ATTORNEYS FOR PETITIONER: ATTORNEYS FOR RESPONDENT: BENJAMIN A. BLAIR JESSICA R. GASTINEAU BRIAN J. PAUL OFFICE OF CORPORATION COUNSEL DAVID A. SUESS Indianapolis, IN FAEGRE DRINKER BIDDLE & REATH LLP RAYMOND J. BIEDERMAN Indianapolis, IN SEAN P. BURKE HAMISH S. COHEN
JEFFREY N. FURMINGER
MATTINGLY BURKE COHEN &
BIEDERMAN, LLP
Indianapolis, IN
IN THE
INDIANA TAX COURT
CONVENTION HEADQUARTERS ) HOTELS, LLC, ) FILED ) Sep 03 2026, 3:05 pm Petitioner, ) CLERK Indiana Supreme Court
) Court of Appeals and Tax Court
v. ) Case No. 19T-TA-00021 )
MARION COUNTY ASSESSOR, )
)
Respondent. )
ORDER ON PETITIONER’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO AMEND PETITION FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW
FOR PUBLICATION
September 3, 2026
MCADAM, J.
After seven years of litigation in this Court, on a case involving a sixteen-year-old assessment, Convention Headquarters Hotels, LLC (“CHH”) now, for the first time, seeks leave under Indiana Trial Rule 15 to amend its petition for review. CHH’s proposed amendments would broaden the pending valuation count, add two new counts
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challenging the uniformity and equalization of the March 1, 2010 assessment of CHH’s property, and revise certain background allegations to conform to the evidence. The Marion County Assessor does not oppose the amendment of the pending valuation count if it remains confined to the market value‑in‑use of CHH’s property but opposes the other revisions and the addition of the two new counts.
A party seeking leave to amend after a delay measured in years must offer some explanation for that delay. CHH offers none. Instead, CHH attempts to convince the Court that its uniformity and equalization claims could not have been brought as an alternative argument and arose only after the Court ruled against CHH in its judgment on the constitutional claims in this case. The Court is unconvinced and denies leave to add proposed Counts VII and VIII. However, the Court grants leave to make the unopposed amendments to Count VI and the amendments to background allegations which do not prejudice the Assessor or otherwise attempt to incorporate the claims from proposed Counts VII and VIII.
Facts and Procedural History On June 28, 2019, CHH filed its Petition for Judicial Review pleading six counts.
Counts I through III alleged violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process guarantees of the United States Constitution along with a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (Pet. Jud. Rev. at 7–11.) Counts IV and V alleged violations of the Property Taxation Clause and the Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Indiana Constitution. (Pet. Jud. Rev. at 11–13.) Count VI alleged that the Assessor failed to assess the subject property’s land at its market value‑in‑use. (Pet. Jud. Rev. at 13.) On September 10, 2019, the Assessor answered the petition and added a counterclaim asserting that,
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if the evidence showed the subject property to have been under‑assessed, the assessment should be adjusted accordingly. (Resp’t’s Answer at 2.)
Less than five months later, on November 4, 2019, CHH moved under Trial Rule 42(B) to bifurcate the proceedings, asking for a stay of all proceedings regarding the subject property’s valuation so that the parties could first litigate the constitutional claims. (Pet’r’s Mot. Bifurcate Tr. at 1.) CHH divided the seven pending claims into two categories, which it labeled the “Constitutional Rights Claims” (Counts I through V) and the “Valuation Claims” (Count VI and the Assessor’s counterclaim). At the time of its motion, CHH represented that (1) there were no common issues of fact or law between the two categories; (2) the case presented five counts relating solely to allegations of the deprivation of constitutional rights and two counts relating solely to a determination of the market value‑in‑use of the subject property; (3) the Assessor’s counterclaim related solely to the level of assessment; and (4) that evidence of the subject property’s market value‑in‑use was neither necessary nor relevant to deciding the Constitutional Rights Claims. (Pet’r’s Mem. Supp. Mot. Bifurcate at 3, 9, 10.)
The Assessor opposed bifurcation, recognizing that the assessment at issue was already nine years old and arguing that bifurcation would further prolong the litigation and make fact‑finding more difficult. (See Resp. Opp’n Pet’r Mot. Bifurcate at 1–5.) CHH replied that it sought a partial stay not for purposes of delay but to avoid waste, unnecessary expense, and in the service of judicial economy, so that the issues could be addressed more quickly and more efficiently. (Pet’r’s Reply Br. Supp. Mot. Bifurcate at 5.)
