Henderson County Appraisal District v. HL Farm Corp.

956 S.W.2d 672, 1997 Tex. App. LEXIS 5563, 1997 WL 656476
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 23, 1997
DocketNo. 11-96-318-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 956 S.W.2d 672 (Henderson County Appraisal District v. HL Farm Corp.) 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
Henderson County Appraisal District v. HL Farm Corp., 956 S.W.2d 672, 1997 Tex. App. LEXIS 5563, 1997 WL 656476 (Tex. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

OPINION

ARNOT, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from the district court’s ruling granting open-space designation to land owned by HL Farm Corporation during the years from 1988 through 1993. The trial court determined that HL Farm was entitled to a refund of excess ad valorem taxes paid during those years. Henderson County Appraisal District, the chief appraiser (Bill Jackson), and the Henderson County Appraisal Review Board (Ervin Anderson, Chairman) appeal. We affirm in part, and we reverse and render in part.

HL Farm originally filed suit in 1988 after its application for open-space land designation was denied. The lawsuit challenged the validity of TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. § 23.56(3) (Vernon 1992). The trial court entered a summary judgment against HL Farm, and HL Farm appealed. While this case was on appeal, the supreme court in HL Farm Corporation v. Self, 877 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.1994), held that Section 23.56(3) was unconstitutional. Accordingly, the Tyler Court of Appeals reversed the summary judgment in this case and remanded the cause for further proceedings. HL Farm Corp. v. Henderson County Appraisal District, 894 S.W.2d 830 (Tex.App.—Tyler 1995, no writ). On remand, the trial court entered the judgment that is at issue in this appeal.

In the first issue on appeal, appellants contend that the trial court erred in finding that HL Farm was entitled to an open-space land designation for the years 1989 through 1993. Under this issue, appellants specifically complain that HL Farm failed to follow the required administrative and judicial procedures for the years 1989 through 1993.

Taxable property is appraised each year at its market value on January 1. TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. § 23.01 (Vernon 1992). Anyone claiming that his property is eligible for appraisal as open-space land must timely file an application with the chief appraiser. TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. §§ 23.51, 23.54 (Vernon 1992 & Supp. 1997). If that application is denied, the property owner is entitled to protest and is entitled to a hearing and a determination of the protest by timely filing written notice of the protest with the appraisal review board. TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. §§ 41.41(5), 41.44 (Vernon 1992). The property owner is entitled to appeal the order of the appraisal review board by filing a petition for review with the district court within 45 days after receiving notice of the board’s order. TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. §§ 42.01(1), 42.21(a) (Vernon 1992). Under Section 42.21(a), an appeal is barred if the petition is not timely filed. [674]*674The procedures for appealing subsequent orders are provided in TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. § 42.21(c) (Vernon 1992), which states:

If an appeal under this chapter is pending when the appraisal review board issues an order' in a subsequent year under a protest by the same property owner and that protest relates to the same property that is involved in the pending appeal, the property owner may appeal the subsequent appraisal review board order by amending the original petition for the pending appeal to include the grounds for appealing the subsequent order. The amended petition must be filed with the court in the period provided by Subsection (a) for filing a petition for review of the subsequent order. A property owner may appeal the subsequent appraisal review board order under this subsection or may appeal the order independently of the pending appeal as otherwise provided by this section, but may not do both.

The parties stipulated that HL Farm followed the administrative procedures outlined in Sections 23.54 and 41.44 for applying for open-space land designation and for protesting the denial of that application in 1988, 1989, and 1992. In each of these years, the Appraisal District denied the applications on the basis of Section 23.56(3), and the Appraisal Review Board held a hearing and determined that the appraisals were correct and should not be changed. HL Farm did not file an application for open-space designation or a protest in 1990,1991, or 1993. In 1988, HL Farm properly perfected an appeal to the district court pursuant to Sections 42.01(1) and 42.21(a). In its 1988 petition, HL Farm requested relief “for the years 1988 and all subsequent years.” When the case was remanded to the trial court in 1995, HL Farm amended its petition to specifically include the years “1988 through 1993.”

Appellants rely on Section 42.21(c) and on Atascosa County Appraisal District v. Tymrak, 858 S.W.2d 335 (Tex.1993), in support of their argument. In Tymrak, the supreme court held that TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN. § 42.29 (Vernon 1992) authorizes the award of attorney’s fees for each tax year at issue in a multiple-year property tax case. In reaching this conclusion, the court determined that an “appeal” under Section 42.01(1) concerns the current tax year only and that:

The taxpayer must complete these steps [exhausting the administrative remedies] for each year that it desires to challenge the valuation because the completion of all the administrative requirements, the filing of a timely petition in the trial court, and the prosecution of the lawsuit to its final disposition affects only the appraised value of the property for that one tax year. Unless a property owner repeats this almost year-long administrative process and files another petition in a separate lawsuit or files an amended petition in a pending lawsuit filed appealing from an appraisal review board order issued in a previous year, the taxpayer loses its right to litigate the appraised value for the subsequent year, even when a lawsuit challenging the appraised value of the same property for a previous year is pending. Tex. Tax Code § 42.21(c).

Appellee relies on Harris County Appraisal District v. Bradford Realty, Ltd., 919 S.W.2d 131 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1994, no writ). In Bradford, the court of appeals determined that Bradford Realty’s exhaustion of administrative remedies in 1987 together with the amendment of its petition in 1988 and 1989 were sufficient to put the appraisal district on notice of the protest. The court held that Bradford Realty was not required to repeat the administrative application and protest process in 1988 and 1989. The court in Bradford distinguished Tymrak because the issue in that case was attorney’s fees.

We respectfully disagree with the court’s opinion in Bradford. Although the issue in Tymrak was the award of attorney’s fees, the supreme court clearly outlined the steps that must be followed in order to challenge an appraisal for subsequent years. The Tymrak decision cited both Sections 42.01(1) and 42.21(c) as support for its decision. The court in Bradford, however, relied on Estepp v. Miller, 731 S.W.2d 677 (Tex.App.—Austin 1987, writ ref'd n.r.e.), which [675]*675was decided prior to the enactment of Section 42.21(c). Furthermore, TEX. PROP. TAX CODE ANN.

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956 S.W.2d 672, 1997 Tex. App. LEXIS 5563, 1997 WL 656476, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/henderson-county-appraisal-district-v-hl-farm-corp-texapp-1997.