Doub v. State Tax Commission

¹⁸⁸ Mitchell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal in this case is from a decree of the Circuit Court for Allegany County, in equity, passed on the 5th day of July, 1940, affirming the order of the State Tax Commission of Maryland, which order, upon appeal to said commission, affirmed the action of the County Commissioners of Allegany County in assessing the property of the appellants. Under a stipulation found in the record, Nos. 61 and 62 of the October 1940 Term of this court, were argued together with this appeal, for the reason that they raise substantially the same questions; and therefore what is said in this opinion is also applicable to those cases. Section 191, article 81, of the Code of Maryland of 1939, among other things provides that any taxpayer -claiming to be aggrieved because of an assessment or classification, or refusal to reduce, abate or modify an assessment, or change a classification, by the county commissioners, may appeal to the State Tax Commission; and section 192 of the same article provides that upon such appeal the Commission shall have full power to try and determine the matter, and to that end take testimony.

The Commission, upon such hearing, is vested with authority to assess anew, abate, modify, change or alter any assessment or classification appealed from, provided that in the absence of any affirmative evidence to the contrary, or of any error apparent on the fact of the proceedings, the assessment appealed from shall be affirmed. Section 193 provides, in part, that in any proceeding before the State Tax Commission, whether appellate or original, any party may submit requests for rulings on points of law, similar to prayers in non-jury cases in courts of law, and the said commission shall grant, reject or modify the same, so far as may be material to its decision; and section 194 (a) provides as follows: “Any taxpayer * * * may appeal from the decisions of the State Tax Commission, in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, on questions of law only, to the Circuit Court of any county * * * by petition setting ¹⁸⁹ forth the question or questions of law which it is desired by the appellant to review * * *. There shall be a further right of appeal to the Court of Appeals from any decision of the Circuit Court of the county * * The formal petition contemplated by the above subsection does not appear in the record; and although the docket entries indicate that a petition was filed, we cannot assume that the petition submitted to the court the questions of law which it was desired by the appellants to have the Circuit Court review, as specifically provided by the statute. To the contrary, the conclusion is inevitable that no questions of law were submitted to the court for its review by petition; as it further appears from the record that a formal motion to dismiss the appeal was filed by the appellees, for the reason that no question of law was presented by the record, and the court was therefore without jurisdiction in the premises; and the court, upon this motion in each case, in its opinion states: “These motions will be dismissed for the reason that the questions submitted are questions of law, in that numerous prayers, varying in number from 18 to 22 were presented to the commission and each of them ruled on by it.” We have referred to this state of the record because we cannot concur in the construction of the statute which seems to have been placed thereon by the trial court; as it is our opinion that the petition required in appeals of this nature from the State Tax Commission to the Circuit Court should specifically set forth the question or questions of law which it is desired by the appellant to have reviewed, and that the court should pass upon the questions so raised, rather than the requests for rulings on points of law previously made to the Commission, and its action thereon.

It is true that the same questions of law may be presented to the trial court as were passed upon by the rulings of the Commission upon requests submitted to it in the nature of prayers; but the right of