Court Opinion

ID: 9696474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:49:03.002793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:22.654148
License: Public Domain

On Remand
Before: Cynar, P.J., and J. H. Gillis and Allen, JJ.
J. H. Gillis, J.
Chutzpah — a delightful Yiddish *559expression loosely defined as gall. In this panel’s prior opinion in this cause, our beloved colleague, Judge Nathan J. Kaufman, gave us a classic example of chutzpah, to wit: a defendant who, about to be sentenced for murdering his parents, begs the mercy of the sentencing court because he is an orphan.1
This case presents another splendid example of chutzpah. The defendant, West Traverse Township, claims title to the land in question by adverse possession, even though it continued to assess and collect taxes on the property.
The relevant facts are accurately set forth in the dissenting opinion. Our review of the record convinces us that the trial court clearly erred in finding that plaintiffs were not assessed and did not pay taxes on the subject property.
It is undisputed that the land descriptions contained in the property tax bills sent to and paid by plaintiffs included the property which defendant now claims by adverse possession. Before this suit was tried, interrogatories were sent by plaintiffs to defendant. Plaintiffs Bachus’ interrogatories numbers 7 and 8 asked:
"Does West Traverse Township admit that the plaintiffs and their predecessors in title have been assessed for taxes on land described in paragraph 1 of plaintiff’s complaint[2] for more than forty (40) years?
"Does West Traverse Township admit that the taxes *560assessed on the land described in paragraph 1 of plaintiffs complaint have been paid?”
Defendant’s answers to each of these interrogatories was "yes”.3
These interrogatories address the precise question now before this Court. How, then, can defendant maintain that the taxes were not assessed and paid?
The dissenting opinion places great emphasis on the fact that these interrogatories were in the file at the time the Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing. The dissenting opinion concludes that since the Supreme Court did not rule in favor of plaintiffs on the initial appeal, this Court cannot now reverse unless it makes "the dubious assumption that the Supreme Court did not know of the interrogatories and defendant’s response thereto”. We fail to see the logic of that conclusion. In our opinion the Supreme Court, in remanding the matter to this Court for reconsideration in light of the trial court’s findings, intended this Court to give continued credence to the existing record, including the above-quoted interrogatories. Defendant’s answers to those interrogatories created some evidence that plaintiffs were assessed and paid taxes on the disputed parcel. The Supreme Court’s remand to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing merely afforded defendant the opportunity to rebut that evidence. In our view, defendant clearly failed to do so.
Defendant contends that, while the property descriptions in the assessments included the disputed "park” area, plaintiffs were not actually *561taxed on that land. This position is based on the hearing testimony of the township’s former tax assessor, who was in office from 1942 through 1968. The assessor testified that during his term in office there were no guidelines for appraising property, and that he made the assessments on a lump sum rather than per acre basis. He stated that although the descriptions in the tax bills included the disputed "park” area, in his own mind, he excluded that subject property from the assessed valuation because he knew it was being used as a township park. However, the assessor was unable to state the amount which he subtracted for the "park” area. Moreover, except for a general assertion regarding his treatment of highway property, he was unable to recall any other instance in which township property was included in the tax description of a private landowner but mentally excluded during the assessment process.
The salient fact, which is undisputed, is that plaintiffs were never advised that the "park” area had been excluded from the total assessed values of their properties. Throughout the statutory period, plaintiffs believed, and justifiably relied on the belief, that they were paying taxes on the subject parcel. It was the township’s duty to notify plaintiffs that the "park” area was being excluded from the assessed values of their land. Had plaintiffs known that the assessed taxes pertained only to a portion of the land described in their tax bills, they may well have chosen to appeal those assessments. Moreover, had plaintiffs been timely informed that the property was being excluded from their total tax assessments, they could easily have taken some other action to exercise their ownership rights in the property and thereby defeated defendant’s claim of adverse possession.
*562In reviewing both the evidentiary hearing transcript and the pre-existing record, we are left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. In our view, the assessor’s testimony that he subtracted in pectore4 the value of the "park” area from the total assessed valuations of plaintiffs’ properties is insufficient to overcome the contrary evidence created by defendant’s answers to the interrogatories.
We hold that the trial court clearly erred in finding that plaintiffs were not assessed and did not pay taxes on the property in question. Accordingly, we reaffirm this panel’s earlier holding that defendant failed to establish the element of hostile use necessary to create title by adverse possession.
The finding of the trial court is reversed.
Cynar, P.J., concurred.

 Bachus v West Traverse Twp, 107 Mich App 743, 749, fn 1; 310 NW2d 1 (1981), remanded 412 Mich 870 (1981).

 Paragraph 1 of plaintiffs Bachus’ complaint described the southern half of the subject parcel, of which the Bachuses are record titleholders.

 Similar interrogatories were submitted by plaintiffs Cummings, to which the township responded in the affirmative.

 In the Roman Catholic Church the pontiff announces the appointment of a designated number of Cardinals and may sometimes not disclose all of them by name. If the Cardinal who was appointed is from an iron curtain country, the appointment is made in pectore, which means "in the breast”. The name is not disclosed for fear that some harm might come to the recipient of this honor.