Court Opinion

ID: 9452858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:54:39.090629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:23.539685
License: Public Domain

NEESE, District Judge
(dissenting).
The profound deference I hold for the more experienced judgments of my learned brethren must not dissuade me from the performance of my sworn duty in dissenting respectfully from the conclusion reached by the majority herein. I cannot avoid the conclusion that the valuations on which the assessments of the plaintiff’s property were based in 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963 were so palpably unfair and wrong as to amount, in legal effect, to the equivalent of the intention or fraudulent purpose on the part of the defendants to overvalue this plaintiff’s property and set at naught fundamental principles which safeguard the rights of a taxpayer and his property. Cf. Rowley v. Chicago, N. W. R. Co., 293 U.S. 102, 109-111, 55 S.Ct. 55, 79 L.Ed. 222 (1934); Great Northern R. Co. v. Weeks, 297 U.S. 135, 139, 56 S.Ct. 426, 80 L.Ed. 532 (1936).
The cold figures suggest to me that the taxing authorities themselves recognized eventually that the valuations at issue were unfair and clearly wrong. The various assessments set forth in the majority opinion reflect an adjustment on appeal to the State Tax Commission of Michigan of more than 31% between the valuations for the tax years 1961 and 1962. This represents a startling commentary on the overvaluation before adjustment on appeal. The final valuation for the tax year 19641 amounted to only 45.6% of the initial valuation of this taxpayer’s property, and the 1964 valuation was computed after the plaintiff had expended approximately $125,000 in enhancing its value with improvements. These considerations persuade me that the valuations prior to 1964 under “ * * * a generally approved practical scheme of valuation [produced] fundamentally wrong results under the circumstances * * * ” of this particular case. See Twenty-Two Charlotte, Inc. v. City of Detroit, 294 Mich. 275, 285, 293 N.W. 647 (1940).
While agreeing totally with the majority that Michigan law is applicable here, and that the employment by these taxing authorities of the reproduction-cost- less- depreciation- and- obsolescence method of valuation was not improper and was uniformly applied, this is not determinative. While “ * * * [a] tax must be uniform to be good, [i]t is not *174good simply because it is uniform * * *", In re Harleigh, 299 Penn. 385, 149 A. 653, 655, and “ * * * [i]f the result was clearly wrong, the method used [will] not save it.’ * * * ” Twenty-Two Charlotte, Inc. v. City of Detroit, supra, 249 Mich, at 286, 293 N.W. at 651, quoting from Bailey v. Megan, 102 F.2d 651, 654 [4] (C.C.A. 8, 1939).
I am in agreement further with the majority that, in the absence of fraud or discrimination, the actions of the State Tax Commission of Michigan are final and not to be disputed as to the exercise of judgment by the courts. (See cases cited in the majority opinion.) There is present here an overriding consideration, however.
We are adjured from on high to assume more responsibility for the reasonableness and fairness of such administrative decisions than some courts had assumed before 1951, to be influenced by the feeling that courts are not to abdicate their conventional judicial functions, and to discharge the responsibility imposed upon us by the Congress to keep such matters within reasonable bounds of reality. See Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 340 U.S. 474, 488, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (headnote 8) (1951). According the Michigan taxing authorities’ judgments due consideration, where, as here, the record demonstrates a reduction in valuation of realty of $1,922,150, roughly 55%, over a span of five years, when one-eighth of a million dollars in improvements have been added to the realty within that period, in my mind it is an abdication of our conventional judicial functions not to conclude that the earlier higher valuations must have been “clearly wrong”.
As indicated, supra, the action of the defendants which I fault pertains to the result reached. This result passes muster on Michigan’s qualification that discrimination be absent, while failing to pass muster on the further qualification that the result also be fair. Twenty-Two Charlotte, Inc. v. City of Detroit, supra.
Entertaining this view of the matters at issue, I would reverse and remand, with no prejudice to a proper reassessment for the periods in issue, Helin v. Grosse Pointe Township, 329 Mich. 396, 408, 45 N.W.2d 338 (1951), on pain of future judgment by this Court for a full refund of the taxes paid under protest by the plaintiff.2

. The 1964 valuation for this property was stated in oral argument before us without dispute to have been $1,610,200.

. I think this may be preferrable to ordering a refund of the entire amount of the disputed taxes, when the plaintiff must then pay back a substantial proportion thereof following reassessment.