Summary
In Vantage, the Court stated there existed no such potential liability because the Suffolk County Tax Act provided that any amount of taxes which a school district otherwise might be liable to refund to taxpayers shall be refunded by the county and not the school district and shall be charged back to the town.
Summary of this case from Pier v. Assessment Review Bd.Opinion
Argued December 15, 1983
Decided January 10, 1984
Appeal from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Second Judicial Department, WILLIAM R. GEILER, J.
Eugene L. Wishod for appellant.
Laureen Cronin for petitioner-respondent.
Lou Lewis for Shoreham-Wading River School District, amicus curiae.
MEMORANDUM.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs, and the question certified answered in the affirmative.
The appeal raises the question whether a board of education in the County of Suffolk may intervene in a tax certiorari proceeding involving property within the district. To the extent that the application sought intervention by permission under CPLR 1013, the exercise of discretion by the courts below is, absent an abuse of discretion as a matter of law, not here present, beyond our review ( Patron v Patron, 40 N.Y.2d 582). To the extent that intervention as of right was sought under CPLR 1012 (subd [a], par 2), we affirm for the reasons stated in the Appellate Division memorandum ( 91 A.D.2d 1037) to which we add only that whether movant will be bound by the judgment within the meaning of that subdivision is determined by its res judicata effect ( Matter of Unitarian Universalist Church v Shorten, 64 Misc.2d 851, 854, vacated on other grounds 64 Misc.2d 1027; Lesser v West Albany Warehouses, 17 Misc.2d 461; Sutphen Estates v United States, 342 U.S. 19, 21) and that a judgment fixing the value of property for taxation in one year may be evidence of its assessed value for a succeeding year but is not res judicata ( Matter of Woolworth Co. v Tax Comm., 20 N.Y.2d 561, 567; People ex rel. Hilton v Fahrenkopf, 279 N.Y. 49, 52-53).
Chief Judge COOKE and Judges JASEN, JONES, WACHTLER, MEYER, SIMONS and KAYE concur in memorandum.
Order affirmed, etc.