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On December 3, 2019, the Court granted CHH’s motion, finding that bifurcating the constitutional claims and the valuation claims promoted judicial economy and convenience and would not prejudice the Assessor, and ordering that all proceedings regarding the valuation claims, including the counterclaim, be stayed until the constitutional claims were resolved. (Order, Dec. 3, 2019, at 1–2.) The parties then litigated the Constitutional Rights Claims over the next several years, including the completion of discovery, cross motions for summary judgment (which were ultimately denied in 2021), three stipulations of facts, and a four-day trial in February 2022. After the trial, the parties briefed the case and participated in an oral argument. The Court ultimately took the case under advisement in July 2022.
On May 24, 2024, the Court issued its opinion on the Constitutional Rights Claims, identifying the primary factual question as whether commercial properties under construction in Marion County between 2006 and 2019 were selectively assessed. Convention Headquarters Hotels, LLC v. Marion Cnty. Assessor, 236 N.E.3d 747, 756 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2024). The Court explained that it would apply the facts to the individual elements of each constitutional claim only if CHH carried that factual burden. Id. Concluding that CHH had not shown the Assessor treated its under‑construction property differently than other commercial properties under construction in Marion County during those years, the Court stated that the absence of disparate treatment meant CHH’s constitutional rights were not violated. Id. at 752.
CHH petitioned for rehearing on June 21, 2024, asking the Court to take the relatively uncommon step of certifying the judgment as final and appealable under Trial Rule 54(B) so that the Constitutional Rights Claims could be resolved before the parties
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returned to the Valuation Claims. The Court granted the petition and certified the judgment. CHH then petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court for review, which was denied on February 6, 2025. Convention Headquarters Hotels, LLC v. Marion Cnty. Assessor, 253 N.E.3d 513 (Ind. 2025) (table).
After the Court lifted the stay, the parties submitted a joint case management plan which identified a disagreement about what claims remain after the initial judgment was finalized. The Court ordered that the parties file a joint notice to provide an update on the dispute regarding the uniformity claim. The parties filed the joint notice on July 9, 2025, explaining that CHH believed its uniformity claim was not resolved by the first judgment. The Assessor, in contrast, argued that the November 4, 2019 motion to bifurcate, and the subsequent order granting that bifurcation, divided all existing claims in the case into two categories: valuation issues and constitutional issues, meaning that the claim of uniformity was wholly resolved with the other constitutional issues in the first judgment. The parties filed a motion to stay the proceedings for clarification on this question, which the Court granted, directing the parties to brief the dispute. An oral argument was subsequently held. The Court ordered supplemental briefing from the parties to clarify the scope of the disputed claims and the scope of relief sought by the parties.
On June 1, 2026, the Court issued an order clarifying what claims remained after the first judgment, holding that CHH was judicially estopped from asserting that the Valuation Claims included any claim beyond a dispute about the market value‑in‑use of the subject property. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 7.) The Court reasoned that estoppel was appropriate in this circumstance because CHH made representations to the Court, upon
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which the Court had relied, that the two claim categories did not overlap legally or factually and that the only issue left to be resolved was the market value-in-use of the subject property. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 4–6.) Because CHH’s new claims were inconsistent with those prior representations, the Court concluded that allowing such an overlap now would pose an unfair detriment to the Assessor. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 4–6.) The order observed that the decision did not prevent CHH from seeking to amend its Petition for Judicial Review to add new claims and declined to address the Assessor’s claim preclusion and issue preclusion arguments for mootness. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 7 & n.2.) The Court directed CHH to give notice within fifteen days whether it intended to amend and to file any request to amend within thirty days. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 8.)
CHH timely filed its notice and proposed petition amendments on July 1, 2026.
