Title: Jim Smith, Etc., Et Al. v. Stephen Krosschell

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC05-488 
____________ 
 
JIM SMITH, etc., et al.,  
Petitioners, 
 
vs. 
 
STEPHEN KROSSCHELL,  
Respondent. 
 
[August 31, 2006] 
 
LEWIS, C.J. 
 
We have for review the decision in Smith v. Krosschell, 892 So. 2d 1145 
(Fla. 2d DCA 2005), in which the Second District Court of Appeal has certified 
conflict with the decision of the Third District Court of Appeal in Robbins v. 
Kornfield, 834 So. 2d 955 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003).  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, 
§ 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.  For the reasons expressed below, we quash the decision in 
Krosschell and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW 
In 2000, Krosschell received homestead exemption status for the real 
property which has generated this litigation.  During March of that year, a field 
inspection of the real property was conducted to verify the information in the 
records of the property appraiser (Smith).  The property appraisal records were 
subsequently updated to reflect the inspection, but at that time a data entry error 
occurred.  Although Krosschell’s home on the real property encompassed 3,746 
square feet of base living area, when the data was entered to update the records, the 
square foot base living area of the home was entered as zero (0).  In effect, this 
data entry error effectively deleted Krosschell’s entire dwelling from the property 
records as though the property was raw land without any improvements.  Thus, due 
to this data error, Krosschell’s property was undervalued by $100,100, and this 
valuation produced by the erroneous data was certified on the 2000 tax roll.   
After the error was discovered, Smith issued a certificate of correction in an 
attempt to correct the error, but the statutory time requirements for notice to 
Krosschell to afford time for a challenge to the assessed value before the Value 
Adjustment Board (Board) could not be satisfied for the year 2000.  The Board had 
already conducted proceedings for 2000, and Krosschell would have been unable 
to challenge the correct assessment until the Board convened again in 2001.  
Therefore, the original assessed value of $188,700 (i.e., the assessed value which 
did not include Krosschell’s house) was reinstated for the year 2000.   
In August 2001, Krosschell received a 2001 notice of proposed property 
taxes based on the correct data, which included the correct assessed value of 
 
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$288,800 for the year 2000 (i.e., the assessment of Krosschell’s property that 
included the previously eliminated improvement), and an assessed value of 
$297,400 for 2001.  Krosschell appealed these values, but the Board concluded that 
Smith had acted properly in correcting the data and assessing the value of the 
property.   
Krosschell proceeded to file a complaint in the circuit court.  In a motion for 
summary judgment, he claimed that there had been a fifty-eight percent increase in 
the 2001 assessment over the 2000 assessment which violated the “Save Our 
Homes” tax cap in the Florida Constitution, a provision which permits increases of 
annual assessments of homesteaded property to be no more than three percent of 
the previous year’s assessment.  He asserted this position even though the initial 
2000 assessment of his property was based on an error which excluded the existing 
structure.  Krosschell further contended that section 197.122(1) of the Florida 
Statutes (2000), which authorized a property appraiser to correct “acts of omission 
or commission” at any time, was inapplicable in the instant proceeding, and the 
statute that did apply, section 193.155 of the Florida Statutes (2000), did not allow 
for correction of the data entry error that occurred here.   
Smith also filed a motion for summary judgment in which he argued that the 
erroneous assessment of Krosschell’s property was a mistake of fact resulting from 
the data entry error that could be corrected.  The circuit court granted summary 
 
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judgment in favor of Krosschell, denied Smith’s motion, and entered judgment 
which required Smith to appraise Krosschell’s property at $188,700 for the year 
2000 (i.e, the assessment value based on the data error without the existing home), 
concluding that this amount, even though based on a data entry error, established 
the base year just valuation for the property.   
The Second District affirmed the summary judgment and concluded that 
Smith had no statutory authority on these facts to make a retroactive change in the 
base year assessment of Krosschell’s homestead.  See Krosschell, 892 So. 2d at 
1146.  In support of its holding, the district court relied on Smith v. Welton, 729 
So. 2d 371 (Fla. 1999), in which this Court held that on the facts presented there 
section 193.155(8)(a) of the Florida Statutes did not provide property appraisers 
the authority to make a retroactive change in the base year assessment of 
homesteaded property.  See Krosschell, 892 So. 2d at 1146.  The Second District 
recognized that this statutory section had been amended in 2001 to allow property 
appraisers to make such a change; however, the court determined that the 
amendment applied only prospectively because there was no indication of 
legislative intent that it be applied retroactively.  See id. at 1146-47.  Concluding 
that all ambiguities in tax statutes are to be resolved in favor of the taxpayer, the 
Second District held that the 2000 version of the statute applied in the present case, 
 
