Wilton Campus 1691, LLC v. Town of Wilton
| Decision Date | 26 May 2021 |
| Docket Number | SC 20388 |
| Parties | WILTON CAMPUS 1691, LLC v. TOWN OF WILTON Wilton River Park 1688, LLC v. Town of Wilton Wilton River Park North, LLC v. Town of Wilton |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Jonathan S. Bowman, with whom were Marc J. Herman, Bridgeport, and, on the brief, Barbara M. Schellenberg, for the appellant (defendant).
Matthew T. Wax-Krell, with whom were Marci Silverman and, on the brief, Denise P. Lucchio, Hartford, for the appellees (plaintiffs).
Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.
D'AURIA, J.
This appeal involves the temporal limits of a municipal assessor's authority to impose penalties on taxpayers. Specifically, we are asked to resolve a dispute over whether the assessor for the defendant, the town of Wilton (town), must impose late filing penalties on taxpayers pursuant to General Statutes § 12-63c (d), if at all, before taking and subscribing to the oath on the grand list for that assessment year pursuant to General Statutes § 12-55 (b), or may impose the penalties later. The town claims that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the assessor improperly imposed late filing penalties on the plaintiffs, Wilton Campus 1691, LLC, Wilton River Park 1688, LLC, and Wilton River Park North, LLC, after taking and subscribing to the oath on the grand list for that assessment year. We disagree and therefore affirm the Appellate Court's judgment.
The following undisputed facts, as stipulated by the parties and contained in the record, and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. The plaintiffs are related entities, each of which at all relevant times owned commercial properties that operate together as a retail shopping center located at 5 River Road in Wilton. Pursuant to § 12-63c (a),1 the plaintiffs were required to submit annual income and expense reports for the year 2013 to the assessor on or before June 1, 2014. The plaintiffs failed to submit the reports before the deadline passed. Instead, the plaintiffs sent the reports by overnight mail on June 2, 2014, and the assessor received them on June 3, 2014, two days after the deadline. The parties do not dispute that the late submission of the reports subjected the taxpayers to penalties under § 12-63c (d).2 Rather, the dispute arose because the assessor signed the 2014 grand list on or before January 31, 2015, without imposing penalties on the plaintiffs. Instead, the assessor delayed imposing the penalties until April 29, 2015, when the assessor issued certificates of change pursuant to General Statutes § 12-603 for the properties that were the subjects of the penalties. It has been the town assessor's long-standing practice to impose § 12-63c (d) penalties retroactively under § 12-60 in order to allow for the correction of clerical omissions or mistakes.
The plaintiffs asserted claims in the trial court, challenging the penalties pursuant to General Statutes § 12-119. They also appealed to the Board of Assessment Appeals of the Town of Wilton (board) pursuant to General Statutes § 12-111. Following a hearing on April 5, 2016, the board denied the plaintiffs’ appeals, and the plaintiffs appealed the board's decision to the trial court pursuant to General Statutes § 12-117a. Wilton Campus 1691, LLC v. Wilton , 191 Conn. App. 712, 719–20, 216 A.3d 653 (2019). The trial court consolidated these actions and adjudicated them together.
The trial court agreed with the plaintiffs that, because § 12-55 (b)4 provides that the assessor, "[p]rior to taking and subscribing to the oath upon the grand list ... make any assessment ... required by law," and, because § 12-63c (d) penalties are mandatory, § 12-55 (b) requires the assessor to impose penalties under § 12-63c (d) before signing the grand list. Despite so holding, the trial court ruled in favor of the town, concluding that "the only redress for the assessor's failure to comply with the provisions of § 12-55 (b) is to postpone the right of the plaintiffs to appeal the action of the assessor until the succeeding grand list" and that "[t]he penalty prescribed for in § 12-63c (d) makes no provision for the removal of the 10 [percent] penalty imposed by the legislature, regardless of the action taken by the assessor." The trial court therefore rendered judgments in the town's favor.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Court, which agreed with the trial court that § 12-55 (b) requires the assessor to impose penalties under § 12-63c (d) before signing the grand list. Wilton Campus 1691, LLC v. Wilton , supra, 191 Conn. App. at 729–30, 216 A.3d 653. The Appellate Court reversed the trial court's judgments in favor of the town, however, holding that tax penalties imposed without statutory authority are invalid. Id., at 715, 730, 216 A.3d 653.
