Court Opinion

ID: 9595388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:39:38.876249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:36.091718
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
dissenting.
I would reverse the order of the district court that affirmed the decision of the Wyoming State Board of Equalization, and I would reinstate the decision of the Sweet-water County Board of Equalization. The rules relating to review of administrative agency decisions, which are clearly and ably recounted in the majority opinion, lead ineluctably to the conclusion that the determination by the Sweetwater County Board of Equalization, the finder of fact in this case, should be sustained.
As the majority opinion states:
“The major point of contention concerning the sale is whether the trailers were ‘offered in the market place for a reasonable length of time.’ ” At 861.
The majority opinion then invokes the verb “find,” that usually connotes factual matters, and rules that they were not so offered. The State Board of Equalization, whose decision the majority upholds, is bound to the facts found by the Sweetwa-ter County Board of Equalization in the same way that the district court, or this court, is bound to those facts, and the State Board failed to afford the deference that was due to the findings of the Sweetwater County Board of Equalization.
The question, as captured by the quoted language from the majority opinion, is not a mixed question of law and fact. It is a pure question of fact. The cited cases that *865define an “open market transaction” are of no help in determining whether the house trailers were offered in the market place for a reasonable time.
Section 39-2-102, W.S.1977 (July 1990 Repl.) does not require an “open market transaction,” but instead delegates to the Wyoming State Board of Equalization the authority to “prescribe the appraisal methods and systems for determining fair market value using generally accepted appraisal standards.” The definition of “fair value” found in Chapter XXII, § 4(a), Rules and Regulations of the Wyoming State Tax Commission (1989), does not demand an "open market transaction” either. It simply says:
“ ‘Fair value’ is defined as the amount in cash, or terms reasonably equivalent to cash, that a well informed buyer is justified in paying for a property and a well informed seller is justified in accepting, assuming that neither of the parties thereto are acting under undue compulsion and assuming further that the property has been offered in the marketplace for a reasonable length of time.”
It is this standard that the Sweetwater County Board of Equalization found was met by the sale conducted in this instance. That board had no occasion to be concerned with an “open market transaction,” and neither does this court.
I have more sympathy with the constitutional premise advanced in the concurring opinion of the Chief Justice. The definition of “fair market value” set forth in the Rules and Regulations of the Wyoming State Board of Equalization may not meet the mandate of Wyo. Const. Art. 15, § 11(d) that "[a]ll taxation shall be equal and uniform within each class of property.” However, that is not an argument that has been advanced or briefed by the parties in this case and, in my judgment, it would not be appropriate to resolve the case in a constitutional context without briefing and argument and without the issue being raised by the parties.
I can see nothing in this case other than a straightforward question of whether there was evidence to sustain the facts found by the Sweetwater County Board of Equalization. It is my conclusion that there was sufficient evidence. I would reverse the district court and the Wyoming State Board of Equalization and would reinstate the decision of the Sweetwater County Board of Equalization on the basis of the authority correctly cited and analyzed in the majority opinion.