ORDERS:
FINAL ORDER AND DECISION
STATEMENT
OF THE CASE
In
the above-captioned matter, Petitioner Joan Finnerty seeks to challenge the
valuation of her property located at 1850 Pebble Road in Charleston, South
Carolina, and identified as PID# 05/350-05-00-091, by Respondent Charleston
County Assessor (Assessor) for tax year 2005. The Assessor contends that
Petitioner should be precluded from pursuing a challenge to the assessed value
of her property for tax year 2005 because she failed to timely file an
objection to the assessment with the Assessor as required by statute. After
timely notice to the parties, a hearing of this matter was held on August 1,
2006, at the South Carolina Administrative Law Court in Columbia, South
Carolina. Based upon the evidence and arguments presented at the hearing and
upon the applicable law, I find that Petitioner is precluded from pursuing her
challenge to the valuation of her property for tax year 2005 because she did
not timely file her objection to the assessment with the Assessor.
FINDINGS
OF FACT
Having
carefully considered all testimony, exhibits, and arguments presented at the
hearing of this matter, and taking into account the credibility and accuracy of
the evidence, I make the following Findings of Fact by a preponderance of the
evidence:
1. Since
the passing of her husband in 2001, Petitioner Joan Finnerty has co-owned the
property located at 1850 Pebble Road in Charleston, South Carolina, with
another woman, Linda Whiten. This property is identified as PID#
05/350-05-00-091 and contains an apartment complex. The business affairs of
the property have been managed by Petitioner’s son, Edward J. Finnerty, Jr.,
since the death of her husband.
2. From
at least 2002, the Assessor has mailed all tax bills and notices for the Pebble
Road property to “Linda Whiten et al” at Petitioner’s home address at 1274
Bamboo Drive in Charleston, South Carolina. At the hearing of this matter, Mr.
Finnerty testified that he has received the tax bills and notices sent by the
Assessor to his mother’s Bamboo Drive address for the Pebble Road property
since 2002 and that he has timely paid the taxes on the property based upon
those bills.
3. As
part of the 2005 countywide reassessment of property taxes in Charleston
County, the Assessor mailed Petitioner notice of the proposed assessment of the
Pebble Road property to her Bamboo Drive address on June 14, 2005. However, Petitioner
did not file an objection to the proposed reassessment of the property in
question until October 5, 2005, after receiving the tax bill for the property.
By a letter dated November 10, 2005, the Assessor denied Petitioner’s objection
to the assessment of her property for tax year 2005 because the objection was
not timely filed. In the letter, the Assessor further informed Petitioner that
he would treat her request as an objection to the assessed value of the
property for tax year 2006. Petitioner timely appealed the Assessor’s denial
to the Charleston County Board of Assessment Appeals, which, by a letter dated
December 7, 2005, upheld the Assessor’s decision. Petitioner then timely
requested a contested case hearing before this Court to challenge the assessed
value of the property in question for tax year 2005.
CONCLUSIONS
OF LAW
For
the reasons set forth below, Petitioner is precluded from pursuing her
challenge to the assessed value of the property in question for tax year 2005
as a result of her failure to exhaust her administrative remedies with
Charleston County before requesting a contested case before this Court.
Pursuant
to S.C. Code Ann. § 12-60-2510(A)(3) (Supp. 2005), if a taxpayer wishes to
object to the reassessment of his property taxes, “the property taxpayer, within
ninety days after the assessor mails the property tax assessment notice,
must give the assessor written notice of objection” to the proposed
assessment. Id. (emphasis added). In the case at hand, the Assessor
mailed Petitioner notice of the proposed reassessment of the property at issue
on June 14, 2005, but Petitioner did not file a written objection to the
reassessment until October 5, 2005, some 113 days later. Therefore, both the
Assessor and the Board of Assessment Appeals correctly determined that
Petitioner failed to timely file her objection to the assessed value of her
property. Further, as explained below, by failing to timely file such an
objection for review by county officials, Petitioner also failed to exhaust her
administrative remedies regarding the assessment with the county, such that she
is now precluded from pursuing her challenge to the assessment 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. 2005) (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
timely objecting to a notice of assessment issued by the county assessor. 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 file an objection to her reassessment notice with
the Assessor, Petitioner did not prematurely request a contested case before
this Court prior to exhausting her remedies with Charleston County, such that
that this case should be dismissed without prejudice, but rather, she
completely forwent those remedies with 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.
ORDER
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 Respondent
Charleston County Assessor prior to requesting this contested case proceeding.
AND
IT IS SO ORDERED.
______________________________
JOHN D.
GEATHERS
Administrative
Law Judge
August 10, 2006
Columbia, South Carolina |
