Opinion ID: 4658989
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Analysis of Parties' Arguments: G. Bd. of Educ., etc. v. Hensley, Bison, etc v. Lucas

Text: ¶51 A county treasurer investing protested taxes and a dispute as to an entitlement to the interest resulted in litigation in Oklahoma. In 1983 our Court of Civil Appeals addressed the issue when a county treasurer invested the protested tax payments and obtained interest, but the treasurer was not expressly required at that time by the ad valorem statutes to make the investment. Bd. of Educ., Woodward Pub. Schools v. Hensley , 1983 OK CIV APP 31, 665 P.2d 327. The alternative solutions championed by the parties were to award the interest to either school districts or the county general fund. The Court of Civil Appeals relied on the well-known principle stating that The interest earned on this separate and distinct fund prior to its apportionment becomes a part of the principal of the fund which generates it. 102 This principle has been recognized by both this Court 103 and the U. S. Supreme Court. 104 The Court of Civil Appeals stated the following. When a tax protest is filed it becomes the ministerial duty of the county treasurer to hold the money so paid. The money is held in trust by the county, either for refund or for the proper fund to which it respectively belongs. . . . When the final determination of Oklahoma Nitrogen's protest was made it was the duty of the county treasurer to apportion the entire fund, consisting of both principal and the interest it had earned, to the various entities entitled to the fund. Bd. of Educ., Woodward Pub. Schools , 665 P.2d at 331. This opinion was persuasive and non-precedential authority for the proposition that if a county treasurer obtained interest on a protested tax fund, then a taxpayer entitled to any refund from that fund would also be entitled to prorated interest accumulated from the date of investment until the conclusion of the protest proceeding. 105 ¶52 The issue of interest on a judgment, as opposed to interest on the fund of protested taxes, arose again in Bison Nitrogen Prod. Co. v. Lucas , 1987 OK 46, 738 P.2d 147, and we stated the following. Appellants have also asked this Court to hold them entitled to interest on any excess taxes paid under protest, The rule in State ex rel. Okla. Employment Security Commission v. Sanders , Okl., 304 P.2d 287 (1956) applies. Appellants are not entitled to any interest on overpaid tax monies prior to the rendition of a final judgment . Bison , 738 P.2d at 151 (emphasis added). Bison was decided on June 2, 1987. The ad valorem tax protest procedure in effect and applied was the 1981 version of 68 O.S. § 2469, a remedy for an allegation of illegality when no appeal was provided. Section 2469 did not provide for payment of interest on the refund, but merely a refund of the amount of excess taxes paid. 106 We held postjudgment interest was applicable to a judgment for an ad valorem tax refund for the 1980 and 1981 tax years. 107 ¶53 In Bison we stated taxpayers were not entitled to any interest on overpaid tax monies prior to the rendition of a final judgment, but we did not give any reason other than a citation to State ex rel. Okla. Employment Security Commission v. Sanders , supra . In Bison , we did not address (1) a taxpayer's right to interest based upon a county treasurer's investment, or (2) Bd. of Educ., Woodward Pub. Schools v. Hensley , supra , and the authority cited therein, or (3) whether the treasurer had invested the protested tax payments in a fund bearing interest during the Bison litigation. Although Bison relied on Sanders and like Sanders was decided when the ad valorem statute at issue, here 68 O.S.1981 § 2469, was silent on the issue of a county treasurer investing a protested tax payment and payment of interest to a taxpayer, no taxpayer herein asserts aggrieved status from the ad valorem statutory procedure for a challenge in the absence of an appeal (68 O.S.1981 § 2469), and we need not adjudicate the continued legal vitality of Bison's holding on the interest issue.