Cost Mgmt. Servs. v. City of Lakewood

In late 2008, Cost Management Services Inc. (CMS) reviewed its years of tax payments made to the City of Lakewood. In examining the relevant regulations, CMS decided that it did not in fact owe the tax that it had been paying. In November 2008, it stopped paying the tax and it submitted a claim to Lakewood for a refund of taxes it had previously paid from 2004 to September 2008. Lakewood did not respond to the request for a refund of the 2004-2008 tax payments. But six months later, in May 2009, it issued a notice and order to CMS demanding payment of past due taxes for a different time period-October 2008 to May 2009. CMS did not respond to the notice and order from Lakewood. Instead, CMS sued Lakewood in superior court on its refund claim, asserting a state common law claim of money had and received. The trial court held a bench trial and found in favor of CMS, ruling that CMS did not owe the taxes it had paid to Lakewood. In addition (in a separate action), the trial court granted CMS 's petition for a writ of mandamus ordering Lakewood to respond to the refund claim. The Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning that since Lakewood had never actually responded to the refund claim, CMS had no further administrative steps available to it on the refund claim, and thus exhaustion was not required. The appellate court also ruled that the trial court had properly issued the writ of mandamus. Lakewood sought review of the Court of Appeals' decisions on the exhaustion and the mandamus issues. After careful consideration, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals as to the exhaustion issue, but reversed the Court of Appeals as to the mandamus issue. View "Cost Mgmt. Servs. v. City of Lakewood" on Justia Law