Friedrich Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Co. v. Bexar Appraisal District

762 S.W.2d 763, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 3362, 1988 WL 144514
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 30, 1988
Docket04-88-00265-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 762 S.W.2d 763 (Friedrich Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Co. v. Bexar Appraisal District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Friedrich Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Co. v. Bexar Appraisal District, 762 S.W.2d 763, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 3362, 1988 WL 144514 (Tex. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

OPINION

BUTTS, Justice.

This is a summary judgment case. Appellant Friedrich Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Company (Friedrich) appeals from an order granting the cross-motion for summary judgment of appellees, Bexar Appraisal District and Appraisal Review Board of Bexar County. The lawsuit in the district court was an appeal from an order of the Appraisal Review Board determining a protest by Friedrich, and as such was a review of an action of the Appraisal District. 1

*765 In tax year 1987, the Appraisal District found that certain property, which it had previously found to be exempt from taxation under TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 11.01(d) (Vernon 1982) (the “free-port law”), had escaped taxation in the two previous tax years. The Appraisal District therefore appraised the omitted property pursuant to TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 25.21 (Vernon 1982), and listed the property it deemed to have been omitted in 1985 and 1986 upon supplemental appraisal records for 1987 in accordance with TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 25.23 (Vernon 1982 & Supp.1988). Notice of the appraised value was sent to Friedrich. A timely notice of protest was filed, and a hearing conducted by the Appraisal Review Board. See TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 25.23(d) (Vernon 1982). The Review Board upheld the Appraisal District’s appraisal of the property as omitted property, and ordered the appraised values to be entered on the 1987 supplemental appraisal roles. Friedrich properly perfected its appeal to the district court.

Appellees based their summary judgment position, that the previously exempted property should be “back-assessed,” upon their reading of the decision in Dallas County Appraisal District v. Brinkman & Co., 701 S.W.2d 20 (Tex.Civ.App.— Dallas 1985, writ ref’d n.r.e.). As reflected in their pleadings, and in their motion for summary judgment, appellees believed that the free-port law, under which it had previously found the properly in question to be exempt, was “invalidated by the Texas Supreme Court by virtue of its n.r.e. refusal of the taxpayer’s application for writ of error” in Brinkman. By counterclaim to the appeal brought in district court by Friedrich, appellees petitioned for declaratory judgment, pursuant to TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE ANN. § 37.001-37.011 (Vernon 1986), that the free-port law, supra, was unconstitutional. In the alternative they prayed that if the free-port statute is valid the trial court should determine applicability of the statute.

The trial court failed to declare the statute unconstitutional, but, rather, its judgment expressly upheld the constitutionality of section 11.01(d), the free-port law. The court construed section 11.01(d) as permitting appellees to rebut the statutory presumption that the property was temporarily located in Texas (and thus exempt), and found that appellees had indeed rebutted the presumption. The appeal is from that part of the judgment which expressly found that the free-port law did not apply in Friedrich’s favor, and that appellees could therefore place the property in question on the 1987 supplemental appraisal role, even though it had initially been deemed exempted for 1985 and 1986. Friedrich brings nine points of error. Ap-pellees bring one cross point of error: that the trial court erred in not declaring the free-port law unconstitutional.

Leaving aside for the moment the free-port statute, we find the crucial statutory provision in this case is TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 25.21 (Vernon 1982). Section 25.21 authorizes a chief appraiser to appraise during a current tax year personal property which he discovers had escaped taxation in one of the two preceding years:

§ 25.21 Omitted Property

(a) If the chief appraiser discovers that real property was not taxed in any one of the 10 preceding years or that personal property was not taxed in one of the two preceding years, he shall appraise the property as of January 1 of each year that it escaped taxation and enter the property and its appraised value in the appraisal records.
(b) The entry shall show that the appraisal is for property that escaped taxation in a prior year and shall indicate the year and the appraised value for each year. 2

Friedrich’s first five points of error, that the trial court erred in granting appellees’ *766 motion for summary judgment, are based upon the language of a statutory predecessor of section 25.21, /ormer TEX.REV.CIV. STAT.ANN. art. 7208 (Vernon 1960) (repealed 1979), and the case law under that former statutory provision. The salient former provision read as follows:

Art. 7208 Back taxes on personal property

If the assessor of taxes shall discover in his county any property, or outside of his county but belonging to a resident of the county, any personal property which has not been assessed or rendered for taxation every year for two years past, he shall list and assess the same for each year thus omitted which it has belonged to said resident, in the manner prescribed for assessing other property; and such assessment shall be as valid and binding as though it had been rendered by the owner thereof. Acts 1887, p. 127; G.L. vol. 9, p. 925

TEX.TAX CODE ANN. § 22.01 (Vernon 1982) requires taxpayers such as Friedrich to render all personal property owned by them to the taxing authority. There is case law under former statutory provision art. 7208, supra, (and under still earlier incarnations of that provision), which indicates that property which was rendered or assessed in a tax year cannot be back-assessed in a subsequent tax year. See Yamini v. Gentle, 488 S.W.2d 839, 841 (Tex.App.Dallas 1972, writ ref’d n.r.e.); State v. Couts Estate, 149 S.W. 281 (Tex.App.— Fort Worth 1912, no writ); Cook v. Galveston H. & S.A. Ry. Co., 5 Tex.Civ.App. 644, 24 S.W. 544 (Tex.App.— San Antonio 1893, no writ). Friedrich contends these cases establish that where the taxpayer claims, as it did in this instance, that the property was not omitted, but rather was included in the taxpayer’s rendition, the taxing authority has the burden to show the property was not rendered. Friedrich argues that appellees did not ful-fil that burden, and that because it fully rendered the property in question for tax years 1985 and 1986, the Appraisal District could not treat the property as omitted property by adding it to the 1987 supplemental appraisal rolls. Friedrich recognizes that the current statutory provision does not contain the “rendered” language found in its predecessor statute, but urges that the former provisions be considered in construing the current statutory language. See TEX.GOVT.CODE ANN. art. 311.023 (Vernon 1988). Specifically, Friedrich would have us construe “escaped taxation,” in section 25.21, to mean “was not rendered or assessed,” in tune with the former statutory provisions and cases under those provisions.

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762 S.W.2d 763, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 3362, 1988 WL 144514, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/friedrich-air-conditioning-refrigeration-co-v-bexar-appraisal-district-texapp-1988.