The proposed changes can be understood in three categories. First, the most significant proposal in the amendment is the addition of two new counts: Count VII alleges that the Assessor failed to assess the subject property at its uniform and equalized true tax value in violation of Article X, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution and Indiana Code section 6‑1.1‑2‑2. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 1 at ¶¶ 104–12.) Count VIII alleges that the Assessor failed to equalize assessed values as required by Indiana Code sections 6‑1.1‑13‑5 and ‑6. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 1 at ¶¶ 113–20.) Second, the amendment would broaden Count VI from a challenge to the assessment of the subject property’s land into a challenge to the assessment of the property as a whole and would add an allegation that market data, including assessments of comparable partially complete commercial properties, indicate
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that the improvements’ market value‑in‑use was lower than $71,716,700 and as low as $0 based on the prevailing level of assessment the Assessor applied to comparable properties. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 2 at ¶¶ 98–103.) Third, the Petition amendment would revise several background allegations, which CHH describes as conforming the petition to the evidence developed in discovery. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at ¶ 19.)
The Assessor filed a response opposing most of CHH’s requests to amend its petition. The Assessor does not oppose CHH’s proposed amendment to Count VI, provided CHH is not permitted to use that amendment to reintroduce issues or claims resolved by the May 24, 2024 judgment or otherwise arising under a constitutional provision. (See Resp’t Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at 2 n.3, 17, 24.) The Assessor does oppose the addition of proposed Counts VII and VIII, as well as the proposed revisions to the background allegations. (See Resp. Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at 2 n.3, 17, 24.)
DISCUSSION
CHH contends that justice requires leave to amend its Petition so that the case may be resolved on its merits, noting that this is the first attempt to amend pleadings, no deadlines in the valuation phase have passed, many key facts have already been developed, and the Court’s June 1, 2026 order “invited” the filing. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at ¶¶ 11–14, 18.) The Assessor responds in opposition, arguing that this amendment merely seeks to recast claims from the first judgment in a new light so that the issues may be improperly relitigated. (See Resp. Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at 2–3.) According to the Assessor, permitting CHH to amend its petition would promote injustice and is barred by various legal doctrines.
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Resolving this dispute requires the Court to apply its discretion to determine if CHH’s proposed petition amendments are warranted or should be denied. The Court finds that the addition of Counts VII and VIII has been unduly delayed and would prejudice the Assessor but finds no reason to deny the proposed amendments to Count VI (with one exception) or the proposed amendments conforming the petition to the evidence. Therefore, the Court partially grants and partially denies CHH’s Motion to Amend its Petition.1 I. Indiana’s rules governing amendments to pleadings A motion to amend pleadings is not directly contemplated by the Indiana Tax Court Rules but is a proper and allowable filing under Indiana Trial Rule 15. Indiana Tax Court Rule 1 provides that the Rules of Trial Procedure apply in this Court except to the extent that those rules are clearly inconsistent with the Tax Court Rules. Ind. Tax Ct. R. 1. Trial Rule 15 allows for amendments to pleadings, Ind. Tr. R. 15(A), and none of the Tax Court Rules directly address such amendments. Both parties and this Court therefore agree that Trial Rule 15 may be applied in this case. Because the Court acts as the finder of fact in an original tax appeal such as this, it must exercise its discretion in the first instance rather than reviewing the exercise of discretion by another tribunal.
Trial Rule 15(A) provides that leave to amend pleadings “shall be given when justice so requires.” Ind. Tr. R. 15(A). Indiana courts “freely allow such amendments in order to bring all matters at issue before the court.” Rusnak v. Brent Wagner Architects, 55 N.E.3d 834, 843 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016). That liberality exists to serve substantial ends:
1 Although the parties raise arguments regarding final judgments under Trial Rule 54(B), claim preclusion, claim splitting, timeliness in relation back under Trial Rule 15(C), and the lack of privately enforceable claims, the Court does not reach any of these issues as undue delay and undue prejudice are dispositive of the relevant issues in the motion to amend.
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our Supreme Court has explained that the amendment rules exist “to facilitate decisions on the merits and to avoid pleading traps.” Kimberlin v. DeLong, 637 N.E.2d 121, 128 (Ind. 1994). Leave is therefore ordinarily granted absent prejudice to the opponent. See In re Est. of Hurwich, 103 N.E.3d 1135, 1139 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018).
