Coe v. ITT Community Development Corp.

349 So. 2d 654, 1977 Fla. App. LEXIS 16535
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided July 29, 1977·No. Nos. FF-398, FF-449·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

SMITH, Judge.

On February 2, 1977 appellee ITT Community Development Corporation filed its complaint seeking equitable relief from allegedly illegal ?.d valorem real property tax assessments on Flagler County’s 1976 tax roll. The appellant taxing authorities here complain, by interlocutory appeal, of the circuit court’s denial of their motions to dismiss and for summary judgment on the ground the complaint was not filed within 60 days from the date the assessment was certified for collection.

Section 194.171, Florida Statutes (1975) provides in part:

“(2) No action shall be brought to contest a tax assessment after 60 days from the date the assessment being contested is certified for collection . . ..”

All appellants filed motions to dismiss, in lieu of answers, asserting lack of jurisdiction and the complaint’s failure to state a cause of action. The motion of the Flagler County appellants for summary judgment and accompanying affidavit showed the Flagler County tax roll was certified for collection on December 3, 1976. It appears, therefore, that the complaint was not filed within the 60-day period prescribed by Section 194.171(2).

ITT urges the circuit court properly denied the defensive motions of the taxing authorities because Section 194.171(2) is an affirmative defense which must be pleaded, and to which an appropriate reply may be interposed, and further that the assessment was wholly void, not merely voidable, and so was susceptible to attack notwithstanding ITT’s noncompliance with the 60-day limitation on suits.

Less than a year ago, in a case directly raising the question, this court held that a suit contesting a tax assessment was within the circuit court’s jurisdiction notwithstanding it was begun beyond the 60-day limitation period. Bailey v. Plaza Hotel Corp., [656] 335 So.2d 16, 17 (Pla. 1st DCA 1976), cert. den., 341 So.2d 1079 (Fla.1977):

“We also find that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction. (See Maccabee Investments, Inc. v. Markham, Fla. App. 4th, 1975, 311 So.2d 718).”

Maccabee squarely held that former Section 194.151, now insubstantially changed in Section 194.171, is a “statute of limitation which must be pled as an affirmative defense and which can be waived; the failure to comply with the statute does not affect the trial court’s jurisdiction over the subject matter.” 311 So.2d at 726 (emphasis in original). See also Lake Worth Towers, Inc. v. Gerstung, 262 So.2d 1, 4 (Fla.1972) (dictum). Notwithstanding weighty arguments by the taxing authorities that these decisions disturb the finality of county tax rolls, with detrimental effect on county financial planning, we are not inclined to recede from a decision so recently made. Any resulting conflict with decisions of the Supreme Court and other district courts of appeal1 may be remedied in the Supreme Court.

The untimeliness of ITT’s complaint was not jurisdictional, did not appear from the allegations of the complaint itself, and was a matter of affirmative defense. The defense, absent a pleading of it, could not be raised by motion for summary judgment and the accompanying affidavit of Flagler’s property appraiser. Meigs v. Lear, 191 So.2d 286 (Fla. 1st DCA 1966).

The trial court was correct, therefore, in denying appellants’ motions to dismiss and for summary judgment. We intimate no view of whether ITT may sufficiently plead an avoidance to the anticipated answer and affirmative defense, but we do hold that question will be dispositive of ITT’s complaint as presently drawn. ITT does not sufficiently allege circumstances which would render the assessment void and for that reason subject to attack beyond the 60-day period for suit prescribed by Section 194.151.

The Supreme Court described the difference between void and voidable tax assessments in Hackney v. McKenny, 113 Fla. 176, 186-87, 151 So. 524, 528 (1933):

“Where tax assessments are unauthorized and void, they may be enjoined at any time. As where national banks and their stock shares are assessed in violation of the Acts of Congress permitting national banks and their stock shares to be taxed upon prescribed conditions . or where a tax levy as made is not authorized by a valid law; or where, though a tax levy be duly authorized by law, the illegality of the tax roll because of affirmative wrongdoing by the taxing officials, and not mere incorrectness or specific instances of unfairness in the assessment as made, is duly shown. .
“But where a tax assessment is voidable and not per se void as where it is made in good faith but is irregular or unfair, the taxpayer must move in due time and must make a full and clear showing of right to appropriate relief.”

Florida courts have held tax assessments void because based in part on improvements which were not subject to assessment, Lake Worth Towers, Inc. v. Gerstung, supra; when the assessment increased the prior year’s assessment without notice, Florida East Coast Ry. Co. v. Reid, 281 So.2d 77 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973); when the assessed personal property was not in the county on January 1, Overstreet v. Ty-Tan, 48 So.2d 158 (Fla.1950) and St. Joe Paper Co. v. Ray, 172 So.2d 646 (Fla. 1st DCA 1965); when the assessment attempted to tax imports contrary to the United States Constitution, [657] Hansen v. Port Everglades Steel Corp., 155 So.2d 387 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963) and Wright v. Reynolds Fasteners, Inc., 184 So.2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 1966), modified, 197 So.2d 295 (Fla.1967); and when the assessment included exempt property, Walden v. University of Tampa, Inc., 304 So.2d 134 (Fla.2d DCA 1974), cert. den., 315 So.2d 476 (Fla. 1975).

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Coe v. ITT Community Development Corp., 349 So. 2d 654, 1977 Fla. App. LEXIS 16535 (Fla. Ct. App. 1977).

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