Lowe v. Washoe Cty., No. 09-15759
Property Tax Challenge
In Lowe v. Washoe Cty., No. 09-15759, an action by the putative representatives of a class of approximately 9,000 Incline Village and Crystal Bay, Nevada property owners, alleging that the valuation of their Nevada real property used to calculate their ad valorem property taxes for the 2008-09 taxable year violated both the Nevada Constitution and the Due Process Clause, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint where the Tax Injunction Act barred the action because: 1) as to individual taxpayers, Nevada's administrative and judicial review process provided an effective and adequate means by which a dissatisfied taxpayer may contest his property valuation; 2) plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the state court remedy in this case was uncertain and therefore not "plain"; and 3) plaintiffs' claims of bias did not impeach the adequacy of the state court remedy.
As the court wrote: "Plaintiffs Todd Lowe, Janet Lowe, Tom Henderson, Nancy Henderson, J. Robert Anderson, Carole Anderson, Dean Ingemanson, Kathy Nelson, and Arthur Berliner own residential real property in Incline Village and Crystal Bay, which are communities located on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe in Washoe County, Nevada."
Related Resources
- Read the Ninth Circuit's Decision in Lowe v. Washoe Cty., No. 09-15759