In the above-captioned matter, Petitioner Julia Williams
seeks to challenge the assessed
value of her property located near the intersection of Highway 202 and Highway 607 in rural
Orangeburg County, identified as Tax Map Number 0321-00-05-013.000, by Respondent
Orangeburg County Assessor (Assessor) for tax year 2003. In his Preliminary Tax Appeal
Statement, the Assessor contends that Petitioner’s challenge to the 2003 tax assessment of her
property should be dismissed because she failed to timely file her objection to the Assessor’s
final assessment on the property with the Orangeburg County Board of Assessment Appeals.
See Resp’t Preliminary Tax Appeal Statement ¶¶ 3-5. Accordingly, a motions hearing on
whether Petitioner’s case was properly before this Court was held on January 20, 2005. Based
upon the arguments and evidence presented at that motions hearing, I find that Petitioner failed
to exhaust her administrative remedies with Orangeburg County before bringing this contested
case and that this case must, therefore, be dismissed.
BACKGROUND
By a notice of assessment dated May 23, 2003, the Assessor initially assessed the value
of the property at issue in this matter at $10,000. Believing the value of the property to be
approximately $4000, Petitioner timely filed a written objection to this assessment with the
Assessor on June 18, 2003, and the Assessor held a conference with Petitioner on July 31, 2003.
As a result of the conference, the Assessor reduced the assessed value of the property to $7500,
and notified Petitioner of the reduced assessment by a letter dated December 1, 2003. Petitioner
filed an appeal of this assessment with the Orangeburg County Board of Assessment Appeals
(Board) on January 6, 2004. However, because Petitioner’s appeal was not timely filed, the
Board dismissed Petitioner’s appeal by a letter dated June 28, 2004. Petitioner then timely filed
a request for a contested case to challenge the assessed value of the subject property with this
Court on July 8, 2004.
DISCUSSION
For the reasons set forth below, Petitioner’s case must be dismissed because of her failure
to exhaust her administrative remedies with Orangeburg County before requesting a contested
case before this Court.
The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies generally requires a person
seeking relief from the action of an administrative agency to pursue all available administrative
remedies before seeking such relief from the courts. See, e.g., Pullman Co. v. Pub. Serv.
Comm’n, 234 S.C. 365, 108 S.E.2d 571 (1959); see generally Richard H. Seamon,
Administrative Agencies—General Concepts and Principles, in South Carolina Administrative
Practice and Procedure 1, 83-96 (Randolph R. Lowell & Stephen P. Bates eds. 2004). However,
as recognized in the South Carolina Revenue Procedures Act, this exhaustion principle applies
not only when a party is seeking judicial review of an agency action, but also when a party is
seeking review of an agency action before another administrative agency, such as the South
Carolina Administrative Law Court (ALC). See S.C. Code Ann. § 12-60-30(14)-(15) (Supp.
2004) (defining both the exhaustion of administrative remedies that is required before judicial
review of a tax matter may be had and the exhaustion of agency remedies that is required before
a party may seek contested case review of a tax matter by the ALC). And, the basic rationale for
the doctrine of exhaustion is equally applicable to judicial review of agency decisions and to
contested case review of agency decisions by the ALC. See Video Gaming Consultants, Inc. v.
S.C. Dep’t of Revenue, 342 S.C. 34, 38, 535 S.E.2d 642, 644 (2000) (noting that “[e]xhaustion is
generally required as a matter of preventing premature interference with agency processes, so
that the agency may function efficiently and so that it may have an opportunity to correct its own
errors, to afford the parties and the courts the benefit of its experience and expertise, and to
compile a record which is adequate for judicial review.”) Therefore, prior to requesting a
contested case hearing with the ALC to challenge a property tax assessment by a county
assessor, a taxpayer must exhaust all administrative remedies before the county, including
challenging the assessor’s final assessment before the county board of assessment appeals. See
S.C. Code Ann. § 12-60-2540(B) (2000); see also, e.g., Meredith v. Elliott, 247 S.C. 335, 147
S.E.2d 244 (1966) (holding that taxpayers were precluded from challenging the assessed value of
their property in the courts because they had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies by
appealing the decision of the county board of assessment appeals to the South Carolina Tax
Commission); Lominick v. City of Aiken, 244 S.C. 32, 135 S.E.2d 305 (1964) (holding that an
individual could not challenge a municipal zoning decision in court because she had failed to
exhaust her administrative remedies by appealing the decision to the local zoning board of
adjustment).
The effect of a party’s failure to exhaust its administrative remedies, where required,
depends upon whether the party has merely prematurely sought relief from the courts or another
agency, without forgoing its remedies with the initiating agency, or has sought such relief only
after allowing its opportunity to pursue administrative remedies with the initiating agency to
expire, thereby forgoing those remedies. See Seamon, supra, at 85-86. In the first instance,
where a party has sought relief from the courts or another agency either before its opportunity to
pursue remedies before the initiating agency has expired or in addition to pursuing remedies
with the initiating agency, the reviewing court or agency may simply dismiss the matter without
prejudice and require the party to pursue the available or pending administrative remedies before
seeking further review; in such cases, review by the court or agency is not barred, but merely
delayed. See S.C. Code Ann. § 12-60-2540(B); Pullman Co. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n, 234 S.C.
365, 108 S.E.2d 571 (1959). In the second instance, where a party has sought relief from the
courts or another agency after entirely forgoing its remedies before the initiating agency, a
dismissal by the reviewing court or agency for failure to exhaust administrative remedies may
completely preclude review by the court or agency because the party’s opportunity to cure its
failure to exhaust its remedies before the initiating agency has expired. See, e.g., Meredith v.
Elliott, 247 S.C. at 346-47, 147 S.E.2d at 249 (“Having failed to follow the administrative
remedy created by the statute for the correction of errors in the valuation of their property,
[taxpayers] are precluded from resorting to the courts for relief.”); Lominick, 244 S.C. at 44, 135
S.E.2d at 310 (“It was incumbent upon [the challenging party] . . . to appeal to the Zoning Board
of Adjustment from the decision of the Building Inspector if [she] . . . considered his decision
erroneous. . . . Not having done so, she cannot now attack the validity of his decision.”); see also
Brackenbrook North Charleston, LP v. County of Charleston, 360 S.C. 390, 399-400, 602 S.E.2d
39, 44-45 (2004) (finding that a refund suit filed by taxpayers who had pending administrative
refund cases should simply be dismissed without prejudice to require the taxpayers to exhaust
their administrative remedies under the Revenue Procedures Act, but further crafting a special
administrative remedy for those taxpayers who had forgone their administrative remedies in
reliance upon orders issued in the judicial action and who would have ordinarily be precluded
from pursuing those administrative remedies).
Petitioner’s request for a contested case in this matter falls into this second class of cases.
By failing to timely appeal her assessment to the Orangeburg County Board of Assessment
Appeals, Petitioner not only failed to exhaust her administrative remedies with Orangeburg
County before requesting a contested case before this Court, such that this matter should be
dismissed, but also completely forwent those remedies before the County, such that the dismissal
of this case acts as a bar to further proceedings on the challenged assessment, both before the
County and before this Court. Therefore, for the reasons set forth above,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the above-captioned case is DISMISSED because of
Petitioner’s failure to exhaust her administrative remedies with Orangeburg County prior to
requesting this contested case proceeding.
AND IT IS SO ORDERED.
______________________________
JOHN D. GEATHERS
Administrative Law Judge
March 9, 2005
Columbia, South Carolina
