delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is before us on a writ of certiorari to review a judgment of the Court of Special Appeals entered in
State Dep’t of Assess. & Tax. v. Clark,
Whether a circuit court may exercise jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action to review the gratuitous decrease of a final ad valorem assessment on real property by the Supervisor of Assessments, the Property Tax Assessment Appeal Board and the Director of Finance pursuant to Section 67, Article 81, Annotated Code of Maryland?
I
At the time this litigation arose, Maryland Code (1957, 1975 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 67 1 read in relevant part:
The final assessing authority, the supervisor of assessments and the county treasurer (in Montgomery County the director of finance) .of each county and in Baltimore City, the city solicitor, and the director of the department of assessments, . .. may by an order, decrease or abate an assessment after the date of finality for any year, whether a protest against said assessment was filed before the date of finality or not, in order to correct erroneous and improper assessments and to prevent injustice, provided, that the reasons for such decrease or abatement shall be clearly set forth in such order. 2 (Emphasis added).
The circumstances surrounding the litigation are not disputed. In 1970 a parcel of ground in Montgomery County was rezoned on the initiative of the owners, Fitzhugh T. Clark and Geraldine J. Clark, his wife (appellees), from the classification of rural-residential to multiple family,
The motions for summary judgment included a common question — the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County to review § 67 proceedings. Appellants contended that the trial court had no jurisdiction because “[t]he remedies provided by Article 81 for the contest of property assessments are exclusive.. . .” Appellees claimed that the court had jurisdiction imder its inherent power. The trial court held that it had jurisdiction. The Court of Special Appeals agreed.
State Dep’t. of Assess. & Tax. v. Clark,
II
(a)
As first enacted by Acts 1939, ch. 294, the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (UDJA) did not contain the requirement that when a special statutory remedy exists it must be followed. Its principle, however, was recognized and applied by this Court.
Tawes, Comptroller v. Williams,
(b)
Assessment of real property for the purpose of
ad valorem
taxation revolves around a date of finality.
5
The necessity
The General Assembly, recognizing the importance of both the amount of the assessment and a date of finality, devised a comprehensive scheme whereby an assessment may be protested. Before the date of finality, challenge may be made as a matter of right. Notice of the assessment is required with timely opportunity to protest to the body from which the notice emanates. § 29 (a). Any taxpayer, county, city, or the Attorney General or the State Department of Assessments and Taxation may demand a hearing before the supervisor of assessments “as to the assessment of any property or any unit of tax value, or as to the increase, reduction, or abatement of any assessment, or as to the classification, for the next year,” § 255 (a), and may demand a further hearing before the property tax assessment appeal board, § 255 (b). Further appeal may be made to the Maryland Tax Court, § 256.
See
§§ 229, 234;
La Belle v. State Tax Comm.,
It is after the date of finality that § 67 comes into play. We have heretofore considered § 67 in two cases —
La Belle
and
Mont. Co. Council.
In each the question was that of jurisdiction to review determinations under § 67 (§ 66 in the 1951 Code), but the jurisdiction involved was that of an administrative body in the exercise of its quasi-judicial functions, not, as here, that of a court in the exercise of its judicial functions. In each relief was sought under § 67 after the assessment had become final. In
La Belle,
“The right to an appeal is not a right required by due process of law, nor is it an inherent or inalienable right. . . . An appellate right is entirely statutory in origin and no person or agency may prosecute such an appeal unless the right is conferred by statute.”
Criminal Inj. Comp. Bd. v. Gould,
In
Mont. Co. Council
we also rejected the claim that § 318 of Art. 41 of the Maryland Code (1957, 1971 Repl. Vol.), the codification of Acts 1959, ch. 757 which created the Tax Court one year after the decision in
La Belle,
gave the Tax Court a broader jurisdiction over appeals in property tax assessment cases than the jurisdiction set forth in Art. 81, § 256. We reasoned that even if Art. 41, § 318 could be viewed as a grant of appellate jurisdiction to the Tax Court independent of the provisions of Art. 81, the result would not be different. The jurisdiction of the Tax Court referred to in § 318 was over the determination “of any final assessing or taxing authority ...” and the determination of the final assessing or taxing authority at the time the cases in
Mont. Co. Council
arose was the determination of the Appeal Tax Court for Montgomery County, not the joint discretionary action of the three entities as provided for in § 67.
Mont. Co. Council,
Section 67 proceedings are not subject to the judicial review provided by the Administrative Procedure Act, Maryland Code (1957, 1971 Repl. Vol.) Art. 41, § 255. The State Department of Assessments and Taxation and the Maryland Tax Court are not agencies under the Act.