In determining whether justice requires an amendment to pleadings, Indiana courts consider undue delay; bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant; repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed; undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of the amendment; and the futility of the amendment. Rusnak, 55 N.E.3d at 842 (quoting Hilliard v. Jacobs, 927 N.E.2d 393, 398 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010)). The Court will focus on undue prejudice and undue delay in its analysis, as these factors are dispositive in this case. II. Proposed Counts VII and VIII Proposed Counts VII and VIII would each add an entirely new claim to litigation that began in this Court in 2019 and has already produced multiple unsuccessful dispositive motions, a trial, a judgment, and an unsuccessful petition for review. While seven years between pleading and amendment is undoubtedly a long period of time, the dispositive questions here are whether CHH could have pleaded these counts at the outset, whether CHH failed to explain the delay with new evidence or changed circumstances, and whether the Assessor is prejudiced by the negative effects of time on potentially critical evidence. The Court answers all three in the affirmative.
A. Undue delay CHH fails to offer a convincing justification for its delay in seeking leave to amend its pleadings until now, nearly seven years to the day since it first filed its petition in this
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Court. While it points to the fact that this is its first attempt to amend, CHH is incorrect that the new theory on which its proposed new claims are based was not available until after this Court’s decision on the Constitutional Rights Claims. Nothing precluded CHH from raising them at the outset of litigation before bifurcation. The claims are constitutional in nature and were only raised after CHH lost on its original constitutional theories. Without a plausible explanation for such delay, the Court cannot conclude that leave to amend should be granted now.
For pleading amendments requested years after the initial filing, Indiana courts have found undue delay dispositive when there has been no change in circumstances or no new evidence has been discovered to motivate the amendment. See Nyby v. Waste Mgmt., Inc., 725 N.E.2d 905, 915 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000) (upholding denial of motion to amend where party “waited twelve years to assert a claim that could have been raised in their initial complaint”); Gen. Motors Corp. v. Northrop Corp., 685 N.E.2d 127, 142 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997) (upholding denial of motion to amend where new claims were asserted four years after the original complaint without any assertions that new evidence might justify the delay); Hilliard, 927 N.E.2d at 399 (“waiting over three years to assert claims that could have been raised in the original complaint and raising them only after [the appellate court] ruled on the trial court’s summary judgment order constitutes undue delay”). By contrast, when a movant has identified something that changed—often new evidence developed during discovery—denying the amendment has been held an abuse of discretion, even on the eve of a trial. See, e.g., Kreilein v. Common Council of City of Jasper, 980 N.E.2d 352, 360 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (overturning amendment denial where defendant’s “recalcitrance . . . was the sole
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reason for the timing of the proposed amendment”); Pumphrey v. Jones, 172 N.E.3d 1256, 1262 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (holding that additional discovery necessary for a counterclaim “would likely cause some delay” but not undue prejudice). The line these cases draw is not primarily concerned with the time elapsed; the critical question is whether the movant can point to a change in facts or circumstances requiring a change to the pleadings.
Despite arguments to the contrary, the amendments that CHH proposes to its petition could have been made in its initial pleading as an alternative argument, even if such an argument created an inconsistency within the document. Indiana Trial Rule 8(E)(2) explicitly allows claims in a pleading that “set forth two or more statements of a claim . . . alternatively or hypothetically” and ensures that a pleading may “state as many separate claims or defenses as the pleader has regardless of consistency and whether based on legal or equitable grounds.” Ind. Tr. R. 8(E)(2) (emphasis added). CHH ignores this rule and argues that “the equalization theory was not available at the outset” of this case because it “did not exist.” (Pet’r’s Reply Br. Supp. Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at 15, 16.) CHH claims that these new counts depend on the Court’s 2024 ruling that “supplied the legal predicate by accepting that $0 constituted an affirmative assessment.” (Pet’r’s Reply Br. Supp. Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at 4.) The Court disagrees.
If the Court were to adopt CHH’s reasoning, there could be no alternative arguments or counterfactuals in pleadings. CHH could only file pleadings consistent with the facts that could establish its main legal theory at the time of filing—here, that its property was assessed in 2010 while several other under-construction properties were
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not. This approach is inconsistent with the Trial Rules and the general operation of Indiana Courts.
