Court Opinion

ID: 9724397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:55:25.963368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:59.971597
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
Circuit Judge Evans, who decided this case, is no longer on the Bench so another circuit court judge will be picking up the pieces in this tax appeal, to decide it under the settled law of this state.
Little heed was given to the important decisions of this state by the trial court. Rather, the domineering dictates of the South Dakota Department of Revenue, as exemplified by correspondence in this file, was elevated over the State Constitution and the previous decisions of the South Dakota Supreme Court. Also, and regretfully, the circuit court became caught up in scientific, bookworm, technical construction of land values by an assessment “Bible,” which led the trial court astray.
I hope, for the sake of all South Dakota citizens, that the circuit court judges of this state begin to realize that statutes cannot change our State Constitution; that manuals cannot change our State Constitution; that assessment formulas cannot change the State Constitution. I respectfully suggest that the trial judges of this state read the language of Kindsfater v. Butte County, 458 N.W.2d 347, 350 (S.D.1990), written by the Chief Justice of this state and particularly page 350 thereof which quotes, with approval, Codington County Bd. of Com’rs. v. Bd. of Equalization, 433 N.W.2d 555, 557 (S.D.1988) as follows:
(1) the burden of taxation of all property is to be equitable, S.D. Const, art. XI, § 2, (2) agricultural and nonagricultural property may be separated into distinct classes for tax purposes, S.D. Const, art. VIII, § 15, (3) valuation of property is not to exceed its actual value, S.D. Const, art. XI, § 2, and (4) taxation is to be uniform on all property in the same class. S.D. Const, art. VIII, § 15; S.D. Const, art. XI, § 2.
433 N.W.2d at 557.
If the trial judges of this state will use those two cases as a blueprint for future decisions, they will have at hand the law and not some bureaucratic dictates from the South Dakota Department of Revenue.
I would have reached every issue in this case, had this case been assigned to me, so that the new trial judge on this case would have some appellate direction in more detail. Suffice it to say, the evidence in this record grossly demonstrates that the taxpayer’s property was assessed at a value in excess of its actual value. This was mistake number 1 of the previous trial court’s rationale. The sales figures on the land clearly demonstrate that the trial court failed to consider recent sales of the property. Mistake number 2 was that the trial court failed to consider that the assessments violated the constitutional and statutory requirements that taxes be uniform on all property in the same class. Mistake number 3 was the failure of the trial court to equitably apply climatic, topographical, slope, slough, and rocky adjustments, which he, the trial court, considered de novo.
The new trial court will have to decide this case, de novo, in my opinion and I repeat: There are recent decisions which can act as a blueprint for every circuit court judge in this state. Our State Constitution, summarized in those two writings, should be the polestar for each judge as he charts his course in each taxation case coming before him or her.