Court Opinion

ID: 9635103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:36:47.566891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:18.291699
License: Public Domain

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice, concurring. I concur ticmajority’s judgment e, Appellee failed to meet her burden of proof that the taxpayers were coerced into paying the illegal taxes. I write to emphasize that immediacy has long been the touchstone of the coercion exception. For over a hundred years, this court has found coercion only where a taxpayer was forced to choose between paying the disputed tax and suffering an immediate loss of personal freedom or property. Two early cases involving disputed liquor taxes illustrate the point. In Drew County v. Bennett, 43 Ark. 364 (1884), we found an immediate threat where the county required the appellee to pay a disputed tax in order to get a dram-shop license necessary to the conduct of his business. In Magnolia v. Sharman, 46 Ark. 358 (1885), we affirmed reimbursement where the town constable was also the tax collector and threatened to arrest the plaintiff taxpayer if he refused to pay the protested tax. There followed some cases where we declined to find that an illegal tax was paid under compulsion. The owner of a meat market sued to recover an illegal tax in City of Helena v. Dwyer, 65 Ark. 155, 45 S.W. 349 (1898). We found inadequate evidence of coercion and emphasized that, to be recoverable, a tax must be paid “to relieve the person from arrest” or “to prevent a seizure, when it is threatened.” Id. We affirmed the denial of recovery in Brunson v. Board of Directors of Crawford County Levee District, 107 Ark. 24, 153 S.W. 828 (1913) where the appellant had sued to recover levee taxes paid under protest. We held that there was no duress or compulsion because the taxpayer was in “no immediate danger of being disturbed in the possession of his property” if he refused to pay the disputed tax. Id. More recently, we held taxpayers were not coerced in City of Little Rock v. Cash, 277 Ark. 494, 644 S.W.2d 299 (1983), cited in the majority opinion. In Cash, the appellees sued to recover taxes paid pursuant to a privilege tax levied on the city waterworks commission. Id. We held there was no immediacy, and therefore no coercion, because the City had no power to terminate services to citizens who refused to pay the disputed tax. Protesting taxpayers faced no immediate loss of property or liberty. Id. Thus, there was no coercion and the taxes were paid voluntarily. Id. The record here contains no evidence that Appellee or any plaintiff paid the illegal tax under threat of an immediate loss of liberty or property. Thus, I concur with the majority decision that longstanding Arkansas law prevents the reimbursement of these taxes.