Opinion ID: 1929507
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The legal standard applied to the county's request to use the information of Other Taxpayers.

Text: One would logically expect that the tax court's analysis of the request of the county to use the information of Other Taxpayers at EOP's trial would lead to the same conclusion under the balancing test: although the information was relevant, the county could not demonstrate that the benefit to the county would be any greater than to EOP and the harm would be the samethe Other Taxpayers would be discouraged from cooperating with the assessor; property owners would be encouraged to challenge their property taxes simply to gain access to the information of their competitors; the Other Taxpayers' understanding that this information would remain confidential would be violated; property owners could use the information to lure tenants away from their competitors; and the county's property tax collection system would be burdened. Presumably, that harm could not be avoided by a protective order, for the same reasons that the court rejected a protective order for EOP. But the tax court did not reach the same conclusion, essentially because it misinterpreted the thrust of EOP's motion in limine and restructured that motion to answer the wrong question, with the result that it applied the balancing test to the wrong interests. First, the tax court mistakenly narrowed the legal issue to only whether the county's withholding of the Other Taxpayers' information from EOP had been wrongful. I acknowledge that the EOP may have contributed to this mistake by including, at the end of its argument, citation to cases where motions in limine were granted as sanctions for discovery violations. [23] But those citations did not define EOP's argument, which by this time had been fully developed. When EOP initially made its motion to compel, it did so alternatively, seeking a motion in limine to preclude the county from using the Other Taxpayer information if the county was not compelled to produce it to EOP. The argument for this alternative relief was clearif the MGDPA precluded the use of this information by EOP, it would likewise preclude the use of it by the county. The tax court denied EOP's motion to compel but did not address EOP's alternative request. EOP then brought a separate motion in limine, based squarely on the fact that the tax court had denied its motion to compel. EOP argued that the application of the balancing test to the county would lead to the same conclusion, that the information must be kept confidential. Further, EOP argued that its due process rights would be violated if the court applied a different legal standard to permit use by the county. EOP suggested that this would place the county in a position to act as gatekeeper and that the county may decide to not use relevant information because it is contradictory or detrimental to [the county's] position, without having to account for such action through discovery or during cross-examination at trial. [24] That argument reflects the precise issue before us but the tax court never addressed it. Second, the tax court misinterpreted EOP's motion in limine in another, perhaps more fundamental, way. For the reasons discussed above, the correct framework for the analysis of EOP's motion in limine would have been thisthe county, who previously objected to the use of Other Taxpayers' information by EOP, now proposes to publicly disseminate selected parts of that same information and, with their roles reversed as a result of the tax court's denial of EOP's motion to compel, EOP now objects under the MGDPA to the public use by the county of any of that information. The appropriate application of the MGDPA's balancing test, thus, would have been to ask whether the benefit to the county of the use of Other Taxpayers' information outweighs the harm to the Other Taxpayers and the tax collection system. Unfortunately, the tax court did not address this dispositive question. If it had, the answer would surely have been that the county has no greater or different right to the public use of Other Taxpayers' nonpublic information than EOP. The tax court did not answer this critical question because it restructured EOP's motion in limine to be a motion to compel the production of that part of the Other Taxpayers' information that the county proposed to use at trial. But EOP did not make such a motion, and such a motion assumes away the critical issuewhether the county as a party could use the nonpublic information of Other Taxpayers without going through the balancing test of the MGDPA. Having assumed away that critical issue, the application of the balancing test to the reformulated motion was too simple. If you assume that the county is permitted to use selected Other Taxpayers' information at trial, then EOP's need for access to that information necessarily increases. And, if you assume that the county is permitted to use the information at trial, the harm to Other Taxpayers is likewise assumed to be inevitable and the only question is whether it can be minimized by a protective order. If the tax court had made the appropriate analysis under the MGDPA, it necessarily would have granted EOP's motion in limine, based on these conclusions: a. The information that the county proposed to use at trial is relevant and thus releasable under the MGDPA. b. The benefit to the county in using the information is no greater than the benefit that would have accrued to EOP, and is therefore outweighed by the harm to the Other Taxpayers and the tax collection system. c. Because that harm could not be sufficiently minimized by a protective order when EOP sought the information, it similarly could not be adequately minimized when the county seeks to use the information. Because the failure of the tax court to perform this analysis and to grant EOP's motion in limine resulted from a misapplication of the MGDPA, it was an abuse of discretion that warrants reversal.