A divided state appeals panel has ruled assessors in Will County met their notice obligations when informing a company the annual taxes for the land on which it was building an unfinished power plant would climb from $7,500 to $4.1 million.
Jackson Generation sued several government bodies over alleged due process violations related to a parcel in Elwood where it was developing a combined-cycle power plant fueled by natural gas.
According to the company, the issue is the 2020 assessment. The company said the Jackson Township and Will County assessors, without giving notice or a chance for the company to object, split the land into two parcels and then reassessed, boosting values and the resulting tax bill by 54,000%.
That decision came despite the project being only 4.2% complete at the start of that calendar year.
Initially filed in August 2021, the company’s complaint grew to include other taxing bodies, like school and library districts. Ultimately Will County Circuit Court Judge Roger Rickmon dismissed the complaint with prejudice in July 2022.
The Illinois Third District Appellate Court issued its ruling on the matter May 9, 2024. Justice Liam Brennan wrote the majority opinion; Justice Linda Davenport concurred. Justice Mary McDade wrote a partial dissent.
A key factor in the dispute is notice mailed to Jackson Generation’s office in Houston, rather than Schaumburg. The company said government officials knew that Houston mailing address wasn’t monitored and made no attempt to use other contact methods when one piece was marked return to sender.
That contention, Brennan wrote, affects resolution of whether the company was obligated to pursue the issue through administrative proceedings before filing a lawsuit, as Jackson Generation argued the lack of notice allegation is sufficient grounds for litigation.
The majority agreed with that position, but only with respect to one of the two parcels.
Also relevant is an assessment review board’s independent authority to reconsider valuation, Brennan said, noting Jackson Generation's argument “conflates the notice provisions governing the initial assessment process and those governing board review.” Further, he said, the Property Tax Code allowed a reassessment of the divided parcels.
“The board is required to deliver a copy of the list to the county clerk to file and to the chief county assessment officer, and the list shall be public record and open to inspection,” Brennan wrote. “While there used to be a statutory requirement to publish assessment changes made at the board level, this requirement was eliminated” in 2011.
However, the county admitted failing to send a notice of proposed reassessment for one of the parcels, which comprised 20% of the original and increased in assessed value from $12,192 to nearly $8.5 million. Jackson Generation argued that failure to send notice should void the value change for the parcel.
But Brennan said the larger issue is the majority’s agreement that the lawsuit could proceed as the property owner never had the chance to exhaust administrative remedies.
Regarding the larger parcel, Brennan said the notice requirement was satisfied through mailing of notice to the Houston address, as it was the address the company provided for the tax bill. The majority said placing “the onus on the county to choose from an assortment of potential addresses” would depart from the law’s language in a haphazard, arbitrary fashion.
In his dissent, McDade said the county violated Jackson’s due process rights, agreeing with the company the value change was more than just a routine correction. McDade said the property had been subject to unique attention and the government bodies therefore should’ve done more to ensure the owners received notice before the government hiked their tax bill spectacularly.
“What constitutes a reasonable attempt at providing notice is not a one-size-fits-all determination; rather, it is a highly individualized and fact-specific inquiry,” McDade wrote.
But that position, Brennan said, “presents an unworkable framework eliciting many unanswered questions, including the parameters for identifying such a property, the monetary threshold for additional process and even whether the ‘modesty’ of an increase would be relative to a property owner’s financial means.”
The majority affirmed dismissal of all claims regarding the larger parcel. With respect to the smaller, it agreed the surviving claims — remanded for further proceedings — don’t implicate all the taxing bodies named as defendants, and the only party necessary for Jackson Generration’s direct objection to its tax bill is the county treasurer.
Jackson Generation is represented by the Chicago firm of Polsinelli PC. The attorneys representing Jackson Generation declined to comment on the decision.
The government defendants are represented by attorneys with the following law offices: Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow; Klein Thorpe & Jenkins, of Chicago; Rathbun Cservenyak & Kozol, of Joliet; Hauser Izzo Petrarca Gleason & Stillman, of Oak Brook; Ottosen Dinolfo Hasenbalg & Castaldo, of Naperville; Tracy Johnson & Wilson, of Joliet and Chicago.