applied to other classes of property.' These words are plain. There is no ambiguity. Our Court has recognized their meaning, although no decision has expressly decided the question here in issue. In Brewer Brick Co. v. Inhabitants of Brewer, 63 Me. 62, decided in 1873, the Court say 'the very idea of taxation implies an equal apportionment and assessment upon all property, real and personal, according to its just value'. The Court has recognized in the past, and now recognizes and decides, that all property should be considered and treated for purposes of taxation on an equal basis, and according to just value. See Sawyer v. Gilmore, 109 Me. 169, 171, 83 A. 673; Hamilton v. Portland Pier Site District, 120 Me. 15, 112 A. 836; Opinion of the Justices, 97 Me. 595, 597, 55 A. 827.

Assessors of taxes, chosen by a city or town, are public officers. There is no relation of principal and agent between them and the municipality. When they act officially the inhabitants have no control over them. City of Rockland v. Farnsworth, 93 Me. 178, 183, 44 A. 681; McKay Radio & Telegraph Co. v. Inhabitants of Town of Cushing, 131 Me. 333, 162 A. 783; Knight v. Thomas, 93 Me. 494, 45 A. 499; Sweet v. City of Auburn, 134 Me. 28, 180 A. 803, 104 A.L.R. 784; See Shawmut Mfg. Co. v. Town of Benton, 123 Me. 121, 122 A. 49.

The petitioner for an abatement of taxes must prove his case. He must show that his property is overrated. He must show that the valuation with relation to just value is manifestly wrong or that an unjust discrimination exists. He must establish that he is aggrieved. Shawmut Mfg. Co. v. Town of Benton, 123 Me. 121, 122 A. 49; Sweet v. City of Auburn, 134 Me. 28, 180 A. 803, 104 A.L.R. 784.

The record in this case shows the manner in which these taxes were assessed in 1953. The assessors accepted an inventory or estimate of the owner of the stock in trade and assessed a value of approximately 80%. In regard to real estate, it appears that the City of Presque Isle in 1949 employed a firm of the experts Cole, Layer & Trumble to make a complete and detailed valuation of all lots of land and of all buildings in the city. After investigation and study, this firm based its findings on 1940 values, and it was understood that the firm used, in part, reproduction costs less depreciation. The values for the year 1940 were taken for the reason that it was believed the values of that year could be gauged by the then conditions. In that year there was neither 'the excesses of a boom' nor the 'despair of a depression.' Sweet v. City of Auburn, 134 Me. 28, 32, 180 A. 803, 804, 104 A.L.R. 784. The information from Cole, Layer & Trumble was given on individual cards and these cards were used by the assessors for the succeeding years as a starting point for their valuations, with such changes as were indicated necessary in individual cases through sales, alterations, repairs, different opinions of different boards as to value, and the changes due to obsolescence, depreciation, location, use and the like, and changes due to economic conditions.

The assessors of 1953, according to the Chairman of the Board, who testified, taxed 80% of the $302,900 and carried the furniture and fixtures of the petitioner in the office records at $45,865 which value of the fixtures were credited with 50% depreciation, and then taxed at 80%...