Id.
§ 244 (a);
Dickinson-Tidewater v. Supervisor,
The potential relief held out by [§ 67] to a taxpayer whose assessment has become final is a matter of grace and not a matter of right. ... If the taxpayer has in due time taken the steps prescribed by the statutes to call upon the local assessing authorities to hear and consider his case, and then duly appealed to the State Tax Commission, or has appealed in time directly to the State Tax Commission from the assessment, he is entitled to have the body called upon act on his case as a matter of right. If, however, he permits an assessment to become final, he can only hope that the three taxing and fiscal authorities who are named in Sec. [67] of Art. 81 will agree that his cause is just and demands relief. If they do not, the statute gives him no further remedy and the assessment that has been allowed to become final remains on the books for the year in question.
We quoted this language in
Mont. Co. Council
and its import was a significant consideration in our assertion that
La Belle
was dispositive of the jurisdictional issue.
Mont. Co. Council,
We conclude that there is no statutory authority giving a circuit court jurisdiction, by way of declaratory judgment or otherwise, over the propriety of a grant or' denial of a reduction in a real property assessment under § 67.
(d)
The trial court believed that it had an inherent right which applied to give it jurisdiction over § 67 proceedings. To it,
La Belle
and
Mont. Co. Council
presented no problem
Gould concerned the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act which provided government financial assistance for victims of crime. Acts 1968, ch. 455; Code (1957,1973 Repl. Vol.) Art. 26A. The statute created a Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, § 3, with power to hear and determine claims for awards, § 4, designated those eligible for awards, § 5, and the prerequisites to an award, § 12. It established procedures for the filing of allowable claims, § 6 and § 7. A decision on a claim was to be made by a single Board member, § 8, with the right of the claimant to apply for consideration of the decision by the entire Board, § 9. Section 10 (a) provided:
Within thirty days after receipt of the copy of the report containing the final decision of the Board, the Attorney General may, if in his judgment or in the judgment of the Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services the award is improper, commence a proceeding in the circuit court of the county or the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City, as the case may be, to review the decision of theBoard. Any such proceeding shall be heard in a summary manner and shall have precedence over all other civil cases in such court. The court may, however, take additional testimony, if it so desires. There shall be no other judicial review of any decision made or action taken by the Board, by a member of the Board or by the secretary of the Board with respect to any claim.
We found in
Gould,
“[T]his Court, in a long line of cases, has consistently held that the Legislature cannot divest the courts of the inherent power they possess to review and correct actions by an administrative agency which are arbitrary, illegal, capricious or unreasonable.”
And in
Zion Evang. Luth. Ch. v. St. Hwy. Adm.,
A legislature may not circumvent the system of checks and balances which guarantee that no branch of government, however designated, may be granted an untrammelled right arbitrarily to grant or withhold that which is derived from the people, be it due as a matter of right, sought as an aspiration, or bestowed as largess. A democracy does not recognize such monarchical discretion. [Clark,34 Md. App. at 145 (emphasis supplied)].
Alembicated, however, this means no more than what Hammond, C. J. said in delivering the majority opinion in
Insurance Comm'r v. Nat’l Bureau,
The courts have been alert to exercise their residual powTer to restrain improper exercises of administrative powers whether judicial or legislative in nature. If the legislature has not expressly provided for judicial review, a court will ordinarily utilize its inherent powers to prevent illegal, unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious administrative action. (Emphasis supplied).
The key to the right of a court to utilize inherent powers to prevent illegal, unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious administrative action is that “the legislature has not expressly provided for judicial review.” If reasonable judicial review has been provided there is no
“untrammelled
right arbitrarily to grant or withhold that which is derived from the people.” Our observation in
Zion Evang. Luth. Ch.
is to be viewed in this light. The general statement in
Gould
as to the inherent power of the courts to review and correct arbitrary actions by an administrative agency is followed,
In Heaps v. Cobb,185 Md. 372 , 379, this Court said: “The legislature is without authority to divest the judicial branch of the government of its inherent power to review actions of administrative boards shown to be arbitrary, illegal or capricious, and to impair personal or property rights; * * and then quoted the opinion in Hecht v. Crook,184 Md. 271 , 280:
“Courts have the inherent power, through the writ of mandamus, by injunction, or otherwise, to correct abuses of discretion and arbitrary, illegal, capricious or unreasonable acts; but in exercising that power care must be taken not to interfere with the legislative prerogative, or with the exercise of sound administrative discretion * * *.”