The town petitioned for certification to appeal to this court, which we granted, limited to the issue of whether § 12-55 (b) limits the assessor's statutory authority to impose § 12-63c (d) penalties to the period before the assessor takes and subscribes to the oath on the grand list for the applicable assessment year.5 See Wilton Campus 1691, LLC v. Wilton , 333 Conn. 934, 218 A.3d 592 (2019).
The town contends that both the Appellate Court and the trial court incorrectly determined that penalties imposed under § 12-63c (d) fall within the scope of the requirement in § 12-55 (b) that the assessor make all "assessment[s] omitted by mistake or required by law" before taking and subscribing to the oath upon the grand list for the applicable assessment year. The town appears instead to argue that "assessment" in § 12-55 (b) means "the present true and actual value" of property.
As such, a penalty under § 12-63c (d) is not an "assessment omitted by mistake or required by law" within the meaning of § 12-55 (b), and, thus, the assessor is not bound by this deadline but, rather, is subject to no deadline.6
The plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend that the Appellate Court properly construed § 12-55 (b) to include the penalties at issue and correctly held that the assessor acted beyond his statutory authority by imposing the penalties after signing the grand list. They argue that the town's proposed construction misconstrues the statutory scheme because subsections (a) and (b) of § 12-55 govern different aspects of municipal taxation—publication of the grand list and the assessor's authority to make assessments, respectively. The plaintiffs also contend that an interpretation of § 12-55 (b) that excludes penalties under § 12-63c (d), thereby imposing no deadline on the imposition of these penalties, is untenable because of property owners’ need for certainty regarding how much they owe to the municipality. Additional facts and procedural history will be set forth as required.
We begin our analysis with the text of the statutes at issue. Section 12-55 (b) provides in relevant part: "Prior to taking and subscribing to the oath upon the grand list, the assessor or board of assessors shall equalize the assessments of property in the town, if necessary, and make any assessment omitted by mistake or required by law. ..." Section 12-63c (d) provides in relevant part:
We review these statutes in accordance with General Statutes § 1-2z and our familiar principles of statutory construction; questions of statutory construction are matters of law subject to plenary review. See, e.g., Rutter v. Janis , 334 Conn. 722, 730, 224 A.3d 525 (2020) ; see also Sena v. American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc ., 333 Conn. 30, 45–46, 213 A.3d 1110 (2019).
There is no dispute that § 12-55 (b) clearly requires that "any assessment omitted by mistake or required by law" must be imposed before the assessor takes and subscribes to the oath upon the grand list. Our analysis focuses on whether the penalty imposed under § 12-63c (d) is (1) an assessment, and whether it was (2) omitted by mistake or required by law, thereby triggering the deadline contained in § 12-55 (b). We address these two requirements in reverse order.
We turn first to whether the § 12-63c (d) penalties in this case were either "omitted by mistake" or "required by law." Neither party appears to dispute that the penalties were "required by law," and we agree. Nevertheless, resolution of the dispute before us requires an understanding of the meaning of the statutes involved, and we therefore must undertake our statutory construction exercise. Because we conclude that the penalties imposed in this case were unambiguously "required by law," we do not reach the question of whether the penalties were "omitted by mistake."
This court previously has interpreted the phrase "required by law" within § 12-55 (b) in 84 Century Ltd. Partnership v. Board of Tax Review , 207 Conn. 250, 263, 541 A.2d 478 (1988), but the court's interpretation is of limited value in the present case. In 84 Century Ltd. Partnership , we explained that ...
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