Opinion ID: 845821
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Structure of the GPTA

Text: The majority opinion finds support for its conclusion that Ford has stated valid claims under MCL 211.53a by examining the structure of the GPTA. In short, the GPTA requires the assessor to ascertain what personal property is in his jurisdiction and assess it accordingly. In doing so, the assessor must exercise his best judgment and has many tools available to better fulfill his statutory responsibility. And while personal property statements greatly assist the assessor in carrying out that responsibility, the assessor is not bound by the taxpayer's statement. MCL 211.24(1). So when an assessor simply relies on a taxpayer's personal property statement and subsequently calculates the assessment on the basis of this information alonelike in these casesthe assessor is effectively adopting the personal property statement as his own belief of what the taxpayer owns. Accordingly, under these circumstances, there is mutual understanding of what property the taxpayer owns, and this mutual understanding goes to the very nature of the transactionan accurate tax assessment. Therefore, the GPTA and the assessment process lead this Court to conclude that mutual mistakes of fact occurred in these cases. Further, while not a case brought under the GPTA, a similar result was reached in Schwaderer v. Huron-Clinton Metro. Auth., 329 Mich. 258, 45 N.W.2d 279 (1951). In Schwaderer, the plaintiff contractor, rather than conducting its own survey when preparing its bid, relied on the acreage listed in a map prepared by the defendant. The plaintiff's bid was the lowest, and the parties entered into a written contract under which the plaintiff was to clear some of the defendant's land for an artificial lake. However, the acreage listed on the map was incorrectly stated too low. The plaintiff subsequently brought suit after it expended considerably more resources clearing the land, claiming, among other things, entitlement to reformation of the contract on the basis of mutual mistake. The trial court agreed, and this Court affirmed. In doing so, this Court observed: Under the facts in the case the conclusion is fully justified that defendant accepted the map as correct and, like the plaintiff, entered into the contract under a mistake of fact. If the mistake was not mutual, then the situation is one in which there was a mistake on the part of the plaintiff and conduct on the part of defendant, acting through its officers and agents, of such character as to justify the granting of equitable relief. If plaintiff is, as defendant argues, without remedy, the result is that defendant, as pointed out by the trial court, has been unjustly enriched through the performance of the contract by plaintiff in reliance on the representations made to him. To prevent such enrichment, resulting from mutual mistake, equity may properly grant relief. [ Id. at 270-271, 45 N.W.2d 279.] Similarly, both the assessors and Ford in the cases now before us relied on Ford's statements as accurate and necessarily based the substance of their transactions on this erroneous belief. In other words, like the parties in Schwaderer, Ford and the assessors entered into their transactions with the shared understanding that the factual information that served as the basis for each assessment was accurate. Additionally, the statutory scheme summarized earlier also leads to the conclusion that these cases are best categorized as instances of mutual mistakes of fact, not merely instances of ignorance of fact. Accordingly, I disagree with the Court of Appeals analysis in Gen. Products Delaware Corp. v. Leoni Twp., unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued May 8, 2003, 2003 WL 21040312 (Docket No. 233432), a case factually similar to the instant cases. In Gen. Products Delaware Corp., the Court of Appeals held that the petitioner had not made out a claim of mutual mistake of fact under MCL 211.53a when it misreported several items in its personal property statements, which had, in turn, resulted in an excessive assessment. In support of its holding, the panel partially relied on the following reasoning: The Restatement (First) of Restitution, § 6 Mistake (1937) defines a mistake as a state of mind not in accord with the facts. It goes on to state, There may be ignorance of a fact without mistake as to it, since mistake imports advertence to facts and one is ignorant of many facts as to which he does not advert. Here, the assessor based the assessment on the personal property statement, thus he was ignorant of the real facts and did not have a state of mind that allowed for a mutual mistake of fact. [Op. at 250.] As summarized earlier, and detailed in the majority opinion, however, this rationale ignores the fact that the GPTA places the responsibility on the assessor to ascertain the personal property located in his jurisdiction and to exercise sound judgment. Again, when an assessor simply relies on a taxpayer's personal property statement and subsequently calculates the assessment on the basis of this information alonelike in these casesthe assessor is adverting to the facts in the personal property statement and adopting those facts as his own belief of what the taxpayer owns. Accordingly, these cases present instances of mutual mistakes of fact within the intended meaning of MCL 211.53a and the GPTA. For the reasons stated above, I am simply unpersuaded by the arguments advanced by respondents and embraced by the Court of Appeals majority and the MTT that the mistakes in these cases are best characterized as unilateral under our existing law. Moreover, under their preferred interpretation, I would be hard-pressed to envision any situation where a mutual mistake of fact could be found. Rather, MCL 211.53a already accounts for distinct claims involving clerical errors made by both the assessor and the taxpayer in addition to claims of a mutual mistake of fact. So if this Court were to conclude that situations like the ones presented in these cases lacked mutuality within the meaning of MCL 211.53a and engage in the sticky business of assigning fault, then the phrase mutual mistake of fact would be rendered meaningless. In other words, such a conclusion would necessarily adopt a rule that any mistake in the personal property statement, absent a clerical or typographical error, may not be remedied under MCL 211.53a. This is not a conclusion this Court should make because it would require rewriting the statute and effectively deleting the phrase mutual mistake of fact from MCL 211.53a. Instead, this Court has interpreted the term mutual mistake of fact consistent with its common-law meaning and in harmony with the Legislature's apparent intent in enacting MCL 211.53a. ELIZABETH A. WEAVER and MARILYN J. KELLY, JJ., concur.