We declared in
Gould
that the rule announced in
Hecht
was that
“in the absence of any statutory provision for an appeal
such review by the courts may be ‘through the writ of mandamus, by injunction or otherwise,’ ” (emphasis supplied), and we asserted that the rule “was not only restated in
Heaps v. Cobb, supra,
but reiterated in
Hammond v. Love,
[I]t is equally well settled that when the statute creating an agency makes no provision for judicialreview of the agency’s determination, courts will act where a decision is not supported by facts, or where an action is not within the scope of delegated authority, or is arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable. [Gould, 273 Md. at 502 (emphasis supplied)].
Heaps
and
Hecht
were two of the three cases
Balto. Import Car
cited as authority for this statement, which we thought was “the modern view.” We found in
Gould,
on the authority of our prior decisions, that relief by way of mandamus was properly invoked to review the abuse of discretionary powers by an administrative agency, but only where “no appeal was provided by statute and the Administrative Procedure Act was inapplicable.”
Gould,
It is readily apparent that
Gould
fully recognized and applied as its underlying rationale the firmly established rule that ordinarily when an administrative remedy is provided by statute, relief provided under those statutory provisions must be exhausted before a litigant may resort to the courts. That is, such a remedy is exclusive, and the administrative body must not be by-passed by the pursuit of other remedies.
DuBois v. City of College Park,
Ill
We have found that ordinarily a court does not have inherent power to review the assessing authorities’ determinations with respect to the potential extraordinary relief held out as a matter of grace by § 67. Appellees, however, have mounted a constitutional attack on § 67 as applied to them, and the question is whether the principle holds fast in the face of such a challenge.
We have indicated,
supra,
that when an administrative remedy is provided by statute, relief provided under those statutory provisions must be exhausted before a litigant may resort to the courts. That is, such a remedy is exclusive, and the administrative body must not be by-passed by pursuing other remedies.
Du Bois v. City of College Park, supra,
and cases therein cited. However, “[t]here are few absolutes in the law, and the rule that an administrative remedy must be exhausted before recourse is had to the courts is not one of them.”
Poe v. Baltimore City,
Appellees’ attack goes only to the constitutionality of § 67 as applied and not to its constitutionality on its face, but the
Poe
rule does not come into play because there was no failure to exhaust the administrative remedies provided by the statute. Appellees requested consideration of the assessment of their property under § 67 procedures. The three agencies designated by § 67 reviewed the assessment and duly issued an order abating it. There was nothing left to be done under § 67, and exhaustion of administrative remedies was not involved. In such circumstances, we believe it is imperative that the inherent power of a court be not limited to ascertaining whether § 67 is constitutional on its face, but may be properly invoked to determine whether
The trial court disposed of this case under motions for summary judgment filed by appellants and appellees. It denied appellants’ motions and granted appellees’ motion “to the extent that these proceedings are hereby remanded to the Supervisor of Assessments for Montgomery County, the Director of Finance for Montgomery County and the Property Tax Assessment Appeals Board for such further proceeding under [§ 67] as may be necessary, consistent with the views expressed in this opinion... .” The Court of Special Appeals reversed the judgment summarily granted in favor of appellees, vacated the denial of appellants’ motions for summary judgment, and remanded the case “pursuant to Md. Rule 1071.”
State Dep’t of Assess.
&
Tax. v. Clark, supra,
Maryland Rule 610 d 1 spells out two requirements for the grant of a summary judgment. It provides that the judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show (1) that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact, and (2) that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Honaker v. W.C.
&
A.N. Miller Dev. Co.,
There was no genuine dispute here as to any material fact. The propriety of the trial court’s action depends upon whether the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Board v. John K. Ruff, Inc.,
The constitutional issues were framed by the pleadings. Appellees’ amended bill for declaratory relief sought a declaration that § 67 was unconstitutional as applied to them in that it violated their rights to equal protection of the laws, due process, and amounted to a taking without just compensation. The bill alleged that “[i]t has been the practice of the Appeal Tax Court to completely reassess the land whose owners were fortuitous enough to have disagreed with the original assessment and filed a protest,” but, “[i]t is the further practice of the Appeal Tax Court and the assessing authorities, to grant an arbitrary 25% reduction in assessment in cases where the date of finality has passed but where the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has effected the availability of sewer.” Appellees’ amended bill, ¶ 13 and ¶ 14. This practice of a 25% abatement was carried out with respect to appellees. Id. ¶ 16.
