Lal v. West Chester Area School District

455 A.2d 1240, 71 Pa. Commw. 236, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1224
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 18, 1983
DocketNo. 12 T.D. 1982
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 455 A.2d 1240 (Lal v. West Chester Area School District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lal v. West Chester Area School District, 455 A.2d 1240, 71 Pa. Commw. 236, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1224 (Pa. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Craig,

In this original jurisdiction matter, West Chester Area School District and the Commonwealth of Penn[238]*238sylvania have filed preliminary objections to Amrit Lai’s complaint, which alleges procedural defects in the implementation of the school district’s tax and challenges the constitutionality of .the Pennsylvania system of school financing which primarily relies on local tax revenues.

In 1977, Amrit Lai owned a tax parcel numbered 66-2-37, containing five acres, two dwellings and a building, assessed at $21,030, in Thornbury Township. Lai resided in West .Chester.

That year, the school district delivered tax duplicates for parcel 66-2-37 to the tax collector of Thorn-bury Township to .send to Lai. Lai denies that he received notice of these school taxes; he paid taxes for other properties owned by him in the .school district for the year 1977. In April, 1978, Lai offered to pay the tax due ($1,724.46) on parcel 66-2-37, but he refused to pay the 10% late penalty. Accordingly, the tax collector refused to accept the payment and lodged a tax claim against that parcel.

Lai filed exceptions to the tax claim; after an evidentiary hearing, the Tax Claim Bureau of Chester County disallowed the exceptions. Then Lai petitioned the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County to dismiss, reduce, or set aside the bureau’s lien against his property. Almost four years later, Lai amended his petition to join the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and its Department of Education as defendants in order to challenge the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s public school financing system.

In March, 1982, the Commonwealth defendants filed preliminary objections asserting, among other points, lack of jurisdiction in the. county court. Lai then requested, and the common pleas court granted, a transfer of his action to this court. The Commonwealth’s additional preliminary objections, as well as [239]*239those of the school district, raising Lai’s lack of standing and his failure to state a claim, are now before this court.

In Count 1 of his complaint, Lai asserts that: (1) the school district and township have failed to meet the notice requirements prescribed in Section 6 of the Act of May 25, 1945 (1945 Act), P.L. 1050, as amended, 72 P.S. §5511.6, (2) the tax collector improperly refused Lai’s offer to pay the tax without the penalty, and (3) “the school taxing rates used in 1977 for school district tax based, upon assessment of real property were arbitrary and not related to the actual fiscal needs of the respective taxing district.”1

In concluding that the demurrers to Lai’s first challenge must be sustained, we note that, despite the notice provisions of section 6 of the 1945 act,2 section 7 of that act3 clearly provides that:

Failure to receive notice shall not relieve any taxpayer from the payment of any taxes imposed by any taxing district, such taxpayer shall be charged with his taxes as though he had received notice.

Our Superior .Court, in considering the 1945 Act, said :

The absence of notice and hearing, then, prior to the collection of the tax in controversy, deprived the [taxpayer] of no constitutional right. Due process of law does not require that a taxpayer have the privilege of contesting a tax before it is levied and collected____

[240]*240Hartman v. Columbia Malleable Castings Corp., 164 Pa. Superior Ct. 1, 6, 63 A.2d 406, 409 (1949).

LaPs second claim, must also fall before the objection that, assuming its truth, it fails to state a claim. The tax collector properly refused to accept LaPs offer to pay the tax without the penalty imposed by Section 10 of the 1945 act,4 because, when a late payment penalty is established by statute, the penalty is added to the tax originally assessed to constitute the tax then due. Borough of Homestead v. Defense Plant Corp., 356 Pa. 500, 52 A.2d 581 (1947).

In considering LaPs assertion that the assessment of the properties within the taxing district is arbitrary and therefore unconstitutional, we are guided by our Supreme Court’s recent decision in Shenango Valley Osteopathic Hospital v. Department of Health, Pa. , 451 A.2d 434 (1982). That court, in resolving the question of whether one challenging the validity of a statute must first pursue all available administrative remedies, said:

It is therefore clearly appropriate to defer judicial review when the question presented is one within the agency’s specialization and when the administrative remedy is as likely as the judicial remedy to provide the desired result. However, a distinctly different situation is presented where the remedy afforded through the administrative process is inadequate. Pa. at , 451 A.2d at 438.

Justice Pomeroy, in Borough of Green Tree v. Board of Property Assessments, 459 Pa. 268, 328 A.2d 819 (1974), (plurality opinion), offered guidance on that issue:

The more clearly it appears that the question raised goes directly to the validity of the stat[241]*241ute, the less need exists for the agency- involved to throw light on the issue through exercise of its specialized fact-finding function or application of its administrative expertise.

Id. at 281, 328 A.2d at 825.

Although Green Tree involved a plurality opinion, our Supreme Court, in Shenango Valley, noted that:

[I]t was clear from [Green Tree] that four members of this court agreed the doctrine of exhaustion of remedies -would not bar equitable intervention where there are both a substantial question of constitutionality and the absence of an adequate statutory remedy. [Emphasis in original.]

Id. at , 451 A.2d at 438.5

[242]*242Here, however, Lai’s challenge focuses not on the •general validity of the taxing statute, but on whether that statute has been administered arbitrarily. Therefore, because Lai’s constitutional challenge in Count 1 does not involve a direct attack upon the constitutionality of the property tax, it does not rise to the level of a “substantial question of constitutionality.” Id.; see also Hudson v. Union County, 50 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 378, 382, 413 A.2d 1148, 1150 (1980), in citing Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. Indiana County Board of Property Assessments, 438 Pa. 506, 508, 266 A.2d 78, 79 (1974).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Safe Harbor Water Power Corp. v. Williams
825 A.2d 733 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 2003)
Lawrence G. Spielvogel, Inc. v. Township of Cheltenham
601 A.2d 1310 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1992)
Fiore v. Commonwealth
596 A.2d 1147 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1991)
LCN Real Estate, Inc. v. Borough of Wyoming
544 A.2d 1053 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1988)
Connecticut General Life Insurance v. Chartiers Valley School District
532 A.2d 41 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1987)
Quast v. Westmoreland Tax Claim Bureau
1 Pa. D. & C.4th 541 (Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas, 1987)
Lal v. WEST CHESTER A. SCH. DIST.
513 A.2d 1152 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1986)
Lal v. West Chester Area School District
513 A.2d 1152 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1986)
Strait v. Board of Commissioners
38 Pa. D. & C.3d 549 (Fulton County Court of Common Pleas, 1986)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
455 A.2d 1240, 71 Pa. Commw. 236, 1983 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lal-v-west-chester-area-school-district-pacommwct-1983.