That the $0 assessments could be assessments is not a new revelation. CHH and the Assessor both discussed the issue multiple times before this attempted amendment. At least as far back as June 2020, the Assessor made explicit its position that the $0 valuations for other partially complete properties were “carefully considered” assessments. (Resp’t’s Br. Supp. Mot. Partial Summ. J. at 5.) And, in post‑trial briefing, both CHH and the Assessor discussed the fact that CHH was not claiming that the subject property’s assessed value relative to its market value was higher than the same ratio for other properties—precisely the claim that proposed Count VII would now plead. (Resp’t’s Post‑Trial Br. at 57; Pet’r’s Post‑Trial Reply Br. at 24.) The statutory underpinnings of these claims were also discussed on the same page of CHH’s post- trial brief, where CHH argued that the Assessor’s conduct violated the Property Taxation Clause of the Indiana Constitution “as well as its codification in IND. CODE §§ 6‑1.1‑2‑2 and 6‑1.1‑13‑5”—statutes on which both proposed Counts VII and VIII rest. (Pet’r’s Post-Trial Reply Br. at 24.)
Nothing precluded CHH from presenting alternative claims that depended on competing factual predicates at the outset of this litigation before the Court decided to bifurcate the litigation. Just as it chose to fashion claims around the theory that purportedly similar properties were not assessed, it could just as easily have developed claims around the theory that, even if the properties were assessed, they were assessed at a proportionately lower level than CHH’s property. Alternative pleadings like these are the types of arguments lawyers make every day and are at the core of
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legal practice. This Court’s decision on the Constitutional Rights Claims simply decided the factual predicate—that the purportedly similar properties were assessed—and thereby foreclosed one of the two alternative theories.
CHH does not point to any newly discovered facts or changed circumstances that would necessitate its requested amendment; instead, CHH attempts to reframe the delay based on the mistaken notion that it could not have previously asserted the equalization argument. CHH notes that the amendment was filed within the deadline the Court set in its June 1, 2026 order, that the valuation phase has not been tried and no valuation‑phase deadline has been missed, and that this is CHH’s first amendment. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at ¶¶ 11–12.) While each of those propositions is accurate, none of them offers any reason why an amendment was not filed in the seven years between the filing of the original petition and the filing of this motion, despite repeated discussion of the issue throughout. The only difference seems to be the legal consequences of the facts found in the first judgment: CHH now had to accept as true that the $0 valuations qualified as assessments, instead of considering it a potential fact or counterfactual statement. The possibility of such an outcome could have, and should have, been accounted for at the outset of this case by CHH making arguments in the alternative. CHH chose not to do this, despite being explicitly made aware of the Assessor’s position that the $0 valuations were assessments.
All of this was done in the context of bifurcated litigation, where CHH persuaded the Court to separate valuation and constitutional claims, for the purpose of efficiency, by representing that no claims shared questions of law or fact. Together, these facts unavoidably show that CHH knew about the equalization argument and chose not to
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make it until now, seven years after its initial pleading, requiring CHH to reverse course on previous representations about the scope of part two of this case. Therefore, the Court finds that attempting to raise those arguments now constitutes undue delay. 2 B. Undue prejudice The delay in amending the petition is not without consequence. Aside from further stretching the resolution of the case, the late addition of the proposed claims is likely to unduly prejudice the Assessor’s ability to defend the assessments and would encourage piecemeal litigation.
The prejudice the Assessor would suffer here is not of the kind that additional time for preparation can cure. Proposed Counts VII and VIII would require litigation of how the Assessor’s office valued numerous third‑party properties, the construction status and costs of those properties on historical assessment dates, and the information available to assessing officials at the time—all as of a March 1, 2010 valuation date now more than sixteen years past. The Assessor represented at oral argument that witnesses would be harder to find and less available and that files would require reexamination. (January 29, 2026 Oral Arg. Tr. at 18.) These are not complaints about effort or expense. They describe the erosion of the evidence itself, and no case management schedule can restore what time has taken. That is what distinguishes this case from other cases that have declined to find prejudice where the burden identified was one of effort and the record was intact. See, e.g., State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v.
2 CHH asserts that the Court “invited” the proposed amendments to its petition, but such reliance is misplaced. This Court’s June 1, 2026 order noted the scope of its decision and established a deadline for CHH to request leave to amend its petition under Trial Rule 15(A) to ensure timely resolution of the issue. The order did not review or address the merits of an amendment of CHH’s petition and is not relevant here.
