Court Opinion

ID: 9686481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:50:53.450194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:19.285329
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in result and dissenting.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion except insofar as it concludes that Ladish is entitled to the interest earned on its refund while it was invested pursuant to court order.
The majority concludes that the rule it quotes from Ford Motor Co. v. State, 65 N.D. 316, 258 N.W. 596 (1935), is based on equities. A reading of that decision, and those on which it relies, does not reveal that basis. Rather, it is a rule that the legislative, not the judicial, branch controls such matters. The majority opinion confuses the concept of equity with the separation-of-powers doctrine. If such a rationale prevails it may be that in the name of “equity” the separation-of-powers doctrine will be subsumed by the judicial branch.
The opinion, although it is concerned with a county, apparently will apply to the State as well. It will cause confusion in the future. As an example: Are all payments under protest now to be deposited in interest-bearing accounts, or only those ordered by a court to be so deposited? Must payments under protest from each taxpayer be deposited in a separate account, or may payments from more than one taxpayer be commingled in an interest-bearing account? Because most funds collected by the tax authorities, State or county, are now deposited in interest-bearing accounts, although not segregated from other ac*38counts, is this sufficient to require the payment of interest on refunds of taxes paid under protest? If the tax paid under protest could have been deposited in an interest-bearing account but was not, will the county or the State nevertheless be required to pay interest if there is a refund? If the county or the State does deposit the taxes paid under protest in an interest-bearing account, must it be at the best rate of interest available? Is Section 57-20-21, N.D.C.C.,1 impliedly repealed by the majority opinion? These and very probably other questions which we have not contemplated remain to be answered. They should be answered by legislation enacted by the legislative branch of government, not by judicial legislation.
Finally, I note that when the Legislature intends there be interest paid on refunds of taxes it knows how to so specify. As an example, Section 57-39.2-25, N.D.C.C., provides that whenever a refund of sales taxes is authorized, interest “of seven percent per annum shall be allowed and paid upon any overpayment of tax from sixty days after the due date of the return or after the date such return was filed or after the date the tax due was fully paid, whichever comes later, to the date of the refund.” The lack of a similar provision in Section 57-20-21 creates a strong presumption that the Legislature did not intend interest on refunds made under that section. See, e.g., City of Dickinson v. Thress, 69 N.D. 748, 290 N.W. 653, 657 (1940) [“It must be presumed that the Legislature intended all that it said, and that it said all that it intended to say.”]
I do not believe Ford Motor Co., supra, and Richland County v. State, 180 N.W.2d 649 (N.D.1970), can be reconciled with the conclusion of the majority. I believe that the matter of the payment of taxes under protest, their deposit, and the payment of interest when there is a refund of such taxes is best determined by legislation which disposes of the issues such as I have raised above.

. Section 57-20-21, N.D.C.C., provides:
"Whenever taxes have been paid under protest, the county treasurer shall keep money thus paid and collected in a separate fund known as 'taxes paid under protest fund' and such moneys shall not be paid or disbursed to the state, to any fund of the county, nor to any local taxing district, until the period prescribed in section 57-20-20 has expired, and in case an action is commenced, the county treasurer shall retain in such fund, until such action shall be finally determined, that part or portion of the tax paid under protest which the plaintiff in his complaint contends is invalid or illegal.”