A highly unusual spate of four tax certiorari trials within a 10-week period and their attendant pretrial and post-trial briefs has led me to contemplate the difficult aspects of researching the law of tax certiorari as well as some helpful and unique research aids.

The chief difficulty that also exists in so many other areas of law is that most Supreme Court tax certiorari decisions are not reported. The helpful aspects include that the New York State Office of Real Property Services (ORPS), formerly the New York State Division of Equalization and Assessment, publishes a quarterly reporter that includes as many unreported cases as they can get their hands on. Moreover, Justice Thomas A. Dickerson, who is in charge of all the tax certiorari cases in the five counties comprising the Ninth Judicial District and who is the most prolific author of tax certiorari decisions, posts all of his decisions on his Web site.

The starting point of research for all procedural aspects of the law of real property taxation in New York state should be "McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York, Annotated," published by West Group. the four volume Book 49A containing the Real Property Tax Law carefully collects and annotates all reported cases and opinions of ORPS, the state attorney general and state comptroller relative to all sections of the Real Property Tax Law.

Similarly, the starting place for all valuation aspects of tax certiorari law should be the "West New York Digest," fourth edition. The researcher should be aware that the digest has recently renumbered the key numbers in the taxation volume. the most important key numbers for valuation research are 2510 to 2526 (formerly 348 and 348.1) and 2721 to 2728 (formerly 493.7). Procedural cases are also digested in key numbers close by to the above valuation key numbers.

It may be my age but I prefer to have all the relevant cases summarized consecutively in a hard copy book by a section of a statute or key number in the digest. This makes for a much easier and complete comparison of relevant cases than by the selected keywords and phrases method of electronic search engines.

Even with my limited computer abilities, I find the ORPS Web site very useful, www.orps.state.ny.us. It has sections on legal topics, equalization rates, valuation standards, opinions of counsel, legislative developments and most all aspects of property tax procedure. Only volumes 5 to 11 of opinions of counsel are online. A cumulative index of opinions is also online.

ORPS will only take requests for opinions from municipal officials. However, an informal inquiry to the counsel's office or a request under the Freedom of Information Law will generally result in receiving references to opinions relevant to such request. The counsel's office will also generally pass a private attorney's request for a formal opinion to the relevant municipal law or assessor's office to determine if the municipal officer will join the request. The counsel's office is uniformly helpful in answering general questions presented to it.

The only treatise devoted to tax certiorari law is "Lee and Leforestier, Review and Reductions of Real Property Assessments in New York," third edition, 1988. Published by the New York State Bar Association, "Lee and Leforestier" is periodically updated. It should be in the library of every tax certiorari practitioner.

Unreported Decisions

As co-chairman of the Tax Certiorari and Condemnation Committee of the Real Property Law Section of the New York State Bar Association in 1992, I was concerned about the unavailability of unreported decisions that comprised the bulk of real property tax decisions. I approached then-ORPS counsel Robert L. Beebe with the idea of a reporter of unreported cases and was delighted that ORPS enthusiastically took hold of the concept. The Real Property Tax Administration Reporter began to be published on a quarterly basis in April 1993. It contains reported and unreported judicial decisions and opinions of counsel as well as relevant articles, studies, rules and regulations and legislative updates. The Reporter is highly dependent on trial attorneys and some judges as their source of unreported decisions.

The Reporter is one of the only sources of unreported tax certiorari decisions. The staff is working on developing a cumulative index to make research easier. It is an indispensable source of decisions and information for any serious tax certiorari practitioner. However, the State Budget Office refuses to allow ORPS to put the Reporter on line. Subscriptions rates of $50 for municipal offices and $200 for private attorneys and others can be obtained from Dorothy Duell, Editorial Assistant, New York State Office of Real Property Services, 16 Sheridan Avenue, Albany, NY, 12216; or by calling 518-474-8821.

Another key source for researching and unreported decisions is the online version of the New York Law Journal (www.nylj.com). The Law Journal's archives are found on Westlaw (www.westlaw.com), another subscription service.

Justice Dickerson, of Westchester County Supreme Court, has written 40 or so tax certiorari decisions since 2004. As the presiding tax certiorari and condemnation judge of the Ninth Judicial District, he hears all tax certiorari and condemnation related cases in Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Duchess Counties. His detailed decisions can be accessed at www.nycourts.gov/courts/ajd/taxcert.html. This site also includes court rules and links to ORPS, assessor organizations and bar association certiorari and condemnation committees.

Justice Dickerson's decisions include 10 opinions on selective reassessment, including several innovative ones on reassessment on improvement, i.e., the practice of some assessors illegally increasing the assessments of under assessed properties by over assessing new renovations and improvements. If you want to be on Justice Dickerson's distribution list for his decisions, contact William Sulzer, chairman of the tax certiorari committee of the Westchester Bar Association at wes@gcupc.com.

Unlike the federal courts, New York state courts have no rules or prejudice against using unreported decisions, accepting them for whatever precedential or persuasive value the court may give them. My experience has been that courts welcome relevant unreported decisions, especially if provided with a full copy of a decision. Indeed, CPLR 5529(e) anticipates the citation of unreported decisions and requires them to be "cited from the most available source."

William D. Siegel is a senior partner in the Oyster Bay law firm of Siegel Fenchel & Peddy, P.C. and the New York State member of the American Property Tax Counsel. He can be reached at wds@nytaxappeal.com