Mead Appeal

43 Pa. D. & C.2d 369, 1967 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 229
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Warren County
DecidedJune 27, 1967
Docketno. 40
StatusPublished

This text of 43 Pa. D. & C.2d 369 (Mead Appeal) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Warren County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mead Appeal, 43 Pa. D. & C.2d 369, 1967 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 229 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1967).

Opinion

Flick, P. J.,

This is an appeal to the court of common pleas from the tax assessment for the year 1966 (the case heading shows the year 1965 but the appeal, as amended, shows that it was taken from the assessment for the year 1966) -, as fixed by order of the Warren County Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes for certain oil and gas-producing properties in Mead, Pleasant and Conewango Townships, Warren County, owned by Blain M. Mead, some in fee and some under oil and gas leases, giving him the exclusive right to drill for and produce oil and gas from the properties, which appear on the tax assessment rolls as follows:

Total Daily
Production Average Assessment
Mead Twp......Lot #460... $2,972.71 8.15 $4,890
Mead Twp......Lot #470... 6,212.41 17.02 10,212
Pleasant Twp. .. Lot #471... 20.45 .06 36
Pleasant Twp. .. Lot #472... 93.07 .26 156
Pleasant Twp. .. Lot #458... 434.90 1.19 714
Pleasant Twp. ... Haddon... 224.01 .61 366
Conewango Twp. .. Green... 2,734.70 7.49 4,494

Appellant is one of the Warren County Commissioners, and, as such, he is a member of the Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes, hereafter referred to as the “board”; and any action hereinafter referred to as taken by the board refers to the action of the majority, the other two commissioners.

[371]*371The appeal got off to a wrong start and was twice amended. The matter was before the court preliminarily on preliminary objections and interrogatories but was finally heard by the court on appellant’s second amended appeal. As amended, paragraph 1 of the appeal lists the various parcels of oil-producing land owned by appellant, two parcels in Mead Township, four in Pleasant Township and one in Conewango Township, as above set forth, and shows the acreage of four of these parcels. Paragraph 2 reads as follows:

“2. That for the year 1966, the Warren County Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes has assessed said property as oil production at $600.00 per barrell”.

Paragraph 3 refers to the original appeal, and paragraph 4 reads as follows:

“4. Your Petitioner desires to amend his petition to aver that said assessment is erroneous and oppressive in the following regards:
‘‘ (a) improper standard of valuation
“(c) said assessment should not exceed $240.00 per barrel”.

The fifth and final paragraph avers that the objections stated were raised before the board of revision, but, due to inadvertence, they were not raised in the original appeal. The appeal then requests the court “to strike said assessment ‘Oil Production $600.00 per barrel’ or, in the alternative, determine the market value of said oil per barrel, from which a proper assessment may be determined”.

The evidence shows that gas production is not involved in this appeal; that owners of oil-producing property report to the chief assessor in July the total production in barrels from each oil-producing parcel of land for the preceding 12 months; that this figure is divided by 365 to arrive at the average daily pro[372]*372duction from the property in barrels, and that the average daily production is then multiplied by $600 per barrel to arrive at the assessed valuation of the parcel.

The procedure followed at the hearing on the appeal was that required by law. This is set forth in this court’s opinion in Tax Assessment of Edward R. McLaughlin, 58 Nov. 1959, opinion no. 2, and also in this court’s opinion in the matter of the Assessment of Premises at 201 McPherson St., Nov. 1959, no. 40, opinion of July 16, 1962, beginning on page 8 as follows:

“Appeals to the Court of Common Pleas attacking a tax assessment are de novo. The court is a fact-finding body: Park Drive Manor Tax Assess. Case, 380 Pa. 134, 136. From the facts before it, the court has the duty of determining a just and equitable assessment for appellant’s property: Traylor v. Allentown, 178 Pa. 489, 493. As the law governing tax assessments is statutory, the court, in performing its duty, is bound and limited by the Fourth to Eighth Class County Assessment Law of 1943, as amended, 72 PS §5453.101 et seq., as are all assessing authorities: Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Co. v. Northumberland Co. Comms., 229 Pa. 460, 466. Section 602 of the act, as amended, provides that ‘real property shall be assessed at a value based upon an established predetermined ratio (50% in Warren County) of its actual value or the price for which the same would bona fide sell’ ”.

Actual value has been defined by the Supreme Court as market value: Vollmer v. Philadelphia, 350 Pa. 223, 228; Flamingo Apts. v. Bd. of Rev. of Taxes, 383 Pa. 223, 225. When the assessment record for appellant’s oil-producing properties was introduced in evidence by the board, the market value of the properties was established prima facie, and the burden was then [373]*373on appellant to show by weight of the evidence that the valuation was unjust, inequitable and not made on a proper legal basis. See Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Co. v. Northumberland Co. Comms., supra.

Following this procedure, the board called its chairman, D. H. Lay, as a witness. He identified a resolution, adopted by a majority of the board on September 9, 1965, placed in evidence as board’s exhibit A, which provides as follows:

“The assessment for the year 1966 upon all oil and gas producing properties and the market values thereof shall be established as follows:
“(a) The market value shall be ascertained by multiplying the latest reported daily average production of oil property as expressed in barrels per day by the sum of $1,200.
“(b) The assessed values of such properties for the year 1966 shall be one-half of market value”.

There was also placed in evidence a stipulation showing information in regards to appellant’s seven parcels of oil-producing properties, some of which does not appear on the assessment roll, as follows:

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Related

Flamingo Apartments, Inc. v. Board of Revision of Taxes
118 A.2d 197 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1955)
Traylor v. Allentown
106 A.2d 577 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1954)
Hammermill Paper Co. v. Erie
92 A.2d 422 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1952)
Vollmer v. Philadelphia
38 A.2d 266 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1944)
Baird's Appeal
1 A.2d 485 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1938)
Allentown's Appeals
24 A.2d 109 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1941)
Rockwell v. Warren County
77 A. 665 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1910)
Park Drive Manor, Inc. Tax Assessment Case
110 A.2d 392 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1955)

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Bluebook (online)
43 Pa. D. & C.2d 369, 1967 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 229, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mead-appeal-pactcomplwarren-1967.