Wysocki v. Town of Ellington

• Decision Date: 22 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 27428.,No. 27427.,27427.,27428.
• Citation: 951 A.2d 598,109 Conn.App. 287
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: James E. WYSOCKI v. TOWN OF ELLINGTON. Old Lot No. 30, LLC v. Town of Ellington.

951 A.2d 598

109 Conn.App. 287

James E. WYSOCKI v. TOWN OF ELLINGTON.

Old Lot No. 30, LLC v. Town of Ellington.

No. 27427.

No. 27428.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 7, 2008.

Decided July 22, 2008.

James E. Wysocki, pro se, the appellant (plaintiff in the first case).

John H. Parks, Somers, for the appellant (plaintiff in the second case).

Mark R. Spurling, for the appellee (defendant).

BISHOP, BEACH and BERDON, Js.

BERDON, J.

The plaintiffs, James E. Wysocki and Old Lot No. 30, LLC (Old Lot),¹ appeal from the judgments in favor of the defendant, the town of Ellington, dismissing the plaintiffs' tax appeals, brought pursuant to General Statutes § 12-119,² from the assessment of their properties for the grand list of October 1, 2000.³ On appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the court improperly (1) concluded that they had failed to raise adequately a claim of equitable estoppel and (2) determined that the municipal tax assessor (assessor) properly had assessed the subject properties according to their highest and best use or, in the alternative, that procedural irregularities relating to the Ellington board of assessment appeals' (board) decision to increase the assessor's assessment rendered the increase illegal. We agree with the plaintiffs only as to their claim regarding the validity of the board's decision to increase the assessment. Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgments of the trial court.

The record reveals the following undisputed factual and procedural history. In 1991, Wysocki, who owned approximately thirty-four acres consisting of four contiguous parcels of 10.7, 8.08, 4.83 and 13.63 acres, filed an application with the assessor seeking to classify these four parcels as forest land. In accordance with the provisions of the property tax assessment scheme set forth in General Statutes §§ 12-107a through 12-107e, on September 5, 1991, the state forester designated the parcels as forest land. As a result of this designation, the assessor classified the land as forest land.⁴ On July 20, 1999, Wysocki transferred the 13.63 acre parcel to Old Lot, a limited liability company that he had formed. The conveyance was not recorded immediately in the Ellington land records. Instead, Wysocki sought advice from the assessor as to whether he could transfer the 13.63 acre parcel to Old Lot without compromising the favorable tax treatment that he was receiving by virtue of the forest land classification. In response to Wysocki's inquiry, on January 12, 2000, the assessor sent a letter to Wysocki erroneously informing him that the transfer of the 13.63 acre parcel would have no adverse effect on the parcel's forest land designation, provided that Wysocki was the sole member of Old Lot. Wysocki subsequently recorded the conveyance.

On January 12, 2000, Wysocki filed an application with the assessor seeking to maintain the 13.63 acre parcel's forest land classification, listing the owner of the parcel as Old Lot. The assessor approved the application. On January 31, 2000, Wysocki and the assessor submitted an amended application to the department of environmental protection, division of forestry, seeking to designate the 13.63 acre parcel as forest land and to amend the existing forest land certificate to reflect the change of ownership. On February 22, 2000, the division of forestry informed Wysocki that a parcel must be at least twenty-five acres to qualify as forest land under General Statutes (Rev. to 1999) § 12-107b (b) and that because neither Wysocki nor Old Lot individually owned twenty-five acres, the forest land designation would be cancelled on April 25, 2000, unless further documentation was provided to the state forester demonstrating that cancellation was not warranted. On May 1, 2000, the state forester cancelled the forest land designation as to all four parcels of land.⁵ The record reveals that the plaintiffs did not appeal from the state forester's decision as they were permitted to do under General Statutes § 12-107d.⁶

The assessor subsequently issued a certificate of declassification, and the properties were assessed according to their highest and best use for the grand list of October 1, 2000. The plaintiffs appealed to the board from the assessor's decision to declassify the properties as forest land for the 2000 grand list. A hearing was scheduled for March 17, 2001. The board rendered a decision in which it further increased the assessment for the 13.63 acre parcel. The board made no changes to the assessor's assessments for the 10.7, 8.08 and 4.83 acre parcels but determined that the 13.63 acre parcel, which had frontage on Elderberry Lane, a roadway, was taxable as a building lot

Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed an appeal in the Superior Court pursuant to § 12-119 claiming, on various grounds, that the imposition of the tax was illegal. After a one day trial, the court issued a memorandum of decision dismissing the plaintiffs' appeals on January 12, 2006. These appeals followed.

