Wilson v. Kelley

• Decision Date: 08 December 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14539,14539
• Citation: 617 A.2d 433,224 Conn. 110
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: John C. WILSON III et al. v. Lucille B. KELLEY et al.

Page 433

617 A.2d 433

224 Conn. 110

John C. WILSON III et al. v. Lucille B. KELLEY et al.

No. 14539.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 1, 1992.

Decided Dec. 8, 1992.

Jeremiah Donovan, with whom was Terry Sablone Donovan, Old Saybrook, for appellants (defendants).

Thomas A. Cloutier, with whom was R. Scott Patterson, Old Saybrook, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Deborah J. Blood and W. Campbell Hudson III, Centerbrook, filed a brief for the borough of Fenwick as amicus curiae.

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and NORCOTT, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the plaintiffs' declaratory judgment action challenging the manner in which their taxable real property had been assessed was barred by the one-year statute of limitations provision of General Statutes § 12-119. ¹ The named plaintiffs brought a declaratory judgment class action on behalf of most of the taxpayers ² named on the October 1, 1989 grand list of the town of Old Saybrook, against the defendants, Lucille B. Kelley and Olive P. Mulvihill, the town's assessor and tax collector, respectively. The plaintiffs sought a declaration that the grand list was invalid and an injunction enjoining the defendants from collecting taxes based on that list. The trial court held that the assessor's failure personally to view and evaluate each real estate parcel listed on the grand list violated General Statutes (Rev. to 1987) § 12-62, ³ and thereby rendered the 1989 revaluations invalid. The defendants appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We now reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The relevant facts are as follows. On March 23, 1991, the plaintiffs, acting on behalf of most of the real property owners in the town of Old Saybrook, filed a class action against the defendants seeking a declaratory judgment that the town's 1989 grand list was invalid as violative of § 12-62. The plaintiffs' complaint also sought damages, attorney's fees, a permanent injunction restraining the tax collector from collecting any further real estate taxes based on the 1989 revaluation, and other equitable relief, including a refund of the taxes collected pursuant to the 1989 grand list.

The complaint alleged that the assessor had violated § 12-62 by failing to view personally each and every parcel of real estate listed on the grand list, and by failing to exercise her own independent judgment in setting the assessment values on that list. The defendants admitted that the assessor had not personally viewed every property on the grand list, but asserted that she had properly relied upon the delegation of that duty to S.L.F. Appraisal, Inc., a state-certified revaluation company that had been hired by the assessor to conduct the revaluation. The defendants denied the plaintiffs' claim that the assessor had failed to exercise her independent judgment in reaching the revaluation figures. The defendants also claimed that the declaratory judgment class action was barred by the statute of limitations or the equitable doctrine of laches.

The trial court held that the 1989 revaluation violated § 12-62 and was therefore void because of the assessor's reliance on the revaluation company to view each parcel of real estate, and because the assessor had failed to exercise her independent judgment in valuing each parcel. In a supplemental judgment, the trial court: (1) enjoined the tax collector from collecting any taxes based on the 1989 grand list; (2) ordered the assessor to revalue all the parcels in the town and to issue a new grand list by October, 1993; (3) ordered the assessor to base future taxes on the 1988 grand list until the issuance of a new list; (4) ordered the tax collector to credit the plaintiffs' accounts for any overpayments based on the 1989 grand list; and (5) ordered the defendants to pay $10,000 in attorney's fees. The trial court also rejected the defendants' statute of limitations and laches defenses.

The defendants claim that the trial court improperly: (1) interpreted § 12-62 to require town assessors to view personally each parcel of real property in the municipality during a decennial revaluation; (2) concluded that the assessor had not exercised her independent judgment regarding the value of each such parcel; (3) excluded evidence concerning the manner in which other towns conduct revaluations, and the role of the state office of policy and management in regulating revaluation companies and supervising decennial revaluations; (4) held that the plaintiffs' action was not barred by the one year statute of limitations provision in § 12-119; ⁴ (5) granted the plaintiffs' request for certain equitable relief; and (6) awarded attorney's fees. Because we hold that the plaintiffs' action was barred by the statute of limitations provision of § 12-119, we need not address the defendants' other claims.

