Wyoming Department of Employment, Division of Unemployment Insurance v. Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc.

859 P.2d 1281, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 153, 1993 WL 371744
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 24, 1993
DocketNo. 92-129
StatusPublished

This text of 859 P.2d 1281 (Wyoming Department of Employment, Division of Unemployment Insurance v. Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wyoming Department of Employment, Division of Unemployment Insurance v. Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc., 859 P.2d 1281, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 153, 1993 WL 371744 (Wyo. 1993).

Opinion

CARDINE, Justice.

After exhausting the administrative process without success, an employer successfully argued to a district court that the Division of Unemployment Insurance (division) was estopped from assigning it the delinquency rate for unemployment insurance contributions. On appeal to this court, the division asserts that the district court erred in applying estoppel, that the employer’s protests were untimely, and that the employer is precluded from obtaining judicial review without first paying delinquent contributions under protest.

We reverse in part and affirm in part.

I. ISSUES

Appellant, the division, raises the following issues:

A.

Whether the Unemployment Insurance Commission’s decision that the facts of the case show the division staff is not estopped from collecting the full amount of tax it claims and assigning the penalty rate for 1991 to Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc., even if estoppel lies against the state, is supported by substantial evidence and is in conformity with law?

B.

Whether the Unemployment Insurance Commission’s decision that estoppel does not lie against the division staff to prevent it from collecting the 1991 tax at the penalty rate is in conformity with law?

C.

Whether the Unemployment Insurance Commission’s decision dismissing Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc.’s, appeal from its 1988, 1989, and 1991 [sic] tax rate notices, as not filed within the statutory thirty-day time limit, is supported by substantial evidence and is in conformity with law?

D.

Whether Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc.’s petition for judicial review should have been dismissed because it failed to pay its tax under protest as required by W.S. § 27-3-514?

Appellee, Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc., did not file a brief nor did they appear at oral argument.

II. FACTS

In 1985, the Pub Corporation (Pub) owned and operated the Steak Pub Restaurant, Pub Tavern, and Pub Wine and Liquor (Steak Pub), all located about three miles south of Jackson, Wyoming. Pub was registered with the Secretary of State as a Wyoming corporation and was registered as an employer with the Unemployment Security Commission. At that time, Pub was duly paying its unemployment taxes.

Between January of 1987 and July of 1987, the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) foreclosed on a note and mortgage it held on the Steak Pub property. The SBA purchased the Steak Pub Property at the foreclosure sale. During the redemption period and during the brief period in which the SBA owned it, Pub continued operating the Steak Pub but failed to pay its unemployment taxes for part of 1987 and the first quarter of 1988, thus creating a delinquency.

In December of 1987, the SBA sold the Steak Pub to appellee, Wyoming Restaurant Associates, Inc. (WRA), a registered Wyoming corporation, whose principal officers were Anthony Nicoli and Hans Caviezal. Then, in January of 1988, WRA conveyed the Steak Pub property and assets to Nicoli Enterprises Limited Partnership, who in turn leased the Steak Pub premises [1284]*1284back to WRA for a ten-year period. During the first quarter of 1988, after it had purchased the Steak Pub, WRA hired another entity, Western USA Investments (Western), to manage the operations at the Steak Pub. Western was registered with the Unemployment Insurance Commission as an employer and contributed unemployment taxes for all the Steak Pub employees for the first quarter of 1988; however, the division did not know that Western was paying the Steak Pub’s unemployment taxes.

In April of 1988, Bree Cooke (Cooke) bought WRA and, as WRA, began operating and managing the Steak Pub. As of this date, Pub no longer existed but owed $7,669.77 in unemployment taxes, while Western, unbeknownst to the division, was still registered and paying unemployment taxes for the Steak Pub employees.

In September of 1988, WRA, now owned by Cooke, submitted an unemployment tax quarterly contribution report for the second quarter of 1988, which had the name Pub Corporation crossed out and replaced with WRA, as well as the contribution rate of 9.75 percent crossed out and replaced with 2.81 percent. WRA also forwarded payment of its taxes based on the 2.81 percent rate. In October 1988, WRA sent a report for the third quarter of 1988 with the exact same deletions and replacements, and another cheek based on the lower rate.

During the summer of 1988, the division investigated the relationship of Pub, WRA and Western. As a result, the division determined that WRA was a successor corporation of Pub, as defined under W.S. 27-3-507 (1991), and assigned WRA the unemployment tax delinquency rate of 9.75 percent, as provided in W.S. 27-3-503 (1991). On October 21, 1988, the division notified WRA, in writing, that its contribution rate was 9.75 percent rather than 2.81 percent and, because of the difference in rates, that it was delinquent for 1988 in the amount of $4,586.03. This notice was mailed to P.O. Box 20313 in Jackson, the address which WRA had given the division when it registered as an employer in November of 1987. WRA, at the time the notice was sent, was receiving mail at P.O. Box 2547 in Jackson. Therefore, because WRA failed to inform the division of its change in address, WRA did not receive the notice and did not appeal its 1988 contribution rate.

In December of 1988, WRA officially notified the division that it had changed its address. In that same month, the division sent notice to WRA, at the old address, that its 1989 unemployment contribution rate would be the 9.75 percent delinquent rate. In February of 1989, after WRA had been notified by the post office of a bundle of mail at the old address, WRA’s attorney wrote the division objecting to the 9.75 percent delinquency rate assessed WRA. In response, on March 30, 1989, the division wrote WRA informing them that they could not protest the 1988 or 1989 rates because the statutory time for appeal had run.

In the Spring of 1989, the division discovered that it had miscalculated rates for 1989 for a number of employers; and therefore, it sent out new notices to all employers. Thus, in a separate correspondence, sent on March 27, 1989, the division re-notified WRA that its rate was 9.75 percent for 1989. This notice was sent to WRA’s new address but was not appealed.

Cooke, the owner of WRA, also owned the Stagecoach Bar and Grill, located in Wilson, Wyoming, which was held and operated under two separate corporations, First Stage, Inc. and Stagecoach Enterprises, Inc. During the first quarter of 1989, WRA and the division staff attempted to solve the contribution rate issue and the delinquencies WRA had accrued. In this process, WRA informed the division that it would be reporting all four of Cooke’s entities — WRA, Western, First Stage, and Stagecoach Enterprises — un'der one federal IRS tax identification number. Based on this information, the division staff informed WRA that it could combine the accounts of all of Cooke’s entities — and pay one tax rate — because the Wyoming unemployment tax system requires businesses to use the same number of identification numbers as used for the federal filing. In addition, the division staff told WRA that [1285]

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859 P.2d 1281, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 153, 1993 WL 371744, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wyoming-department-of-employment-division-of-unemployment-insurance-v-wyo-1993.