Court Opinion

ID: 9629510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:43:49.924416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:20.248990
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the proposition that the better remedy for unauthorized “spot assessment” is the reinstatement of the existing assessment. The Chapter 123 remedy insufficiently vindicates the assessment obligation violated by the practice. In many instances there would really be a right without a remedy and no effective way to deter the practice.
I cannot agree, however, that there is any need to federalize the issues in this case. The Court concludes that the assessment practice violates the equal-protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, citing Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. County Comm’n, 488 US. 336, 109 S.Ct. 633, 102 L.Ed.2d 688 (1989). This case is light years away from the Allegheny Pittsburgh case. In that case, the Court noted that the taxpay*369ers’ property “has been assessed at roughly 8 to 35 times more than comparable neighboring property, and these discrepancies have continued for more than 10 years with little change.” Id. at ---, 109 S.Ct. at 638, 102 L.Ed.2d at 697. Respondents have not proven disparities of that magnitude in the assessed value of comparable properties.
The scenario posed here by the Appellate Division was that the Van Deckers’ assessment was about one-fifth more than comparable recently-sold property (this based on the Appellate Division’s conclusion that the average ratio in the Township based on 469 residential sales was 32.93%, while the Van Deckers’ property following the assessment increase was assessed at 39.89%). 235 N.J.Super. 1, 11 & 6, 561 A.2d 607 (1989).
Recall that the assessor in effect gave something like Chapter 123 relief when she reduced the Van Deckers’ assessment to 39.89% of true value. By definition, use of an “average ratio” is a measure designed to eliminate unequal taxation. It produced “a rough equality in tax treatment of similarly situated property owners,” Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co., supra, 488 U.S. at ---, 109 S.Ct. at 638, 102 L.Ed.2d at 697, all that is required to pass federal-constitutional muster. We set aside the assessment not because the resulting valuation is not roughly equal to comparable properties (for after all, that is the result of the application of the average ratio), but because the starting point of the process, the spot assessment, surely violates the Uniformity Clause of the New Jersey Constitution, and is a practice that we wish to deter.
For affirmance—Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices STEIN, HANDLER and GARIBALDI—4.
Concurring in result—Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and O’HERN—3.