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and, therefore, Smith could not change the original assessed value of Krosschell’s 
property.  See id. at 1147. 
The Second District certified direct conflict with Robbins v. Kornfield, 834 
So. 2d 955 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), in which the Third District held that the same 
2001 amendment to section 193.155 authorized property appraisers to retroactively 
correct errors in the calculation of the base year just value assessment of a 
property.  See Kornfield, 834 So. 2d at 957.  This Court received oral argument in 
this case and subsequently ordered supplemental briefing from the parties to 
specifically address section 197.122 of the Florida Statutes, the statute that 
Krosschell claimed in his motion for summary judgment to be inapplicable in the 
present controversy.   
ANALYSIS 
 
After receiving supplemental briefing from the parties, we conclude that it is 
unnecessary in the instant case to resolve the issue of whether the 2001 amendment 
to section 193.155 applies retroactively.  This conclusion is based on our 
determination that the decisions in Krosschell and Kornfield involve consideration 
of errors that are fundamentally different, and section 193.155(8)(a) of the Florida 
Statutes does not apply to the data entry error that occurred in the instant case.   
 
A review of the conflict case, Kornfield, and the decision of this Court in 
Smith v. Welton, each of which interprets and applies section 193.155(8)(a), 
 
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demonstrates that in each of these cases, a property appraiser underassessed some 
aspect of a homesteaded property.  In Kornfield, the appraiser failed to consider a 
1,610 square foot addition that had been made to the homesteaded property, and 
this addition escaped taxation for nine years.  See 834 So. 2d at 956.  In Smith, a 
property appraiser mistakenly underassessed 15,000 square feet of improvements 
to a 19,000 square foot building that served as a homestead.  See 729 So. 2d at 
371-72.  Thus, in each of these cases, the appraiser made an error in judgment 
when evaluating the property.  On the other hand, in the instant case there has been 
no allegation that Smith made an error in judgment when he evaluated Krosschell’s 
property; instead, a purely clerical data entry error occurred, and the square footage 
of Krosschell’s base living area was accidentally eliminated and entered as zero.   
Neither this Court nor any district court has utilized section 193.155(1) to 
address the correction of an administrative or clerical mistake such as a data entry 
error which totally eliminates the improvements on real property which are in 
place and previously in the records.  Rather, the correction of mathematical, 
administrative, or clerical error such as this has been addressed under section 
197.122(1) of the Florida Statutes or one of its statutory predecessors.  This 
statutory provision provides, in pertinent part:  
No act of omission or commission on the part of any property 
appraiser . . . shall operate to defeat the payment of taxes; but any acts 
of omission or commission may be corrected at any time by the 
officer or party responsible for them in like manner as provided by 
 
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law for performing acts in the first place, and when so corrected they 
shall be construed as valid ab initio and shall in no way affect any 
process by law for the enforcement of the collection of any tax. 
§ 197.122(1), Fla. Stat. (2005) (emphasis supplied).  In the decision most similar to 
the instant case, a key-punch operator incorrectly entered the assessed value of a 
property as $260,000 rather than the correctly assessed value of $775,000.  See 
Robbins v. First Nat’l Bank of South Miami, 651 So. 2d 184, 184-85 (Fla. 3d DCA 
1995).  The Third District concluded that this error was correctable pursuant to 
section 197.122(1).  See id. at 185.   
In 1978, the First District concluded that a computer error that omitted a 
zero in the property owner’s tax bill was correctable under a statutory predecessor 
to section 197.122(1).  See Straughn v. Thompson, 354 So. 2d 948, 949 (Fla. 1st 
DCA 1978); see also Allen v. Dickenson, 223 So. 2d 310, 310 (Fla. 1969) (holding 
that acts of omission or commission of “the purely ministerial or administrative 
type” are correctable under a statutory predecessor to section 197.122(1)); McNeil 
Barcelona Assocs., Ltd. v. Daniel, 486 So. 2d 628, 629 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986) 
(multiplication of square footage by improper factor to obtain assessment value 
was correctable under a statutory predecessor to section 197.122(1)).  We conclude 
that the computer data entry error that occurred in the instant case is more 
comparable to the clerical and mathematical errors that occurred in Robbins, 
Straughn, and McNeil Barcelona than the underassessments resulting from the 
 
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errors in evaluation or judgment that occurred in Kornfield and Welton.  
Accordingly, we conclude that section 197.122(1), not 193.155(8)(a), applies to the 
error that occurred in the instant case, and pursuant to this statute, this error “may 
be corrected at any time.”  § 197.122(1), Fla. Stat. (2005).   
 
