Court Opinion

ID: 9707331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:08:55.78067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:31.179569
License: Public Domain

Justice ALBIN,
concurring.
I concur with the Court’s well-reasoned opinion, but add these few words.
A municipality, knowing that a taxpayer has filed a false Chapter 91 response, presumably will make a timely motion to dismiss a taxpayer’s appeal. However, there may be cases in which a taxpayer inadvertently files false information and quickly attempts to remedy the mistake. I do not read the Court’s opinion to preclude—in rare circumstances—the tax court from exercising its equitable powers to deny a municipality’s dilatory motion to dismiss, provided the taxpayer does not have unclean hands. See Knorr v. Smeal, 178 N.J. 169, 836 A.2d 794 (2003) (applying equitable doctrines of estoppel and laches to deny defendant’s dilatory motion to dismiss under Affidavit of Merit statute because defendant delayed fourteen months in filing motion, putting plain*252tiff through lengthy and expensive discovery during which defendant learned that plaintiff had meritorious cause of action).
Justice LONG joins in this opinion.