Summary
The Ohio Third District Court of Appeals dismissed the Lima Area Chamber Foundation's appeal from an Ohio Board of Tax Appeals decision concerning real property tax exemptions. The court held that the Foundation's notice of appeal failed to specify the alleged errors as required by Ohio Revised Code section 5717.04, depriving the court of jurisdiction to reach the merits.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Foundation's notice of appeal from the BTA sufficiently set forth the errors complained of as required by R.C. 5717.04.
- Whether the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to consider the merits of the Foundation's challenges to the BTA's tax-exemption rulings.
Holdings
- A notice of appeal from the BTA must identify the decision appealed from and state the complained-of errors with some level of specificity; generalized assertions that the decision was unlawful, unreasonable, or unsupported by the evidence do not satisfy R.C. 5717.04.
- The court lacked jurisdiction to decide the merits because the Foundation's notice of appeal failed to comply with R.C. 5717.04; the appeal therefore had to be dismissed.
Key quotations
“R.C. 5717.04 provides that a notice of appeal from the BTA to the court ‘shall set forth the decision of the board appealed from and the errors therein complained of.’” (¶ 10)
“One of the requirements of R.C. 5717.04 is that an appellant not use general language which could be used in nearly any case.” (¶ 16)
“Consequently, we lack jurisdiction to decide the merits of this case.” (¶ 17)
Factual background
The Foundation owned a building in Lima, Ohio, and sought real-property tax exemptions for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. It claimed exemption under R.C. 5709.08 for 2009 and under R.C. 5709.12 for 2010, describing the building as rental property occupied by several civic and economic-development organizations. The Tax Commissioner denied both applications, and the BTA dismissed the 2009 appeal while denying the requested exemption for 2010.
Procedural history
The Tax Commissioner denied the Foundation's applications for real-property tax exemption for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. The Foundation filed separate appeals with the BTA, which dismissed BTA Case No. 2014-2003 and affirmed the denial in BTA Case No. 2014-1699. The Foundation filed one notice of appeal in the Court of Appeals identifying both BTA case numbers. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal because the notice did not sufficiently specify the errors complained of as required by R.C. 5717.04.