Spartan Stores, Inc. v. City of Grand Rapids
| Decision Date | 30 October 2014 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 314669. |
| Citation | 307 Mich.App. 565,861 N.W.2d 347 |
| Parties | SPARTAN STORES, INC v. CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, PLC, Kalamazoo (by Jack L. Van Coevering and Marcy L. Rosen ), for petitioners.
Catherine M. Mish, City Attorney, and Kristen Rewa, Assistant City Attorney, for respondent.
Before: SAAD, P.J., and OWENS and K.F. KELLY, JJ.
Petitioners appeal the Tax Tribunal's grant of summary disposition to respondent pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(4). For the reasons stated in this opinion, we reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
This case involves an issue of first impression: the proper definition of the term “party in interest” as used in MCL 205.735a(6). Enacted in 2006, MCL 205.735a allows a “party in interest” to a tax-assessment dispute that involves specified types of property to bypass the board of review and protest the assessment directly before the Tax Tribunal.
Petitioner Spartan Stores, Inc. (Spartan), owns petitioner Family Fare, LLC (Family Fare), which operates a grocery store that leases space in a shopping center. Both claim that they are a “party in interest” under MCL 205. 735a(6), and therefore may challenge the assessment of the shopping mall in the Tax Tribunal. Respondent, the city of Grand Rapids, maintains that, in general, only property owners or their agents, not leaseholders, may be considered a “party in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6), and therefore petitioners may not challenge the assessment of the shopping mall in the Tax Tribunal.
We agree with petitioners' broader argument and hold that a “party in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6) includes persons or entities with a property interest in the property being assessed. We do so because: (1) the plain meaning of the statute mandates this result, and (2) the stated purpose of MCL 205.735a is to remove procedural barriers in property-tax disputes involving specifically defined businesses, and defining the term “party in interest” to mean “persons or entities with a property interest in the property being assessed” effectuates this aim.
Therefore, we hold that Family Fare is a “party in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6), because it has a leasehold in the shopping center and thus possesses a property interest in the property being assessed. By application of the same principle, we rule that Family Fare's copetitioner, Spartan, is not a “party in interest” because it does not have a property interest in the property being assessed. We accordingly reverse the Tax Tribunal's grant of summary disposition to respondent pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(4) and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Petitioner Family Fare is a Michigan business that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Spartan.1 It operates a grocery store in a shopping center at 4325 Breton Road in Grand Rapids and leases its space from the shopping center owner, Jade Pig Ventures–Breton Meadows, LLC (Breton Meadows). Under the lease, Family Fare is responsible for 78.71% of the shopping center's taxes.
In 2010, Spartan filed a petition in the tribunal pursuant to MCL 205.735a to challenge Grand Rapids' tax assessment of the property that Family Fare leased. Grand Rapids responded with a motion for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(4) and argued that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction because Spartan was not a “person in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6). Family Fare then filed a motion for inclusion in the suit as an additional party, because as the entity responsible for the property taxes at issue, it was a “party in interest.”
At first, the tribunal permitted Family Fare's inclusion in the suit, reasoning that it was a “party in interest” because it “lease[d] the subject property and is responsible for payment of property taxes for said property.” But the tribunal reversed itself and granted respondent's motion for summary disposition, because petitioners supposedly failed to demonstrate that they were a “party in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6). Petitioners now appeal in our Court and argue that the tribunal erred when it granted respondent's motion for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(4) because they are a “party in interest” under MCL 205.735a(6).
Where fraud is not claimed, we review the Tax Tribunal's “decision for misapplication of the law or adoption of a wrong principle.” Wexford Med. Group v. Cadillac, 474 Mich. 192, 201, 713 N.W.2d 734 (2006). The tribunal's findings of fact are conclusive “if they are supported by competent, material, and substantial evidence on the whole record.” Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted). Though we “defer[ ] to the tribunal's interpretation of a statute that it is charged with administering and enforcing,”2 when statutory interpretation is involved, we review “the tribunal's decision de novo.” Id. at 202, 713 N.W.2d 734. The tribunal's grant or denial of a motion for summary disposition is also reviewed de novo. Briggs Tax Serv., LLC v. Detroit Pub. Sch., 485 Mich. 69, 75, 780 N.W.2d 753 (2010).
