Court Opinion

ID: 9749017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:21:27.128818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:42.277221
License: Public Domain

DANA, Justice,
with whom ROBERTS and CLIFFORD, Justices, join, dissenting.
[¶ 14] I respectfuUy dissent. Requiring no discovery, the taxpayer proposed a short schedule for the filing of a stipulated record and briefs. The Assessor needed discovery and insisted on an open-ended schedule with no deadlines. The taxpayer acquiesced and *1215the court issued an order deferring the time for the filing of briefs until “such date as may be set in a subsequent order of this court upon motion of the parties or as may be stipulated by the parties.” Because the order set no deadlines, the attorneys for the taxpayer entered none in their office tickler system and waited for the Assessor to take its discovery. The Assessor did nothing. The court, blaming an antiquated docket control system, never imposed any deadlines and failed to bring the matter to the parties’ attention for almost three years. Although the Assessor, the taxpayer, and the system all share some of the responsibility for the delay in the prosecution of this tax appeal, the court’s order punished only the taxpayer. I believe that the trial court exceeded the bounds of its discretion when it imposed the ultimate sanction of dismissal on West Point-Pepperell, Inc.