JW Marriott tax appeal survives motion to dismiss

The third appeal of a 2010 tax assessment against the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis has survived a motion to dismiss brought by the Marion County assessor.

The case of Convention Headquarters Hotels, LLC v. Marion County Assessor, 19T-TA-21, began on Oct. 13, 2010, when the Marion County assessor informed Convention Headquarters Hotels, which owns the downtown JW Marriott, that the assessment on the then-partially completed hotel was increasing from about $18.5 million to about $487 million for the 2010 tax year. CHH appealed, but the Marion County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals took no action.

Then in May 2017, the hotel company received an email from the assessor’s office indicating that “various properties in downtown Indianapolis were not assessed as partially complete.” That made CHH believe the JW was inequitably assessed, so it transitioned its appeal to the Indiana Board of Tax Review in June 2017.

CHH argued before the board that the 2010 assessment of the JW violated equal protection and due process clauses, but the board did not conduct a hearing. Thus, the hotel company filed two direct appeals with the Indiana Tax Court, both of which were dismissed in January and in March because they were filed before the board was given the maximum amount of time to issue a final determination.

CHH filed a third appeal in June 2019 after the board’s maximum time had elapsed, arguing as in the previous appeals that the 2010 assessment violated its 14^th Amendment rights, as well as Indiana constitutional rights, Indiana’s market value in-use standard and CHH’s federal civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The Marion County assessor moved to dismiss the appeal for procedural failures, namely a failure to include a request for the board to prepare a certified copy of the administrative record in CHH’s petition before the Tax Court. Alternatively, the assessor argued the civil rights claim should be dismissed because it was not timely filed or included in the Indiana board appeal, and because CHH did not file a tort claim notice.

But Tax Court Judge Martha Blood Wentworth rejected each of those procedural arguments in a Friday opinion, writing first that because the board did not issue a final determination, the requirement to request that the board prepare a copy of the administrative record does not apply. Further, Wentworth said the administrative record would be superfluous because Indiana Code § 6-1.1-15-5(g) — which confers jurisdiction to the Tax Court when the board does not give a final determination — holds that the Tax Court will review the matter de novo.

Turning to the civil rights claim under Section 1983, Wentworth said the statute of limitations to that claim began to run in May 2017, when CHH received the email from the Marion County assessor. Further, the June 2019 claim was within the three-year period under the Journey’s Account Statute and, under that statute, was “a continuation of (CHH’s) two prior direct appeals to the Court, each of which properly stated the 1983 Claim against the Assessor.”

Finally, Wentworth said the Indiana Tort Claim Act does not apply to claim brought under Section 1983. Additionally, because I.C. 601.1-15-5(g) occurs outside “the general procedure for property tax appeals,” “if the Tax Court was not assigned the duty of conducting a de novo proceeding, the petitioner would not be afforded any opportunity to present his issues and evidence to a finder of fact.” Thus, she rejected the assessor’s arguments that the Section 1983 claim should have been preceded by a tort claim notice and raised before the Indiana board.