Pourier v. South Dakota Department of Revenue

2004 SD 3, 674 N.W.2d 314
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 7, 2004
DocketNone
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 2004 SD 3 (Pourier v. South Dakota Department of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pourier v. South Dakota Department of Revenue, 2004 SD 3, 674 N.W.2d 314 (S.D. 2004).

Opinions

KONENKAMP, Justice (on reassignment).

[¶ 1.] Muddy Creek Oil and Gas, Inc., operates Big Bat’s Texaco on the Oglala Sioux Reservation. Loren Pourier, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is the sole owner of the company. Muddy Creek sought a refund of the South Dakota motor fuel tax it paid. In Pourier v. South Dakota Dep’t of Revenue, 2003 SD 21, 658 N.W.2d 395 (Pourier I), we unanimously ruled that the taxes were illegally collected because the Hayden-Cartwright Act does not contain express congressional authorization to tax Native Americans on Indian reservations. We also decided that Muddy Creek’s consumers, rather than Pourier and his company, bore the legal incidence of the tax, and therefore the consumers were entitled to most of the tax refund. . Only to the extent that Pourier and Muddy Creek used gasoline as consumers would they be permitted to claim refunds. We reversed and remanded for proceedings to allow for payment to reservation Indian consumers who apply for and prove their entitlement to refunds. Lastly, in Pourier I, with two justices dissenting and one writing specially, two members of this Court also ruled that any “limitation periods imposed by the motor fuel taxation scheme are inapplicable in this case.”

[¶ 2.] After our opinion was handed down, both Pourier and the State petitioned for rehearing, urging us to reconsider certain portions of Pourier I. We granted the State’s petition, solely on the question of the proper limitations period for refund applications. We now hold that the limitations period applicable in this case is fifteen months under SDCL 10-47B-141 and that claims for times predating December 17, 1997 are untimely. Accordingly, we vacate Issue 4 of Pourier I, 2003 SD 21, ¶¶ 35-38, 658 N.W.2d at 406-07, and replace it with the following discussion on the proper limitations period. In all other respects, the decision in Pourier I will stand.

Statute of Limitations

[¶ 3.] In November 1995, Muddy Creek received motor fuel and special fuel licenses from the South Dakota Department of Revenue. In the following years, it filed a succession of refund claims and objections to collection of motor fuel taxes. All claims were denied. In the administrative appeal, the hearing examiner found that no claims were timely for periods before December 17, 1997. All the earlier claims were untimely either because Muddy Creek did not appeal the final decisions of the Department of Revenue denying them or because the claims were filed late. Muddy Creek does not dispute the hearing examiner’s findings on the factual timeliness. of the refund claims. Instead, it contends that no statute of limitations applies or that a longer statutory limitations period applies.

[¶ 4.] In agreeing with Muddy Creek’s argument, Pourier I did not analyze any specific statute of limitations, [316]*316since two members of the Court ruled that the “justifications [for limitations periods] are simply not present in this case.” 2003 SD 21, ¶ 38, 658 N.W.2d at 407. They reasoned that “[b]ecause the State exceeded its authority in imposing this tax, the limitation periods imposed by the motor fuel taxation scheme are inapplicable in this case.” Id. ¶ 37. On further reconsideration, however, we now conclude that the fifteen-month limitations period applies here. SDCL 10-47B-141 provides:

Any claim for refund of motor fuel or special fuel tax shall be received by the department within fifteen months of the date the fuel was originally purchased in order to be accepted for refund. Fuel purchased more than fifteen months from the date the claim is received is forever barred from refund eligibility.

Muddy Creek cites other possible statutes, such as SDCL 15-2-13 (six years for common law actions) and SDCL 10-59-19 (three years for overpaid taxes), but those do not specifically deal with the time limit for obtaining refunds on motor fuel taxes.1 In cases where more than one statute arguably touches upon the same subject matter, we presume that the statute with the more specific language “relating to a particular subject will prevail over the general terms of another statute.” Martinmaas v. Engelmann, 2000 SD 85, ¶ 49, 612 N.W.2d 600, 611 (quoting Moss v. Guttormson, 1996 SD 76, ¶10, 551 N.W.2d 14, 17).

[¶ 5.] Muddy Creek cites tax deed cases like Hough v. Perkins County, 72 S.D. 236, 32 N.W.2d 632, 633 (1948) to argue that South Dakota’s fifteen month limitations period for seeking a refund on motor fuel tax is “inoperative” and inapplicable. These tax deed cases have nothing to do with tax refunds. They stand only for the proposition that certain defects in a tax deed are jurisdictional against which a statute of limitations is necessarily inoperative. See also Cornelius (Lynch, Intervener) v. Ferguson, 23 S.D. 187, 121 N.W. 91, 93 (1909). These decisions follow a long line of South Dakota cases standing for the rule that persons cannot be deprived of their real property through the sale of a tax deed if the defects in the process of obtaining the deed are so serious as to deprive owners of their property without due process of law. Here, with respect to refunds on motor fuel tax, Indian taxpayers will not be deprived of due process. They will have a right to seek a refund within a reasonable time.

[¶ 6.] Nor will the case of Pederson v. Stanley County, 34 S.D. 560, 149 N.W. 422 (1914) avail Muddy Creek. In Pederson, this Court held that the common law rule that taxes voluntarily paid cannot be recovered has no application to an instance where the tax was illegally imposed by an outside jurisdiction. Aside from the fact that no statute of limitations was at issue in Pederson, we now have a specific statute governing the recovery of improperly collected motor fuel taxes. See SDCL 10-47B-141. The Legislature is at liberty to override common law rules by statutory enactment. SDCL 1-1-24.

[¶ 7.] As for the constitutionality of our fifteen-month statute, the United States Supreme Court has definitively authorized reasonable procedural limitations, including “relatively short statutes of limitation” applicable to tax refund claims. McKesson Corp. v. Div. of Alcoholic Beverages [317]*317and Tobacco, Dep’t of Bus. Regulation of Florida, 496 U.S. 18, 45, 110 S.Ct. 2238, 2254, 110 L.Ed.2d 17, 41 (1990). The Supreme Court acknowledged this vital issue in dealing with tax refunds, endorsing a State’s “exceedingly strong interest in financial stability.” Id. at 37, 110 S.Ct. 2238.

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Bluebook (online)
2004 SD 3, 674 N.W.2d 314, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pourier-v-south-dakota-department-of-revenue-sd-2004.