Court Opinion

ID: 9517975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:38:56.69802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:27.795377
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the court’s decision to dismiss Kmart’s petition under the 60-Day Rule contained in Minn.Stat. § 278.05, subd. 6(a) (2000). The court accepts the county’s argument that, because Kmart failed to affirmatively state that the percentage rent clause in its lease did not apply, the county did not know and could not determine the amount of rent actually paid by Kmart. The county’s argument ignores the facts of this case. The lease furnished by Kmart did contain the amount of rent to be paid. In addition, it stated that this amount could be adjusted upward, but only if Kmart’s gross sales for the year exceeded a specified amount. In fact, the amount of rent set out in the lease was the actual amount paid because the gross sales escalator was not triggered. Under these circumstances, Kmart satisfied its burden under the 60-Day Rule, and the assessor, relying on the information provided, should have proceeded under the reasonable assumption that the percentage rent clause did not apply.
*862The court is worried that, as in the companion case of Kmart Corp. v. County of St. Louis, 639 N.W.2d 866 (Minn. 2002), this assumption may prove to be inaccurate. Yet this risk is present whenever assumptions are made, and the reality is that an assessor has no choice but to make a wide range of assumptions about the accuracy and completeness of information submitted by every petitioner.1 An assessor must assume, for example, that the lease is a true and accurate copy of the agreement between petitioner and lessor, and not a work of fiction penned by the petitioner in an effort to minimize his or her tax liability. An assessor must assume, also, that the lease has not been modified or supplanted by a subsequent lease agreement. The law does not require a petitioner to submit information attesting to the authenticity of the lease to guard against the risk that these assumptions are not accurate; I see no reason why it should require such information in this case.
The court also expresses concern that a decision favorable to Kmart would tempt petitioners to provide incomplete or vague information, and that it would shift the burden of proof from the petitioner to the assessor. Apparently, the fear is that a petitioner whose lease contains a base rent amount and a contingent clause might knowingly fail to report that the actual rent paid exceeded the base amount — in other words, that a petitioner might withhold information and hope that the assessor does not discover the omission. I have two responses to this concern. First, the court’s decision does not solve this problem. Under the court’s reasoning, a petitioner committed to the goal of violating chapter 278’s reporting requirements could do so by falsely indicating that a contingent clause does not apply. Unless the assessor assumes that the petitioner’s statement is accurate, a practice that the court finds unpalatable, the assessor would then have to engage in further discovery to verify its truth.
Second, the legal consequences that attach to a violation of the reporting requirements, which include immediate dismissal under the 60-Day Rule and the possibility of civil penalties under Minn.Stat. § 289A.60, subd. 12 (2000), greatly diminish the possibility of intentional underre-porting.2 I believe that these remedies should be reserved for those situations in which the paucity of information submitted prevent the assessor from performing the valuation. This case does not present such a situation.
In sum, it appears that Kmart’s mistake was not that it provided too little information, but that it provided too much. Under the court’s reasoning, had Kmart simply redacted the percentage rent clause from the copy of the lease it submitted to the assessor, the present controversy would almost certainly have been averted. Because Kmart did not do so, the court would require even more information indicating that the clause did not apply. Thus, it *863seems that the court is more concerned with the form of Kmart’s submission than its substance. In light of the fact that the information contained in Kmart’s lease included the amount of rent actually paid for the property and time period at issue here, and that the lease was submitted within the statutory period of 60 days, dismissal of Kmart’s petition is unwarranted.

. In responding to this observation, the court explains that, while the information provided by Kmart in this case was not untruthful, it was meaningless. I find the court’s response unpersuasive. Rmart's lease lacks meaning only if an assessor refuses to accept the reasonable notion — whether termed a "presumption” or an "assumption,” and whether court-created or the product of common sense— that a contingent clause does not apply unless the petitioner indicates otherwise. The court's aversion to presumptions aside, the fact remains that, no matter how much information a petitioner provides, an assessor must always make reasonable presumptions/assumptions about the accuracy and completeness of that information.

. These consequences are in addition to any criminal sanction that may apply.