The purpose of a declaratory judgment action, as authorized by General Statutes § 52-29 ⁵ and Practice Book § 390, ⁶ is to "secure an adjudication of rights where there is a substantial question in dispute or a substantial uncertainty of legal relations between the parties." (Emphasis added.) Connecticut Assn. of Health Care Facilities, Inc. v. Worrell, 199 Conn. 609, 613, 508 A.2d 743 (1986). General Statutes § 52-29(a) requires that a declaratory judgment "declare rights and other legal relations." (Emphasis added.) Similarly, Practice Book § 390 requires that the plaintiff be in danger of a loss or uncertainty "as to his rights or other jural relations." and that there be a bona fide "issue in dispute or substantial uncertainty of legal relations." (Emphasis added.) Thus, "[d]eclaratory relief is a mere procedural device by which various types of substantive claims may be vindicated." Luckenbach Steamship Co. v. United States, 312 F.2d 545, 548 (2d Cir.1963).

Implicit in these principles is the notion that a declaratory judgment action must rest on some cause of action that would be cognizable in a nondeclaratory suit. See Hodgdon v. Campbell, 411 A.2d 667, 669 (Me.1980) (declaratory judgment statutes do "not create a new cause of action; [their] purpose is 'to provide a more adequate and flexible remedy in cases where jurisdiction already exists' "). To hold otherwise would convert our declaratory judgment statute and rules into a convenient route for procuring an advisory opinion on moot or abstract questions; see Anderson v. Southwest Savings & Loan Assn., 117 Ariz. 246, 571 P.2d 1042 (1977); and would mean that the declaratory judgment statute and rules created substantive rights that did not otherwise exist. We decline so to hold.

Consequently, in analyzing whether a declaratory judgment action is barred by a particular statutory period of limitations, a court must examine the underlying claim or right on which the declaratory action is based. Romer v. Leary, 425 F.2d 186, 188 (2d Cir.1970); Swan v. Board of Higher Education, 319 F.2d 56, 59 (2d Cir.1963); Luckenbach Steamship Co. v. United States, supra, at 548-59; cf. Gannon v. Sanders, 157 Conn. 1, 7, 244 A.2d 397 (1968) (in determining whether plaintiff has standing in a declaratory judgment action, court must look at underlying claim on which action is based). It necessarily follows that if a statute of limitations would have barred a claim asserted in an action for relief other than a declaratory judgment, then the same limitation period will bar the same claim asserted in a declaratory judgment action.

We must, therefore, inquire into the source of the underlying right or claim on which the plaintiffs' declaratory judgment action is predicated. We first note that the legislature has established two primary methods by which taxpayers may challenge a town's assessment or revaluation of their real property. First, any taxpayer claiming to be aggrieved by an action of an assessor may appeal, pursuant to General Statutes § 12-111, ⁷ to the town's board of tax review. The taxpayer may then appeal, pursuant to General Statutes § 12-118, ⁸ an adverse decision of the town's board of tax review to the Superior Court. The second method of challenging an assessment or revaluation is by way of § 12-119. See footnote 1, supra.

In Second Stone Ridge Cooperative Corporation v. Bridgeport, 220 Conn. 335, 597 A.2d 326 (1991), we summarized this two-part statutory scheme for challenging assessments and revaluations. Sections 12-111 and 12-118 provide "a method by which an owner of property may directly call in question the valuation placed by assessors upon his property by an appeal to the board of relief, and from it to the courts.... These statutes limit to a short period the time within which the property owner can seek relief under them, and the purpose of this is undoubtedly to prevent delays in the ultimate determination of the amounts a municipality can collect as taxes." Id., at 339, 597 A.2d 326, citing Cohn v. Hartford, 130 Conn. 699, 702, 37 A.2d 237 (1944).

"On the other hand, § 12-119 allows a taxpayer one year to bring a claim that the tax was imposed by a town that had no authority to tax the subject property, or that the assessment was 'manifestly excessive and could not have been arrived at except by disregarding the provisions of the statutes for determining the valuation of [the real] property....' Our case law makes clear that a claim that an assessment is 'excessive' is not enough to support an action under this statute. Instead, § 12-119 requires an allegation that something more than mere valuation is at issue. It is this element that distinguishes § 12-119 from its more frequently invoked companion, § 12-118. In Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Oxford, 101 Conn. 383, 392, 126 A. 1 (1924), we addressed the predecessor statute of § 12-119 and concluded that there were two...