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Shuman, 370 N.E.2d 941, 948 (Ind. Ct. App. 1977) (no prejudice when burden claimed is “further discovery, preparation and expense”).
The Assessor identified this risk at the outset. Opposing bifurcation in November 2019, the Assessor recognized that the assessment at issue was already nine years old and argued that bifurcation would prolong the litigation and make fact‑finding more difficult. (See Resp. Opp’n Pet’r Mot. Bifurcate at 1–5.) CHH answered that bifurcation would avoid waste and unnecessary expense and would allow the issues to be addressed more quickly and more efficiently. (See Pet’r’s Reply Br. Supp. Mot. Bifurcate at 5.) The Court accepted that representation and bifurcated the case. (See Order, Dec. 3, 2019, at 2.) The Assessor then tried the constitutional phase on the understanding, which CHH had pressed, that the only argument remaining in the second phase of litigation would be determining the subject property’s market value-in-use. Requiring the Assessor now to defend that assessment on a comparative equalization theory, which CHH previously disclaimed, is a burden different in kind from responding to a claim pleaded at the start.
CHH responds that prejudice will not materialize because much of the evidence relevant to the proposed counts has already been developed. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at ¶ 13.) But this response is difficult to reconcile with the discovery CHH contemplates. At oral argument on the joint motion to stay proceedings for clarification of the uniformity claim, the Court asked what the proposed claims would require, and the discussion identified the need to establish a market value‑in‑use for each comparable property, to compare those values to the assessments, and to apply statistical analysis to the comparison. (January 29, 2026 Oral Arg. Tr. at 55.) Whatever
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their precise scope, the new counts in the petition would open an inquiry into the valuation of properties that may be owned and managed by entities not party to this case, which were never before at issue, as of a date sixteen years gone. Unlike the parties to this case, the persons responsible for those other properties were under no obligation to preserve evidence during the progress of this litigation.3 Permitting CHH to add its newly proposed claims at this juncture would subject the Assessor to serial litigation. Indiana courts are rightfully reluctant to permit parties to proceed with new theories in circumstances like those present here. Allowing parties to “assert[ ] new theories of recovery only after the original claims have proven unsound would place an undue burden on [opposing parties] to defend such piecemeal litigation and would result in potentially endless ‘bites at the apple.’” Hilliard, 927 N.E.2d at 400. Such is the case here. Despite earlier awareness of the claims it now seeks to assert and an ability to raise them at the outset of litigation, CHH has chosen to assert these constitutional claims only after its original constitutional claims were unsuccessful.
Absent a plausible justification for the delay, such undue burden amounts to prejudice. Id. This prejudice is particularly evident when considering the procedural
3 One further observation is necessary: when it previously found CHH judicially estopped, the Court explained that allowing CHH to change course after seven years would be manifestly unjust and impose an unfair detriment on the Assessor, and that duplicative and inefficient discovery was a near certainty. (Order, June 1, 2026, at 6.) Those findings were made in applying the third judicial estoppel factor, which asks whether a litigant’s change of position would unfairly advantage it or unfairly burden an opponent who relied on the position abandoned. Trial Rule 15(A) asks a different question: whether the opposing party would be unfairly burdened in defending a newly pleaded claim. The Court’s observations about the difficulty of developing evidence concerning third‑party properties bear on both inquiries. Ultimately, however, prejudice under Rule 15(A) is weighed against the reasons offered by the moving party. Had CHH identified any circumstances that changed and required amendment to its petition, the Court would have set that explanation against the burden described above, and the balance might well have come out differently. But CHH has identified none. It is the absence of any plausible justification, and not the burden alone, that makes this prejudice undue.
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history of this case, where CHH convinced this Court to bifurcate the proceedings early in the litigation, over the objection of the Assessor, based on CHH’s representations about the scope of the claims left to be decided. Those representations suggested a much narrower set of issues than those presented by CHH’s newly proposed claims. Had the Court been apprised that these new claims would be lodged if it ruled against CHH on its Constitutional Rights Claims, it may well have declined to bifurcate or chosen an entirely different path for the proceedings. The serial approach to asserting these claims has impaired the selection of the most efficient means of resolving the dispute. III. The amendment of Count VI The proposed amendments to Count VI appear to do two different things:
(1) make clear CHH’s intent to discuss the value of both the subject property’s land and improvements for valuation purposes, (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 2 at 14–15 ¶¶ 96–101,) and (2) incorporate an equalization claim into Count VI (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 2 at 15 ¶ 102.) The Court will discuss each of these amendments in turn.
