Court Opinion

ID: 9505311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:03:23.312222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:23.514441
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in Part I.
I concur with the Court's earlier decision to vacate the trial court's injunction entered in this case and permit Lake County property tax authorities to mail property tax bills based on the new assessments that are challenged in this case. I also concur in part I of the Court's opinion. More specifically, I agree that the Legislature has deprived Indiana trial courts of jurisdiction to review the claims advanced by the taxpayers in this case. The Sproles case is clear and unequivocal precedent on this point.
*1257At the same time, I agree with the Court that taxpayers whose property has been incorrectly assessed can appeal their assessments through administrative channels. This Court in Dept of Local Gov't Fin. v. Commonwealth Edison Co. of Ind., No. 49S10-0307-TA-293, 820 N.E.2d 1222, 1226-27 (Ind. Jan. 13, 2005), makes clear that the remedy is available even if the reason a taxpayer contends the taxpayer's assessment is too high is that other property in the township or county is assessed contrary to law. (The Department of Local Government Finance made clear in its filings in this case that it was prepared to review the assessments of over 5,000 Lake County residential taxpayers before the trial court's injunction in this case brought the proceedings to a halt. See Reply Br. of Relator-Appellants at 4.)
I recognize that it appears unwieldy if not unfair that taxpayers who believe they have been wrongly assessed-particularly, as in this case, where they believe they have been assessed pursuant to an unconstitutional statute-must go through several layers of administrative review before being allowed to appeal to the Tax Court. Indiana trial courts review claims of unconstitutionality all the time; why, the plaintiffs ask, should their claim be reviewed differently? |
The short answer is, of course, that the Legislature has said so, and under our laws, it is up to the Legislature to determine the jurisdiction of Indiana trial courts. See Ind. Const., art VII, §§ 1, 8. But sound reasons explain why the Legislature established this procedure. Protests over taxes are frequent and yet taxes are needed to provide public safety and other public services. A system that channels tax protests through an orderly system of administrative and Tax Court review without risking abrupt stoppages in tax collections by order of any one of the state's hundreds of trial courts protects the interests of both taxpayers and of all of us who rely on government services. Furthermore, utilizing an orderly system of administrative. and Tax Court review allows the executive and legislative branches to effect compromises of tax controversies, rather than have the answers dictated by (a variety of) courts.
It is in part because I believe that taxpayers and the executive and legislative branches should have maximum freedom to effect compromise of this tax controversy that I think the Court is wrong to reach the merits of the various constitutional claims advanced. More than a century ago, this Court said:
Courts will not pass upon a constitutional question, and decide a statute to be invalid, unless a decision upon that very point becomes necessary to the determination of the cause. This court has repeatedly held that questions of this character will not be decided unless such decision is absolutely necessary to a disposition of the cause on its merits.
State v. Darlington, 153 Ind. 1, 4, 53 N.E. 925, 926 (1899); accord, Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, - U.S. -, -, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 2308, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004) (quoting Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 341, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1986) (Brandeis, J., concurring)); Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101, 105, 65 S.Ct. 152, 89 L.Ed. 101 (1944) ("If there is one doctrine more deeply rooted than any other in the process of constitutional adjudication, it is that we ought not to pass on questions of constitutionality ... unless such adjudication is unavoidable."); Owens Corning Fiberglass Corp. v. Cobb, 754 N.E.2d 905, 916 (Ind.2001); Indiana Wholesale Wine & Liquor Co. v. State ex rel. Indiana Alcoholic Bev. Comm'n, 695 N.E.2d 99, 106 (Ind.1998); Citizens Nat'l *1258Bank v. Foster, 668 N.E.2d 1236, 1241 (Ind.1996).
Because a decision on the points discussed by the Court in Parts II through IV are unnecessary to the determination of this case, I express no opinion with respect thereto.
SHEPARD, C.J., concurs.