Polaris Amphitheater Concerts, Inc. v. Delaware County Board of Revision

889 N.E.2d 103, 118 Ohio St. 3d 330
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedMay 29, 2008
DocketNo. 2007-0347
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 889 N.E.2d 103 (Polaris Amphitheater Concerts, Inc. v. Delaware County Board of Revision) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Polaris Amphitheater Concerts, Inc. v. Delaware County Board of Revision, 889 N.E.2d 103, 118 Ohio St. 3d 330 (Ohio 2008).

Opinions

Pfeifer, J.

{¶ 1} Throughout the relevant period, Polaris Amphitheater Concerts, Inc. (“Polaris”) owned the five parcels at issue in this case, and those parcels collectively constituted the Germain Amphitheater, which was a venue for popular music concerts located in the city of Columbus and the Olentangy Local School District. Polaris challenged the auditor’s valuation of the parcels for tax year 2003. The primary focus of the challenge, both before the Delaware County [331]*331Board of Revision (“BOR”) and the Board of Tax Appeals (“BTA”), lay in Polaris’s contention that the structures on the parcels did not constitute real property, but personal property. If successful, this contention would have drastically reduced the assessed value of the property by eliminating that portion of the value associated with the improvements. Ultimately, however, both the BOR and the BTA rejected Polaris’s attempt to recharacterize the improvements as personal property.

{¶ 2} On appeal to this court, Polaris does not take issue with the inclusion of the improvements in the real property tax base. Instead, Polaris targets its appeal to the specific amount of value that the BTA allocated to the land as opposed to the improvements. Polaris asserts that both its own appraisal and that presented by the Board of Education of the Olentangy Local Schools (“BOE”) show that the land had a much lower value than what the BTA found. Because this appraisal evidence was the only evidence of land value in the record, Polaris argues that the BTA’s finding of land value is not supported by probative evidence and should be reversed.

{¶ 3} Polaris seeks to consider the land value in isolation from the value that the BTA allocated to the improvements. By seeking reduction of the land value, and by not challenging the value allocated to the improvements, Polaris asks for an overall reduction in total value. Indeed, Polaris’s notice of appeal and its brief seek a reduction in total value equal to the amount by which the land value is allegedly overstated.

{¶ 4} The BOE opposes this request on two main grounds. First, the BOE asserts as a jurisdictional matter that the total value of the property, both land and improvements, is always at issue in a valuation case and that Polaris cannot prevail because it has not contested the finding of the total value for the property. Second, the BOE contends that in this particular case, any error in the value assigned to the land is merely an error in allocating value between land and improvements, not an error in determining the total value of the property.

{¶ 5} We reject the BOE’s first argument. The BOE relies on R.C. 5715.19(A), which relates to the jurisdiction of the boards of revision and, derivatively, of the BTA. R.C. 5715.19(A) does not define the jurisdiction of this court once a BTA decision has been appealed. This court’s jurisdiction is governed by R.C. 5717.04, which requires that a notice of appeal “set forth * * * the errors therein complained of’ in the BTA’s decision. We have repeatedly held that the assignments of error set forth in the notice of appeal define the scope of our jurisdiction to grant relief to an appellant. See Dayton-Montgomery Cty. Port Auth. v. Montgomery Cty. Bd. of Revision, 113 Ohio St.3d 281, 2007-Ohio-1948, 865 N.E.2d 22 (“Dayton”), ¶32, citing Cleveland Bd. of Edn. v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Revision (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 336, 337, 626 N.E.2d 933, citing Columbus [332]*332Bd. of Edn. v. J.C. Penney Properties, Inc. (1984), 11 Ohio St.3d 203, 204-205, 11 OBR 521, 465 N.E.2d 48.

{¶ 6} Our unanimous decision last year in Dayton illustrates the point. In that case, the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority appealed the BTA’s determination of the value of its new office building in downtown Dayton. The Port Authority contended that the actual-cost figures it presented to the board of revision constituted a more accurate valuation of its building than the figures used by the auditor. Neither the Port Authority nor any other party had appealed the BTA’s determination of the valuation of the underlying land.

{¶ 7} The BTA had found the value of the land to be $133,290, though the parties agreed that it should have been $316,620. “The reduction of this figure to $133,290 appeared] to be clear error on the part of both the board of revision and the BTA.” Dayton, 113 Ohio St.3d 281, 2007-Ohio-1948, 865 N.E.2d 22, ¶ 31. Athough the port authority had expressed at oral argument its willingness to stipulate to the higher land value, we held that we had no jurisdiction to correct the error in the land valuation because it was not the subject of an assignment of error in a properly filed notice of appeal:

{¶ 8} “In spite of the agreement of the parties, however, we have no jurisdiction to effect a change of the land value from the value that the BTA found. Our revisory jurisdiction over BTA decisions depends upon compliance with the statute, R.C. 5717.04, which requires that the appellant set forth in the notice of appeal the errors complained of in the BTA decision. Failure to so specify deprives the court of jurisdiction to grant a party relief on that ground. See Cleveland Bd. of Edn. v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Revision (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 336, 337, 626 N.E.2d 933, citing Columbus Bd. of Edn. v. J.C. Penney Properties, Inc. (1984), 11 Ohio St.3d 203, 204-205, 11 OBR 521, 465 N.E.2d 48.

{¶ 9} “ * * * To preserve the question properly, either party aggrieved by the BTA’s land valuation — the auditor or the board of education — should have filed its own appeal and specified the error. * * * Since that did not occur, we have no jurisdiction to correct the land valuation, and it follows that on remand the BTA likewise has no authority to depart from its previous finding that the land should be valued at $133,290.” Dayton, 113 Ohio St.3d 281, 2007-Ohio-1948, 865 N.E.2d 22, ¶ 32-33.

{¶ 10} Thus, Dayton makes clear that an appeal from the BTA’s determination of the value of real property does not necessarily place both the land and the building values at issue. Consistent with Dayton, we hold that Polaris acted within its rights as a litigant to file a notice of appeal that challenged only the land valuation as a method of reducing the total valuation of the property.

{¶ 11} The BOE’s second argument invites the court to exceed its jurisdiction and must therefore be rejected as well. The BOE identifies as the “only [333]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
889 N.E.2d 103, 118 Ohio St. 3d 330, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/polaris-amphitheater-concerts-inc-v-delaware-county-board-of-revision-ohio-2008.