City of Dinuba v. Tulare Co. 3/28/06 CA5

State: California

Court: 1st District Court of Appeal 1st District Court of Appeal

Docket No: F046252

Case Date: 07/12/2006

Preview:Filed 3/28/06

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

CITY OF DINUBA et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants,

F046252 (Super. Ct. No. 03-205854)

v. COUNTY OF TULARE et al., Defendants and Respondents. OPINION

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Tulare County. Patrick J. O'Hara, Judge. Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, Steven R. Meyers, Andrea J. Saltzman and Joseph M. Quinn; Tuttle & McCloskey and Daniel T. McCloskey for Plaintiffs and Appellants. Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri, Inc., Thomas F. Winfield III and Michael H. Wallenstein for Defendants and Respondents.

Counties are required by law to collect property taxes on behalf of local taxing entities and then distribute the revenue to these entities pursuant to statute. This appeal concerns such distributions by respondents, the County of Tulare and the responsible county officials (collectively Tulare), to appellant, the City of Dinuba Redevelopment Agency (Agency). The Agency conducted an audit and discovered that, due to Tulare's miscoding of certain parcels within a redevelopment project, the Agency had not received tax revenues to which it was entitled. Tulare agreed to correct this mistake prospectively but refused to allocate the mandated amount to the Agency retroactively. In response, the Agency along with co-appellant, the City of Dinuba (Dinuba), filed the underlying action seeking these prior tax revenues. However, the trial court dismissed this action on the ground that Tulare was immune from liability under Government Code section 860.2. Appellants contend their claims for relief are not encompassed by the Tort Claims Act (Gov. Code,

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