Missouri ex rel. Mo. Clean Energy Dist. v. McEvoy

557 S.W.3d 473
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 7, 2018
DocketWD 81207
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 557 S.W.3d 473 (Missouri ex rel. Mo. Clean Energy Dist. v. McEvoy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Missouri ex rel. Mo. Clean Energy Dist. v. McEvoy, 557 S.W.3d 473 (Mo. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

Gary D. Witt, Judge

The elected Collector of Revenue of Clay County, Missouri (the "Collector") appeals the judgment of the Circuit Court of Clay County granting a writ of mandamus against the Collector in favor of the Missouri Clean Energy District ("MCED"). The Collector raises four allegations of error on appeal. We affirm.

Background

The General Assembly enacted the Property Assessment Clean Energy ("PACE") Act in 2010 to allow homeowners and businesses to access financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy property improvements. The MCED is the political subdivision of the State of Missouri responsible for administering the PACE Act. Property owners obtain PACE financing by entering into "assessment contracts" with MCED. In exchange for the financing, parties agree to pay annual special property assessments pursuant to the assessment contracts. By the terms of the PACE Act, the special assessments agreed to under the terms of the assessment contract "shall be a lien on the property against which it is assessed on behalf of the" MCED. Section 67.2815.5.1 "Such special assessments shall be collected by the county collector in the same manner *477and with the same priority as ad valorem real property taxes." Id.

In 2013, the City of Kansas City agreed to participate in the Missouri Clean Energy District and allow residents of the city to take advantage of PACE financing. A portion of Kansas City is located within Clay County. Between November 2016, and January 2017, MCED entered into assessment contracts with seven Clay County property owners. The seven contracts were recorded in the Clay County Recorder of Deed's office.

Beginning June 2016, MCED contacted the Collector to determine what type of information she would prefer to receive to ensure the PACE assessments were properly collected. In response, the Collector refused to collect such assessments for various reasons including, her belief that the statutory provision for the collection of the assessments under the PACE Act appeared to be in conflict with other Missouri statutes regarding the collection of ad valorem taxes and that MCED and Clay County did not have an intergovernmental agreement. The Collector advised that MCED needed to seek a legislative solution to her objections to the provision of the PACE Act. On August 17, 2017, the Collector notified MCED that the PACE assessments would not be placed on the 2017 tax bills because there was no existing intergovernmental agreement. On August 24, 2017, MCED delivered a spreadsheet to the Collector with parcel numbers and the assessment amounts of the seven Clay County properties with PACE assessments for 2017.

On August 28, 2017, MCED representatives met with the Collector in person regarding collecting the PACE assessments and, according to the testimony of John Harris, Director of Finance for the MCED, the Collector stated that she would attempt to place the assessments on the 2017 tax bills. On September 1, 2017, however, the Collector wrote a letter to MCED that stated that although she had "indicated a willingness to attempt placement of certain MCED assessments on real property tax bills in Clay County in 2017" she had not previously been able to review the bills or recorded contracts. Upon her review of those documents, she believed that the PACE Act financing was inequitable and, because of this and other problems she perceived with the PACE Act, she would not place the assessments on the tax bills. She determined that she would not place the assessments on the property unless a circuit court order required her to do so.

On September 7, 2017, the MCED filed its Petition for Writ of Mandamus against the Collector ("Petition"). The Petition requested both a preliminary order in mandamus and a permanent writ of mandamus ordering the Collector to deliver tax bills that include the PACE special assessments for the year 2017. The parties and the circuit court agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis and a date for the hearing was set by agreement. The Collector filed her Suggestions in Opposition to a Preliminary Writ on September 14, 2017. MCED filed reply suggestions in support of the writ on September 15, 2017. The circuit court held a hearing on the Petition ("Hearing") on September 18, 2017. At the Hearing, the Collector again cited various objections to the PACE agreements including that they were a violation of other existing Missouri statutes and there was no intergovernmental agreement in place. She did, however, agree that MCED had delivered at least four drafts or pro-forma intergovernmental agreements to the Collector but the Collector believed they did not address her "global" concerns. Both parties presented witnesses at the Hearing and offered documentary evidence in support *478of their respective positions. At the close of the Hearing, the circuit court requested post-hearing briefs from each party to be filed by September 20, 2017. The Collector agreed that time was of the essence because the deadline for the County to set their levies was September 20th and she would begin preparing the tax assessment bills the week following the Hearing.

The circuit court issued its judgment on September 26, 2017, granting MCED's request for a writ, issuing a permanent writ of mandamus ordering the Collector to include the PACE assessments on the 2017 tax bills ("Judgment"). The circuit court concluded that the Collector had no rights or duties to review the PACE assessment contracts and instead had a ministerial duty to place the assessments on the respective tax bills. Further, the circuit court noted that time was of the essence and found that the Collector had already been "given a full opportunity to respond to the Petition," and thus issued a permanent writ rather than simply a preliminary writ.

The Collector filed a Motion for Reconsideration on September 29, 2017, arguing, in part, (1) that the circuit court was required to issue a preliminary order allowing for an answer prior to issuing a permanent writ, (2) that the Collector should have been allowed to plead additional defenses based on certain federal and state consumer protection laws, and (3) that, when the Petition was filed, MCED had not yet delivered the PACE assessment contracts to the Collector as required by statute. Following a response from MCED, the circuit court held a hearing on the motion to reconsider. The circuit court orally found that the original suggestions in opposition to MCED's petition filed by the Collector were "tantamount to an answer [and] had the effect of an answer in the Court's opinion." Further, that the Hearing held was a "full-blown evidentiary hearing" at which both sides had full opportunity to present witnesses and exhibits. The Collector's arguments all went toward the fairness of the PACE Act and the resulting assessments as they relate to the property owners. The circuit court noted that the Collector lacked standing to raise arguments on behalf of the property owners and had failed to raise any arguments as to what additional evidence or defenses she would adduce at an additional Hearing regarding her ministerial duty to add these assessments to the property tax bills. Therefore, the circuit court denied the Collector's Motion for Reconsideration and the Collector timely filed this appeal of the Judgment.

Standard of Review

"Mandamus is appropriate when seeking to require an official to perform a ministerial act." Burnett v.

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Bluebook (online)
557 S.W.3d 473, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/missouri-ex-rel-mo-clean-energy-dist-v-mcevoy-moctapp-2018.