Shell Oil Co. v. Supervisor of Assessments

Smith, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. We shall here reject a contention that tax assessors in assessing business property deliberately rejected its potential for service station use, thus discriminating against service station land assessed at a higher value. This appeal was before us previously in Shell Oil Co. v. Supervisor, 276 Md. 36 , 343 A. 2d 521 (1975). We declined to consider the merits of the appeal at that time, holding that “[sjince the Maryland Tax Court does not exercise a judicial function, review of a Tax Court decision is an exercise of original and not appellate judicial jurisdiction.

Consequently, Ch. 385 of the Acts of 1971, and Ch. 448 of the ⁶⁶¹ Acts of 1975, insofar as they provide for appeals to this Court and to the Court of Special Appeals from Tax Court decisions, are unconstitutional.” We directed that the case be transferred “to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County for expeditious judicial review by that court of the Tax Court’s decision.” Appellant, Shell Oil Company (Shell), was dissatisfied with the circuit court’s decision and appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. We granted the writ of certiorari prior to consideration of the case by that court. At issue here is the propriety of the assessment for the year 1970-71 of land owned by Shell at 2210 University Boulevard, Hyattsville, Prince George’s County. It is occupied by a gasoline service station.

No challenge is made to the assessment of the building there erected. The land is located in the middle of the block on the north side of University Boulevard, a divided highway, some 1400 feet east of its intersection with Riggs Road, described by Shell as a “major intersection.” The assessment for the land for the year in question was at $3.00 per square foot. Shell points to certain other commercial properties in the immediate vicinity which its experts regarded as equally adaptable for service station use and which were assessed at $1.80 per square foot. It is on the basis of this difference that the challenge here is made.

For ease of understanding the location of the various sites to which reference has been made, we append a copy of the plat used by Shell which the reporter is directed to reproduce. Shell does not contend that its property is assessed at more than its full cash value. The requirement of Maryland Code (1957, 1969 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 14 (b) (1) is that real property “shall be assessed at the full cash value thereof on the date of finality,” a term defined as meaning “current value less an allowance for inflation, if in fact inflation exists.” At the time in question the allowance for inflation was 40%, meaning that real property should be assessed at 60% of its fair market value.

Shell refers to Code (1957,1969 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 229 (1) providing that on appeal from the tax court a reviewing court “shall determine the case upon the record of the Maryland Tax Court and may affirm, ⁶⁶² reverse, remand or modify the order appealed from; provided, that, unless such order is erroneous as a matter of. law or unsupported by substantial evidence appearing in the record, it shall be affirmed,” a provision now found by virtue of Ch. 338 of the Acts of 1976 (in response to our earlier decision in Shell) in virtually the same language in Code (1957, 1975 Repl. Vol., 1976 Cum. Supp.) Art. 81, § 229 (o).

It claims the order of the Tax Court was “erroneous as a matter of law” and “unsupported by substantial evidence appearing in the record.” Shell argues: “A fundamental principle of real property assessment and taxation in Maryland is that all property within the same classification or subclassification must be treated uniformly. This principle is clearly set forth in Article 15 of the Declaration of Rights and it requires the assessor to consider the same factors in assessing each piece of property within a given class or subclass. If a property has the potential to generate a certain amount of income because of its size or location, that potential must be incorporated into the assessment of that property, regardless of whether or not the owner of that property has taken full advantage of that potential. The corollary to this principle is that the assessor may not, in assessing one property, consider certain factors which give that property value and ignore those very same factors in assessing other properties.