First CHH seeks to expand its claim regarding the value of the subject property’s land component to a claim regarding the value of the property as a whole, including both the land and the improvements. As broadened, Count VI is coextensive with the Assessor’s counterclaim, which has always addressed the assessment of the property in this way. The amendment therefore aligns the parties’ competing valuation claims rather than enlarging the scope of the litigation, and the Assessor does not oppose it. (Resp. Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at 24.)
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The Assessor’s lack of opposition, however, is conditional, and that condition is well taken. Proposed paragraph 102 would allege that the subject property’s improvements had a market value‑in‑use as low as $0 “based on the prevailing level of assessment applied by the Assessor to comparable properties and the Assessor’s assignment of $0 assessments to comparable properties.” (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 2 at ¶ 102.) That allegation does not describe the market value‑in‑use of the subject property. It describes the relationship between the subject property’s assessment and the assessments of other properties—which appears to raise an equalization theory. Attempting to add an equalization argument in Count VI suffers from the same defects of undue delay and prejudice that exist for proposed Counts VII and VIII. This addition will not be allowed.
Leave to amend Count VI is therefore granted in part, subject to the express limitation that Count VI remains confined to the market value‑in‑use of the subject property and does not encompass any claim that the subject property’s assessment must be adjusted to equalize it with the assessments of other properties. The Court therefore rejects the amendment to the language in paragraph 102 of CHH’s proposed amended petition and grants all other proposed amendments to Count VI. IV. The amendments of the title, introduction, and background facts CHH also seeks to revise several background allegations, which it describes as conforming its pleading to the evidence under Trial Rule 15(B) because the discovery process refined the number of comparable properties. (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review at ¶ 19.) CHH states, in a footnote to the proposed amended petition, that Counts I through V and the related background facts “are retained solely to
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preserve those claims for the record and any further appellate review.” (Pet’r’s Mot. Leave Amend Pet. Judicial Review, Ex. 1 at 1 n.1.) The Assessor challenges this characterization, arguing that the background fact changes are either relabeling previously decided claims or are improper under Trial Rules 59 and 60. (Resp. Opp’n Mot. Leave Amend at 2, 17.)
Allegations retained solely for the record require no revision. However, to the extent the revised allegations are offered as background to the claims that remain live, the Court sees no prejudice to the Assessor and finds no reason to restrict CHH’s request to amend these allegations. Leave is therefore granted in part, with the express qualification that such background to the claims remaining in this litigation has no effect whatever on Counts I through V, on the May 24, 2024 judgment, or on any finding underlying that judgment, and does not attempt to incorporate any proposed amendments denied by the Court above.
CONCLUSION
The Court GRANTS Petitioner’s Motion for Leave to Amend Petition for Judicial Review to the extent proposed by the Motion’s Exhibit 2 in numbered paragraphs 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 42, 43, 44, 99, 101 and 103, as well as the additions identified in subparts b and e in the Prayer for Relief, and for titles, subtitles, and paragraph numbering, as needed. Paragraph 102 in Exhibit 2 may be amended in part, to state the following:
Market data indicate that the market value-in-use of the Subject Property’s improvements was lower than $71,716,700 as of March 1, 2010.
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Subpart d in the Prayer for Relief in Exhibit 2 may be amended in part, to state the following:
Reduce the improvements component of the Assessment to reflect its market value-in-use as shall be proven at trial.
Leave for all other proposed amendments is DENIED.
CHH is ORDERED to file an amended petition conforming to this order within fifteen days. The parties are ORDERED to file a joint proposed case management plan within thirty days, addressing the sequencing of any remaining discovery and dispositive motions on the claims that remain.
SO ORDERED this 3rd day of September 2026.
Justin L. McAdam
Judge, Indiana Tax Court
Distribution: Benjamin A. Blair, Brian J. Paul, David A. Suess, Jessica R. Gastineau, Raymond J. Biederman, Sean P. Burke, Hamish S. Cohen, Jeffrey N. Furminger, Indiana Board of Tax Review