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Summary Judgment – Property Tax Assessment

By: Derek Hawkins//March 1, 2022//

Summary Judgment – Property Tax Assessment

By: Derek Hawkins//March 1, 2022//

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WI Court of Appeals – District III

Case Name: Menard, Inc., v. City of Hudson

Case No.: 2020AP2005

Officials: Stark, P.J., Hruz and Gill, JJ.

Focus: Summary Judgment – Property Tax Assessment 

Menard, Inc., filed this lawsuit challenging as excessive the City of Hudson’s 2018 assessments of two parcels of real property owned by Menard. The City filed a motion for summary judgment, which the circuit court denied in its entirety. The City later filed a second summary judgment motion, which the court granted in part. Specifically, the court granted the City summary judgment on Menard’s excessive assessment claim and on its claim alleging a non-uniform tax assessment. The court denied the City’s summary judgment motion on Menard’s third claim, however, which sought a declaratory judgment that the assessed value of Menard’s property should be $4,400,000, rather than $10,328,300, as determined by the City. The court remanded the matter to the City’s Board of Review (“the Board”) to conduct a hearing on Menard’s objection to the 2018 assessments.

The City appeals, arguing that the circuit court erred by denying its first summary judgment motion. The City also argues that the court erred by denying its second summary judgment motion with respect to Menard’s declaratory judgment claim and by remanding the matter to the Board for further proceedings. We agree that the court erred by denying the City’s first summary judgment motion. Because Menard failed to appear at a hearing before the Board to present evidence in support of its objection to the 2018 assessments, it is barred from bringing a court action challenging those assessments as excessive. While Menard asserts that the Board violated Menard’s right to due process by denying its requests to waive the hearing on its objection or, alternatively, to appear at the hearing by telephone, Menard did not file a certiorari action challenging the Board’s denials of those requests. Menard cannot challenge the Board’s procedural decisions on those issues in the present lawsuit.

We therefore reverse that portion of the circuit court’s order denying the City summary judgment on Menard’s declaratory judgment claim and remanding to the Board for a hearing on Menard’s objection to the 2018 assessments. We remand this matter to the circuit court with directions that it dismiss Menard’s declaratory judgment claim.

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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.

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