The primary goal of statutory interpretation “is to discern and give effect to the intent of the Legislature.” Lafarge Midwest, Inc. v. Detroit, 290 Mich.App. 240, 246, 801 N.W.2d 629 (2010). “When ascertaining the Legislature's intent, a reviewing court should focus first on the plain language of the statute in question....” Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. v. Neal A. Sweebe, Inc., 494 Mich. 543, 560, 837 N.W.2d 244 (2013) (citations omitted). The contested portions of a statute “must be read in relation to the statute as a whole and work in mutual agreement.” U.S. Fidelity & Guarantee Co. v. Michigan Catastrophic Claims Ass'n (On Rehearing), 484 Mich. 1, 13, 795 N.W.2d 101 (2009).
The statute at issue, MCL 205.735a, is part of a set of laws that govern the appeal of property-tax assessments in Michigan. To correctly interpret MCL 205.735a, it must be placed in context with the two separate statutory frameworks with which it interacts: (1) the General Property Tax Act (GPTA), MCL 211.1 et seq., and (2) the Tax Tribunal Act (TTA), MCL 205.701 et seq.
Among other things, the GPTA specifies a method by which “person[s] whose property is assessed on the assessment roll or [their] ... agent[s]” may “protest” the assessment on their property before the board of review. MCL 211.30(4) ; 2 Cameron, Michigan Real Property Law (3d ed.), § 28.19, p. 1611. The boards of review are local-level bodies that are permitted to “correct the assessed value or tentative taxable value” of properties “in a manner that will make the valuation of the property relatively just and proper....” MCL 211.30(4). Again, in general, the only parties who may bring a protest before the board of review are “person[s] whose property is assessed on the assessment roll or [their] ... agent[s]”—i.e., property owners or their agents.3 Id. 4 Persons or entities who are not the property owner or the owner's agent—for example, a commercial leaseholder who lacks the authorization of the property owner—may not protest tax assessments at the board of review. Walgreen Co. v. Macomb Twp., 280 Mich.App. 58, 64–65, 760 N.W.2d 594 (2008).
However, the board of review's decision on a property-tax assessment is not necessarily the final one. If the property owner or its agent so chooses, they may appeal the board's decision to the Tax Tribunal, an administrative body created by the TTA, MCL 205.701 et seq. The TTA is separate and distinct from the GPTA, and the Tax Tribunal's mandates and procedures are different from those of the board of review. See Walgreen Co., 280 Mich.App. at 65, 760 N.W.2d 594.
MCL 205.721 creates the Tax Tribunal and specifies that it is a “quasi-judicial agency” that functions as an appellate forum for property-tax-assessment disputes. MCL 205.731(a) grants the Tax Tribunal “exclusive and original jurisdiction” over “[a] proceeding for direct review of a final decision, finding, ruling, determination, or order of an agency relating to assessment, valuation, rates, special assessments, allocation, or equalization, under the property tax laws of this state.”
The tribunal's jurisdiction with regard to proceedings commenced before January 1, 2007, was strictly limited by MCL 205.735(3). First, the tribunal was only permitted to hear actions that had already been “protested before the board of review....” MCL 205.735(2) ; Covert Twp. v. Consumers Power Co., 217 Mich.App. 352, 355, 551 N.W.2d 464 (1996). Second, petitioners before the tribunal must be a “party in interest”—namely, a “person[ ] with an interest in the property being assessed.” Jefferson Sch. v. Detroit Edison Co., 154 Mich.App. 390, 397, 397 N.W.2d 320 (1986).5 Because of the interplay between the GPTA (which specifies that only property owners or their agents may bring protests before the board of review) and the TTA (which only allowed parties that had appeared before the board of review to appear before the Tax Tribunal), historically it was unnecessary for courts to define the use of “party in interest” in MCL 205.735(3) with any more specificity, because the term necessarily encompassed only those parties that had protested before the board of review—i.e., the property owner or its agent. MCL 211.30(4). In other words, the board of review's strict limit on which parties could contest property-tax assessments served as a screen on which parties could appeal those assessments to the Tax Tribunal, and necessarily limited the scope of the phrase “party in interest” in MCL 205.735(3) to property owners or their agents.
The Legislature upended this arrangement in 2006, when it enacted MCL 205.735a, which applies to a proceeding before the Tax Tribunal that is commenced after December...
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