This was the clear holding of this Court in Weil v. Supervisor of Assessments of Washington County, 266 Md. 238 (1972).” (Emphasis by Shell.) Maryland Declaration of Rights Art. 15 provides in pertinent part: “[T]he General Assembly shall, by uniform rules, provide for the separate assessment, classification and sub-classification of land, improvements on land and personal property, as it may deem proper; ⁶⁶³ and all taxes thereafter provided to be levied by the State for the support of the general State Government, and by the Counties and by the City of Baltimore for their respective purposes, shall be uniform within each class or sub-class of land, improvements on land and personal property which the respective taxing powers may have directed to be subjected to the tax levy ....” Shell cites Weil v. Supervisor of Assess., 266 Md. 238 , 292 A. 2d 68 (1972). That, too, was a gasoline service station case. It was argued that an assessment schedule which imposed a higher valuation per square foot on prime land actually devoted to service station use than on commercial land not so devoted established an illegally disproportionate, non-uniform, discriminatory assessment and was an illegal administrative subclassification of land. It was there contended “that the assessment of all parcels of land located along a given highway and similarly available for highway commercial uses in the same immediate neighborhood must begin with the same method of valuation, which means the same unit values where the unit value method is applied.” It was argued that “if one piece of commercial land is to be assessed at $2.00 a square foot because it has something called a ‘full service’ service station on it, or at $1.50 if it has less than ‘full service’ service station on it, and another piece of commercial land in the same business area is to be assessed at $.60 a square foot because it is used as a new car sales outlet, then only the service station land is being assessed at its highest and best use and the car sales land is being assessed at its lower actual use.” (Emphasis in appellant’s brief in Weil.) We observed there: “It is apparent that the appellants are under the impression that all land in a given area will carry the same assessment per square foot.

We do not understand a subclassification as being created when the highest and best use of a property is taken into consideration in determining its present cash value. Physical characteristics of land will ⁶⁶⁴ vary from lot to lot. The very size of a lot might well militate against its being used for certain purposes and suggest its use for other purposes. Good economics and good planning would dictate that there be some variation of use from lot to lot in a given area.” Id. at 254 .

We further said: “The fact that one lot was assessed at one figure per square foot and another lot at a different figure per square foot would not show discrimination in the absence of a showing that the two lots were in fact so similar in all respects as to be identical in value. For us to reverse on the ground of discrimination, it would be essential that there be some positive showing of discrimination as, for instance, the fact that other commercial property assessed at a lower figure per square foot in fact had a potential for service station use which had been ignored by the assessors. Such a showing might then be evidence of mistake, arbitrariness, or fraud, to use the language of Rogan. There has not been even the slightest intimation of lack of good faith upon the part of the taxing authorities here.

Therefore, it can not be said that there has been conscious, arbitrary discrimination against the appellant.” Id. at 255 . The second sentence of the latter quotation presents the basis for Shell’s contention here. It claims that its comparables had a potential for service station use which was ignored by the assessors. In Weil we did not state or suggest that such a showing would in and of itself be sufficient to establish discrimination or nonuniformity so as to entitle the taxpayer to reversal of the assessment as a matter of law.

Such a showing would require us then to examine all relevant facts to determine whether there was in fact “mistake, arbitrariness, or fraud,” to use the language of Rogan v. Commrs. of Calvert County, 194 Md. 299 , 71 A. 2d 47 (1950). The deputy supervisor in charge of the appraisal division ⁶⁶⁵ in the office of the Supervisor of Assessments for Prince George’s County testified with reference to the potential for service station use of Shell’s three comparables. He said that in each instance “the current use and the current zoning was its highest and best use; that any other use would be a highly speculative use, it would not be probable and [the assessing authorities] did not feel [they] could base assessments on a speculative use for something which could only happen possibly sometime in the future.” He noted that the area was saturated with service stations. When asked whether he considered the potential use for service station purposes of the three comparables here cited by Shell, the Gallery, Gino’s, and Kinney’s, he said: “Yes, we did.

We considered the potential of its highest and best use, of its use as a service station site. All of these stations were actually improved. There was no zoning which would allow a gas station to be built on these sites. One of the requirements for a special exception for a service station in Prince George’s County is the necessity to prove that a gas station is needed in the area.

Also one of the requirements is to prove that it would not upset the balance of land usage in the area for other trades and commercial uses. Actually,