To the extent Krosschell claims that permitting the correction of Smith’s 
clerical error pursuant to section 197.122(1) violates the “Save Our Homes” cap of 
the Florida Constitution, the argument is without merit.  Article VII, section 6, of 
the Florida Constitution affords a homestead tax exemption to individuals who 
maintain a permanent residence on real estate to which they hold legal or equitable 
title.  See art. VII, § 6, Fla. Const.  In fact, elimination of the entire residence as 
occurred here in error may even impact the homestead classification status of the 
property if correct.  In 1992, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment 
to limit the amount that the assessed value of a homesteaded property may be 
increased in any given year.  The “Save Our Homes” amendment provides, in 
pertinent part: 
(c)  All persons entitled to a homestead exemption under 
Section 6 of this Article shall have their homestead assessed at just 
value as of January 1 of the year following the effective date of this 
amendment.  This assessment shall change only as provided herein.  
(1)  Assessments subject to this provision shall be changed 
annually on January 1st of each year; but those changes in 
assessments shall not exceed the lower of the following:  
a.  Three percent (3%) of the assessment for the prior year.  
b.  The percent change in the Consumer Price Index for all 
urban consumers, U.S. City Average, all items 1967=100, or 
 
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successor reports for the preceding calendar year as initially reported 
by the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.  
Art. VII, § 4(c), Fla. Const.   The purpose of this amendment “is to encourage the 
preservation of homestead property in the face of ever increasing opportunities for 
real estate development, and rising property values and assessments.”  Zingale v. 
Powell, 885 So. 2d 277, 281 (Fla. 2004). 
We have previously held that “fair market value and just valuation should be 
declared legally synonymous,” and that fair market value “is the amount a 
purchaser willing but not obliged to buy, would pay to one willing but not obliged 
to sell.”  Walter v. Schuler, 176 So. 2d 81, 85-86 (Fla. 1965) (internal quotation 
marks omitted).  Thus, under our precedent, an initial value assessment based on a 
clear and admitted data entry error which eliminates all improvements on the 
property not only would generate issues of homestead classification status but is 
not a “just value” assessment and it does not reflect the “fair market value” of the 
property.   The “Save Our Homes” cap on annual assessments applies to 
homestead property that has been assessed at just value, and the cap is not 
implicated where there has been a data entry error which has eliminated all 
improvements from the records.  Therefore, a clerical mistake such as the 
computer data entry error that occurred here produces a base year assessment that 
does not under these circumstances represent a “fair market value” of the 
homesteaded property, and the Save Our Homes cap does not forever “lock in” the 
 
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erroneous data and resulting assessment, thereby allowing property owners to 
forever pay artificially reduced taxes as long as they own the property.  Instead, we 
conclude that section 197.122(1) applies to correct this error, thereby allowing the 
appraiser to correct the erroneous data previously entered and erroneously changed 
to establish forever a “true just value” upon which the cap can be applied to tax 
increases in future years.   
Were we to hold otherwise, manifestly unfair results would occur.  Under 
Krosschell’s argument, if the value of a $3 million homestead was, due to a data 
entry error of removing all improvements from the records, wrongly assessed at 
$1.00 in its base year, the next year the homestead could be assessed at no more 
that $1.03, then $1.06 the following year, and so on in perpetuity.   Under such an 
interpretation, some homeowners would obtain an erroneous permanent windfall 
on their homestead property taxes, even if admittedly based on obvious data entry 
errors, while other homeowners would bear a comparatively disproportionate share 
of the tax burden solely because their homesteads had been assessed based on 
correct data.  The “Save Our Homes” Amendment was never designed or intended 
to allow a homestead owner to perpetuate an admitted data error and subvert the 
payment of property taxes forever.  The law cannot encourage and advance 
consequences based on an admitted and clear computer entry error.  As we once 
stated in an earlier case, “[j]ustice may be ‘blind’ but it is not stupid,” see Korash 
 
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v. Mills, 263 So. 2d 579, 582 (Fla. 1972), and we cannot adopt a statutory 
interpretation that would produce such an absurd and unfair result.  See Warner v. 
City of Boca Raton, 887 So. 2d 1023, 1033 n.9 (Fla. 2004) (noting that statutory 
provisions should not be construed in a manner that would lead to an absurd 
result).   Our interpretation of section 197.122(1) comports with the basic purpose 
of taxation: “That all taxpayers share in proportion to their assessments, the 
support of their government and the protection and services afforded to their 
property and to themselves, and that none bears an added or unfair burden by 
reason of other taxpayers not paying their just share.”  Korash, 263 So. 2d at 582.   
 
In conclusion, we hold that section 197.122(1), rather than section 
193.155(8)(a), applies to correct the computer data entry error which occurred in 
the instant case and, pursuant to that subsection, Smith possesses the statutory 
authority to correct the erroneous data and result on the assessment of Krosschell’s 
property “at any time.”  § 197.122(1), Fla. Stat. (2005).  Accordingly, we quash 
Krosschell and remand this case to the district court for further consideration 
consistent with this opinion. 
It is so ordered. 
 
 
WELLS, ANSTEAD, PARIENTE, QUINCE, CANTERO, and BELL, JJ., concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
 
 
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Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D04-514 
 
 
(Pinellas County) 
 
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Eric J. Taylor, Senior Assistant Attorney 
General, Mark T. Aliff, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and 
Christina M. LeBlanc, Assistant County Attorney, Pinellas County, Clearwater, 
Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Stephen Krosschell, Pro se, Tarpon Springs, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent 
 
 
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