Court Opinion

ID: 9428240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:13.103687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.444404
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court's opinion, but I must confess that in doing so I participate in the decision with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I am aware of just how frustrating it can be for a conscientious property taxpayer who encounters what ap*529pears to him to be unfairness, arbitrariness, delay, and an inadequacy of redress even though he might ultimately prevail on his basic contentions about existing property tax assessment and collection methods. Nearly every municipality encounters like criticism. Justice Stevens’ dissent, however, indicates that Cook County’s system surely is not one of the better ones.
But the Tax Injunction Act was passed for a specific purpose and I very much doubt that the cure, although it may provide a headache, is worse than the disease.
The Court’s opinion demonstrates, I think, that the remedy provided by Illinois law qualifies, though perhaps only barely, as “plain, speedy and efficient,” within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act, and that federal jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief is therefore statutorily barred. Illinois — and particularly Cook County — may have little reason to be proud of the system, but it seems to pass muster under the Act. One might well hope, even though forlornly, that that system and its administration will be improved so that uncomfortable and distressing litigation like this case need not be pursued.