Opinion
No. CV 02-0172888 S
December 22, 2003
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
The issue in this case is whether the court has jurisdiction over those counts that a taxpayer has added by way of an amendment to the complaint in a real estate tax appeal, incorporating Grand List years following a new revaluation without first appearing before the Board of Assessment Appeals ("the Board") as required by General Statutes § 12-111.
The plaintiff, Charles Buonauto, is the owner of certain real properties located in the City of Waterbury ("the City") and known as 815 and 000 Hamilton Avenue. The Assessor, on the Grand List of October 1, 2001, assessed the value of said properties as $281,890 and $70,770 respectively. The plaintiff appealed the assessment of its properties on the 2001 Grand List to the board of assessment appeals as required by General Statutes § 12-111. The Board denied the plaintiff's application for relief. Following the denial, the plaintiff filed this appeal in the superior court pursuant to General Statutes § 12-117a.
After the plaintiff filed this appeal, the City conducted a statutorily mandated revaluation of all the real estate in the city on the October 1, 2002 grand list. On the October 1, 2002 grand list, the City increased the assessment on the plaintiff's properties. Subsequent to the revaluation date, the plaintiff amended its complaint pursuant to General Statutes § 12-117a to include the subsequent tax year of October 1, 2002, said assessment date having passed since the institution of the action concerning the 2001 valuation of the relevant properties.
The City moves to dismiss the plaintiff's appeal from the grand list of October 1, 2002, on the basis that the appeal as to that year, a revaluation year, was filed without first appearing before the Board as required by General Statutes § 12-111. The City contends that the court has no jurisdiction to hear these counts because the plaintiff did not comply with statutory mandate prescribed in § 12-111. The plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that § 12-117a specifically allows any subsequent challenge to a grand list valuation to be included within any pending tax appeal.
STANDARD OF STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
The issue in this case deals with the interpretation of § 12-117a. In State v. Courchesne, 262 Conn. 537, 567-78, 816 A.2d 562 (2003), the Supreme Court determined that, as part of the judicial task of statutory interpretation, the Court would not follow the so-called "plain meaning rule," which operates to preclude the court, in certain cases, from considering sources in addition to the statutory text in order to determine its meaning.
Subsequent to the Supreme Court's decision in Courchesne, No. 03-154, §§ 1, of the 2003 Public Acts ( P.A. 03-154), legislatively overruled that part of Courchesne in which the Court stated that they would not require a threshold showing of linguistic ambiguity as a precondition to consideration of sources of the meaning of legislative language in addition to its text. State v. Courchesne, supra, 577. Public Act 03-154 provides: "The meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extra textual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered."
Neither party is arguing that Courchesne standard, and not the standard in P.A. 03-154, should be applied to this case. In fact, the City's written submission reiterates both standards, and ultimately appears to suggest this court apply the standard of the 2003 Public Act to this case. Thus, "We begin with the language of the applicable statutes. In performing this task, we begin with a searching examination of the language of the statute[s], because that is the most important factor to be considered. In doing so, we attempt to determine [their] range of plausible meanings, and, if possible, narrow that range to those that appear most plausible." Internal citations omitted. Paul Dinto Electrical Contractors, Inc. v. Waterbury, 266 Conn. 706, 718 (2003).
APPLICATION TO THIS CASE
This court would agree with Aronson, J. that there is a pervasive statutory scheme that has been developed by the legislature for the assessment of real estate and the procedure for challenging that assessment is by a process which is carefully balanced by both procedural and substantive remedies. As carefully detailed by Aronson, J., in his opinion on a strikingly similar set of facts, to challenge a real estate assessment, our statutes provide that a taxpayer, who is aggrieved by the actions of the assessor, may appeal his decision to the board of assessment appeals pursuant to § 12-111. If a taxpayer is aggrieved by the decision of the board of assessment appeals, the taxpayer may then proceed to appeal this decision to the Superior Court within two months from the date of notice of such action. General Statutes § 12-117a. The Superior Court has no jurisdiction to hear the taxpayer's complaint until the taxpayer has first exhausted his administrative appeal by appealing the assessor's action to the board of assessment appeals. Since our legislature has established this process of first seeking relief from the action of the assessor by appearing before the board of assessment appeals, only the legislature can properly provide a by-pass of this process to reach the jurisdiction of the superior court in tax appeal matters. The legislature has provided such a by-pass in § 12-117a: "If, during the pendency of such appeal, a new assessment year begins, the applicant may amend his application as to any matter therein, including an appeal for such new year, which is affected by the inception of such new year and such applicant need not appear before the board of tax review or board of assessment appeals, as the case may be, to make such amendment effective." Internal citations omitted. SS Realty Company v. City of Middletown, 30 Conn. L. Rptr. 136, Conn. Super. 2001, Aronson J.