I

The plaintiffs first claim that the court improperly concluded that they had failed to set forth adequately a claim of equitable estoppel. They argue that they raised a claim of equitable estoppel at trial by arguing that they had relied on representations made by the assessor that the transfer of the 13.63 acre parcel to Old Lot would not jeopardize the designation of the four parcels as forest land. We conclude that the record is inadequate to review the plaintiffs' claim.

The following additional procedural history is relevant to our review of the plaintiffs' claim. In its February 9, 2006 memorandum of decision, in response to the plaintiffs' motion to reargue, the court determined that the plaintiffs had abandoned any claim of equitable estoppel. The court concluded that "[e]ven if an estoppel claim had been sufficiently raised, it would not have had a controlling effect on [the] court's original decision."

Our Supreme Court recently has reiterated the fundamental point that "[i]t is incumbent upon the [appellant] to take the necessary steps to sustain [his] burden of providing an adequate record for appellate review. . . . Our role is not to guess at possibilities . . . but to review claims based on a complete factual record developed by a trial court. . . . Without the necessary factual and legal conclusions furnished by the trial court . . . any decision made by us respecting [the appellant's claims] would be entirely speculative." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ravetto v. Triton Thalassic Technologies, Inc., 285 Conn. 716, 731-32, 941 A.2d 309 (2008).

In the present case, it is unclear from the court's February 9, 2006 memorandum of decision why it concluded that even if the plaintiffs adequately had raised a claim of equitable estoppel, the assertion of that claim would not have had an effect on the court's decision.⁷ Under these circumstances, the plaintiffs should have filed a motion for articulation to preserve an adequate record for review. See Practice Book §§ 61-10 and 66-5. "It is well established that [a]n articulation is appropriate where the trial court's decision contains some ambiguity or deficiency reasonably susceptible of clarification. . . . [P]roper utilization of the motion for articulation serves to dispel any . . . ambiguity by clarifying the factual and legal basis upon which the trial court rendered its decision, thereby sharpening the issues on appeal." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ravetto v. Triton Thalassic Technologies, Inc., supra, 285 Conn. at 732-33, 941 A.2d 309. Because the plaintiffs failed to seek an articulation from the court, we are unable to determine the legal or factual basis for the court's decisions. The record, therefore, is not adequate to review this claim.

II

The plaintiffs next claim that the court improperly failed to conclude that the assessment of the subject parcels, according to their highest and best use, was manifestly excessive and illegal under § 12-119. Alternatively, the plaintiffs argue that even if the assessor properly declassified the properties, procedural irregularities rendered the board's decision to increase the assessment illegal. We agree as to the latter claim.

"The principles that govern a complaint filed pursuant to § 12-119 are not in dispute. In contrast to § 12-117a . . . which allows a taxpayer to challenge the assessor's valuation of his property, § 12-119 allows a taxpayer 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." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Tyler's Cove Assn Inc. v. Middlebury, 44 Conn.App. 517, 526, 690 A.2d 412 (1997).⁸

Here, the plaintiffs' claims are premised on the second category of § 12-119, which authorizes "claims that assessments are (a) manifestly excessive and (b) . . . could not have been arrived at except by disregarding the provisions of the statutes for determining the valuation of the property. . . . Cases in this category must contain allegations beyond the mere claim that the assessor overvalued the property. [The] plaintiff . . . must satisfy the trier that [a] far more exacting test has been met: either there was misfeasance or nonfeasance by the taxing authorities, or the assessment was arbitrary or so excessive or discriminatory as in itself to show a disregard of duty on their part. . . . Only if the plaintiff is able to meet this exacting test by establishing that the action of the assessors would result in illegality can the...