Court Opinion

ID: 9777893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:27:26.722752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.378387
License: Public Domain

PEEPLES, Justice.
I dissent from the majority’s holding that each tax year constitutes a separate appeal under § 42.29 and that the Tymraks can recover attorney’s fees of $5000 per year, or $20,000. The statute provides as follows:
A taxpayer who prevails in an appeal to the court under Section 42.25 [excessive appraisal] or Section 42.26 [unequal appraisal] of this code may be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees not to exceed the greater of $5,000 or 20 percent of the total amount of taxes in dispute.
TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 42.29 (Vernon Supp.1991).
I would apply § 42.29’s limits to multiple-year tax cases involving the same issues of law and fact. This case concerns property valuation for four tax years (1987-1990) that involved almost identical questions of law and fact. Indeed, the four years involved the same evidence and witnesses. It is true that the Tymraks could have filed four separate lawsuits, but it is equally true that the court could have consolidated them. See TEX.R.CIV.P. 174. In my view, when property tax eases involve sufficiently similar issues of law and fact to be consolidated under rule 174, they constitute one case and one appeal for purposes of § 42.29. The statute states the attorney’s fee limits in terms of “the total amount of taxes in dispute,” language that suggests that different tax years may be treated as one case.
In § 42.29 the legislature intended to limit attorney’s fees to 20 percent of the taxes at issue, but it recognized that in small cases 20 percent might be inadequate. It therefore allowed a court to assess attorney’s fees of $5000 when 20 percent seemed too small. There is no indication that the legislature intended to let courts multiply the $5000 limit by the number of *373years at issue, or for that matter, by the number of co-owners. That is what the majority has allowed, even though the four years involved the same parties, the same land, and the same issues of market value.1 I believe the legislature did not intend that result.
When a tax dispute can be tried in one case, and attorney’s fees thereby held to a minimum, I see no reason why additional fees should be recoverable under § 42.29 simply because § 42.21 of the code gives the taxpayer the option of bringing separate appeals to district court or amending his existing petition as years go by and the case is not resolved. See TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 42.21 (Vernon Supp.1991).
I would sustain point three and reform the judgment to award the statutory maximum $5000 in attorney’s fees instead of $20,000.

. Presumably, under the majority opinion, the court could have awarded $80,000 ($5000 per joint owner per year per tract of land) even though the case was tried in one sitting and all the issues of law and fact were identical.