This is a case of statutory interpretation where the applicable statutory text is plain and unambiguous. The operative statutory provisions of § 12-117a are "during the pendency of an appeal," "a new assessment year begins," "the applicant may amend," "as to any matter therein," "including an appeal for such new year," and "such applicant need not appear before the board of tax review to make such amendment effective." There is nothing in this statutory language which purports to limit amendments to a pending tax appeal to those years related to the revaluation period at issue in the initial complaint. And it is in this portion of the statutory language that any limitation, restricting amendments to those years related to the initial revaluation, would logically be placed.
The court would agree with the City that this is not the typical tax appeal case, and the City has taken care, in its written submission, to parse the statutory language in a manner that responds to these unusual facts. However, the City's suggested course of action to interpret the "bypass" provisions of 12-117a to restrict amendments in real property tax appeals to grand list years in which revaluation has not occurred, would be impermissibly reading into the statute a legislative intent that has not been expressed by our elected representatives. This court declines to judicially add a clause in this statutory provision to restrict amendments to those years related to the initial revaluation. "We are bound to interpret legislative intent by referring to what the legislative text contains, not by what it might have contained . . . [n]or can we engraft language not clearly intended by its enactment onto legislation." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Local 218 Steamfitters Welfare Fund v. Cobra Pipe Supply Coil Co., 207 Conn. 639, 645, 541 A.2d 869 (1988).
In his exhaustive study of this matter, Aronson, J. did investigate the legislative history underpinnings of the statute. In that neither party to the current case has provided any different information, this court understands that their research has yielded the same information. In the legislative history of Public Act 69-318, Senator Jackson, Representative Spiegel and Representative Willard stated that the purpose of the bill was to permit a taxpayer, who had appeared before a board of tax review (now board of assessment appeals), and had filed an appeal to the superior court, to file an amendment to his or her appeal to include a new tax year that had come into effect without the need to appear before the board "a second or possibly third time." 13 S. Proc., Pt. 4, 1969 Sess., p. 1496; 13 H.R. Proc., Pt. 5, pp. 2412-13; 13 H.R. Proc., Pt. 5, p. 2413. It does not appear from the legislative history that the legislators were thinking about revaluation dates intervening during the pendency of a tax appeal.
The practical problem that is posed by the statutory authorization to amend a tax appeal to include subsequent tax years without appearing before the board of assessment appeals is that the court would be faced with determining valuation based upon two different revaluation years. In this case, the court would have to consider the revaluation years of October 1, 2001 and 2002. While this scenario would make the court proceedings more complicated, it would not present an insurmountable problem since appraisers could provide the court with the proper valuation on each of the revaluation dates to assist the court in making its determination. And, the City correctly points out that today's decision deprives the Board of their opportunity to consider a change to the October 2002 assessed value, despite their having refused to change the October 2001 assessed value on the same property. While this decision does result in a "lost" second opportunity by the Board, on the same property, to reverse an assessment, the decision will likely result in judicial economy at the superior court review level, with all assessment issued on the same property considered simultaneously, rather than in installment fashion, year after year.
We conclude that the court has jurisdiction under the plain words of § 12-117a over the count added by a taxpayer for the subsequent grand list year without first appearing before the board of assessment appeals, regardless of whether there has been a revaluation during the pendency of the plaintiff's appeal. Accordingly, the City's motion to dismiss is denied.
ALVORD, JUDGE.