Masseys Take Tax Case To State Supreme Court

Dawn Massey wants the state’s top court to review her property tax case against the town of Branford. The town’s attorney says the high court should turn her down and let a lower court settlement ruling stand.

Massey last month filed a motion with the State Supreme Court asking that it review a lower court decision in a tax dispute she’s had with the town. The town responded last week. 

In December a unanimous appellate court ruled that a 2006 settlement agreement between Dawn and William Massey and then town counsel Shelley Marcus was valid, enforceable and binding. The town’s current counsel William T. Clendenen Jr., agrees.

This long-running lawsuit, now in its sixth year, has cost the town more than $250,000 in legal fees. The Masseys, on the other hand, are pro-se litigants, meaning they are acting as they own attorney. 
 
​“This is essentially a tax assessment appeal that, starting in February, 2003, has been through municipal and state agencies,” Mrs. Massey wrote in her brief to the Supreme Court. It has also been heard in a federal courthouse and seven state courthouses locations. ​“The plaintiffs are laymen, unschooled in the law who have earnestly endeavored to research and learn the law.” Mrs. Massey has been up against major Connecticut law firms, occasionally even winning a round.

The tax case centers on the designation of her house as ​“custom,” a category that has mystified many, including current and former first selectmen who have sought to abolish it but failed. A custom designation for a house allows it to be taxed higher than any other category and to be taxed for the life of the house. 

The designation came into being when the town hired Vision Appraisal, its outside commercial assessment company. Vision, with the approval of Barbara Neal, the town assessor, created the designation. It has been applied retroactively to houses built decades ago before the designation came into being. 

The decision to make the Massey home a custom was made by Michael Milici, who worked for Branford as a part-time contract assessor while serving as the East Haven assessor. Mrs. Massey disputes the classification and an expert for the town has said their home was not a ​“custom” but a colonial.

Mrs. Massey also challenged the legitimacy of the town’s grand list on a variety of grounds, including favoritism, and was preparing for trial when on July 3, 2006, town attorney Shelley Marcus moved to settle the case.

Mrs. Massey agreed, as did her husband. But she almost immediately said the settlement was incomplete, that while there was an agreement in principle it was not finalized. Specifically, Mrs. Massey wanted Trista Clyne, the top assistant to the first selectman, to sign a personal release not to sue the Masseys. Clyne — who was not a party to the suit though her husband, Michael Milici is — refused to sign a release that she would not sue. Without the release, the Masseys ​“refused to proceed with the agreed to settlement,” Clendenen said in his ten-page brief to the court. 
 
The 2006 settlement agreement was first upheld by an appellate panel in June, but vacated on Mrs. Massey motion. It was reargued again before a different panel and decided unanimously for the town in December. Ellen Peters, the now retired former chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the decision for the three-member appellate panel. It is this ruling the Masseys are petitioning the Supreme Court to hear. The appellate court also denied a second case, one that sought to invalidate Branford’s grand list for 2006. 
 
Mrs. Massey, an accounting professor, is an unusual litigant. She has no formal schooling in the law but even Clendenen has publicly admired her legal skills. It is not every day that pro-se litigants have enough knowledge, ability and well, grit, to keep pressing a case all the way to the state’s highest court.
 
Marcus says the terms of the Massey settlement were finalized on July 3, 2006. But Massey says Marcus’s billing statements show otherwise. So do the billing statements of Daniel DeMerchant, of Howd & Ludorf Law firm, who was representing the town’s insurer at the time and was co-counsel on the case with Ms. Marcus. 

DeMerchant made 42 entries for legal bills over a seven-day period, beginning July 3, 2006. The entries were made as the events unfolded. His language shows that while there may have been a settlement in principle there were still conditions to be worked out. For example, DeMerchant’s July 3 legal bill for a telephone conference says: ​“re: terms of conditional settlement with the Masseys; discuss next step to consummate settlement deal.” The appellate courts have ignored the legal bills.

The Masseys’ odyssey through the state court system has left them disillusioned, according to the last page of their brief.

“The public needs to be ensured that the actions of the trial and appellate courts, which have not been carried out equitably or free from error or corruption will be rectified by the Supreme Court. The appellate court’s opinion overlooks the manifest injustice resulting from the actions of the judicial system as a whole. Further, the appellate court’s opinion is fundamentally unfair and truly shocking to the universal sense of justice.”

Clendenen disagreed, adding that contrary to the Massey’s belief, ​“this matter does not involve a question of great public importance,” one of the bases for the high court deciding to hear a case. Not all cases are taken.

He added that the Appellate Court ​“correctly held that as a non-party Ms. Clyne was not bound by the terms of the settlement agreement.”

Finally, Clendenen said that when the appellate court found that the settlement was binding and the Masseys could no longer pursue this claim ​“in any forum,” the court did not mean they were barred from filing another lawsuit if the town, for example, fails to comply with the settlement agreement.

“In sum, the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate any valid reason why this court should grant certification for review. The Appellate Court’s well reasoned decision correctly affirms the trial court’s decision in all responses,” he said, asking the high court to deny the Massey petition.

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