Court Opinion

ID: 9753112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:57:55.191544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:30.004624
License: Public Domain

Roberts, J.,
dissenting. I am unable to concur in the majority’s conclusion that the trial justice properly dismissed for want of jurisdiction the taxpayer’s petition for relief from an 'assessment pursuant to §44-5-26. The trial justice found that the account returned by the taxpayer to the respondent assessor was insufficient and inadequate to constitute the true and exact account of all ratable estate owned or possessed by the taxpayer which is required to be filed with the assessor under the provisions of §44-5-15. Having so found and apparently following the decision of this court in Ewing v. Tax Assessors, 93 R. I. 372, 176 A.2d 69, the trial justice concluded that the taxpayer had not filed “an account” as prescribed under the provisions of §44-5-26 and therefore was not entitled to the benefit of the remedy to review the assessment as provided therein.
*483The clear purpose of §44-5-26 is to provide for a review of an assessment of a tax by any person aggrieved on any ground whatever by any assessment of taxes. The procedure for obtaining such review is by petition to the superior court. Section 44-5-26 contains a proviso that “in case such person has not filed an account, he shall not have the benefit of the remedy provided in this section * * (italics mine) If I concede the correctness of the majority’s view that the account filed by the taxpayer in the instant petition is not a true and exact account as contemplated in §44-5-15, I cannot agree that the phrase “an account” contained in §44-5-26 contemplates giving the taxpayer a review of the assessment only if he has filed the full and exact account provided for in §44-5-15.
The majority holds that in enacting §44-5-26 the legislature intended that the account provided for therein as a condition precedent to the taxpayer’s right to have a review of an overassessment is the true and exact account required to be returned to the assessor under §44-5-15. I am of the opinion that to so construe the phrase “an account” in §44-5-26 is to do1 violence to the well-settled rule of statutory construction that statutes remedial in purpose should be liberally construed so as to permit an accomplishment of that purpose. It is my view that §44-5-26 is remedial, it obviously being a statute that was designed to provide a simple and convenient method through which the taxpayer may require a just assessment of the tax imposed upon his property. Thrift v. Thrift, 30 R. I. 357. I am of the further opinion that this court in Bishop v. Tax Assessors, 47 R. I. 351, clearly treated this provision as being remedial in character.
The provisions of §44-5-26 disclose a legislative intent to provide all taxpayers with a method for obtaining a review concerning the validity of the assessments of their property. This review has been made available without regard *484to whether an account has been filed when the legality of the assessment is challenged or the property in question has been assessed at a value in excess of that at which it had been assessed at the last prior assessment thereof. It is only when the challenged assessment does not exceed the amount of the last prior assessment that the filing of an account is a condition precedent to the taxpayer’s right to the review provided for in said §44-5-26.
I perceive no- sound reason for holding that the legislature intended to burden this latter class of taxpayers with the obligation to file the true and exact account prescribed in §44-5-15 as a condition precedent to obtaining a review of a challenged assessment while excepting all other taxpayers challenging an assessment from an obligation to file any account at all. Section 44-5-15 has application to all taxpayers and requires the making of a true and exact account as prescribed therein, and failure to so- do waives any right to make such an account. In other words, there is a universality of application as to the requirement of §44-5-15 to make a true and exact account, while the requirement contained in §44-5-26 concerning the filing of an account is applicable to a limited class of taxpayers. To construe this statute as to impute to the legislature an intention to burden the limited group of taxpayers with the filing of the- true and exact account prescribed in §44-5-15 in order to obtain a review, while exempting from that burden all other taxpayers seeking a review under §44-5-26, is, in my opinion, irrational. I cannot agree that such an intention should be imputed to the legislature.
In People ex rel. New York City Omnibus Corp. v. Miller, 282 N. Y. 5, the New York court said at page 9 of that opinion: “The Tax Law relating to review of assessments is remedial in character and should be liberally construed to the end that the taxpayer’s right to- have his assessment reviewed should not be defeated by a technicality.” The *485majority opinion, when viewed in the light of the remedial purpose of §44-5-26, makes inescapable the conclusion that the instant taxpayer’s right to have its assessment reviewed was defeated by a technicality.
Edwards & Angelí, Gerald W. Harrington, Ronald R. Lagueux, for petitioner.
Sarkis Tatarian, City Solicitor, Joseph T. Little, Assistant City Solicitor, for respondent.
The instant decision requires the instant taxpayer, in order to obtain the review contemplated in §44-5-26, to file what amounts to an inventory of all of its ratable property as is prescribed in §44-5-15 and denies it such review on the ground that though it has filed an account, it does not comply literally with the inventory required to be filed in §44-5-15. It is my opinion that the account filed by the taxpayer in the instant case, conceding that it does not comply with the requirements of §44-5-15, is a sufficient account to warrant a review of the challenged ‘assessment within the meaning of that phrase as used in §44-5-26. It clearly is a sufficient account to put the assessor on notice as to the claim of overassessment against which he must defend.
Because the majority has taken the view that the account filed by the instant taxpayer did not constitute compliance within the requirement of §44-5-26, any discussion as to the effect of my views of the proper construction of §44-5-26 on prior decisions of this court would be superfluous.