Joseph Bright and Robert Careless, of Cozen O'Connor's Tax Practice Group, discuss a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court case where an appellate issue was lost by the failure to file a post-trial motion in their Bloomberg BNA article, "Appeal Dismissed for Failure to File Post Trial Motions." A panel of the Commonwealth Court dismissed an appeal by the Lower Merion School District for failure to file post-trial motions, and thus failure to properly preserve its issues on appeal. Wolk v. School District of Lower Merion, No. 1465 C.D. 2016 (Pa. Commw. April 20, 2017). The school district filed an application for an exemption with the Pennsylvania Department of Education to increase its property taxes for the 2016-2017 fiscal year beyond the statutorily permitted index. A group of taxpayers filed a class action lawsuit seeking damages for alleged financial misrepresentations by the school district to the department in its exemption application.
To read the full article, click here.