Appellees’ motion for summary judgment and opposition to appellants’ motions, included the claim that they were denied equal protection of the laws. They urged: “Having found [appellees] entitled to relief, [appellees] were entitled, under Equal Protection, to be treated the same as all other persons similarly affected by the sewer moratorium.” They alleged that the Appeal Tax Court limited to 25% a decrease in the assessment of property affected by the sewer moratorium, when relief was sought under § 67, but did not so limit an abatement upon a protest timely filed before the date of finality. They also contended that “the combined actions of the State of Maryland through its Secretary of Health and the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission on the one hand and [appellants] on the other hand has amounted to a taking as contemplated by and prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” The substance of this contention is that they were deprived of the right to use the property as zoned without just compensation.
Appellants’ motions for summary judgment and the
The facts were placed before the trial court by admission of facts, answers to interrogatories, and depositions.
See Vanhook v. Merchants Mut. Ins. Co.,
“[A]fter reviewing a number of situations . . . this office has finally come to the conclusion that a fair and reasonable allowance for the sewer moratorium should be a maximum of 25%.
“This percentage takes into consideration that the moratorium may last for a period of three (3) years and using an 8% annual interest rate over the three-year period would be reasonable consideration in our judgment to arrive at an overall allowance of 25%.
On the other hand, Daniel B. Weigers, a member of the Appeal Tax Court from 1968 to 1973, said in his deposition that after the sewer moratorium went into effect it was the practice of the Court to reduce assessments on properties affected by the moratorium “to the full extent that we thought they were warranted” when there was a timely appeal. In such cases the Court was “not inhibited by the mandates of Section 67 of Article 81.” When relief was sought under § 67 a 25% abatement was awarded as a uniform policy shared by the three agencies charged with making the determination. For the 1972-1973 levy years, forty-four cases under § 67 came before the Court and all received a 25% reduction. Wiegers pointed out: “Well, we had to recognize that even though we felt a particular case warranted more than 25 percent, that is we sought to implement more than 25 percent, that it would not be concurred in by the Supervisor of Assessments and therefore, the taxpayer would get nothing.”
We discussed equal protection of the laws in
Rogan v. Commrs. of Calvert County,
The purpose of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution ofthe United States is to protect every person within the State’s jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by the provisions of a statute or by improper enforcement of a statute. Intentional and systematic undervaluation by assessors of other taxable property in the same class violates the constitutional right of a person taxed upon the full value of his property. However, mere errors of judgment on the part of State or County officials in making assessments will not support a claim of such discrimination. There must be something which in effect amounts to an intentional violation of the essential principle of practical uniformity. The good faith of such officials and the validity of their actions will be presumed. When their actions are assailed, the burden of proof is upon the complaining party. Id. at 309-310.
We further observed:
“We accept the rule, as adopted in other States, that the assessment of the property of others at a lower proportion of its value than that of a complaining taxpayer, which is not assessed at more than its fair cash value, does not make the tax on the latter invalid, unless the assessment was fraudulently made.” Id. at 313.
See Shell Oil Co. v. Supervisor,
Considering the facts before the trial court, and the proper inferences to be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to appellees,
Lawless v. Merrick,
Appellees’ claim that appellants deprived them of a property right without just compensation is predicated upon their assertion that appellants refused to grant “appropriate tax assessment relief.” They speak in terms of the failure “to provide adequate relief.” The property right to which they refer is, they assert, the “right” to use the property under zoning which permitted the construction of garden type apartments but which was stymied by the sewer moratorium. We do not believe that whether there is a deprivation of property without just compensation is properly to be determined here in terms of “adequate relief.” We find applicable the principle followed in zoning cases. When a restriction is supportable as a proper exercise of police power,
12
it is not enough for the property owner to show that the restriction results in substantial loss or hardship. There is no deprivation of his property without payment of just compensation unless the effect of the restriction is to deprive him of any reasonable use of the property.
Stratakis v. Beauchamp,
IV
We have found that when the procedures provided by § 67 have been exhausted, that is, the designated assessing authorities have duly issued an order denying relief or decreasing an assessment, a court has inherent power to review relief granted or denied under § 67 but with the limitation that such review is restricted to whether the determination of the assessing authorities met constitutional standards. We have held on the record before us that under the circumstances here the 25% decrease in the assessment of appellees’ property was not constitutionally infirm. It follows that the trial court should have denied appellees’ motion for summary judgment and granted the motions of appellants. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals and remand the case to it with direction to enter judgments accordingly pursuant to Maryland Rule 1075 a applicable to that court.
Judgment of the Court of Special Appeals reversed; case remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion; costs to be paid by appellees.
Notes
. Hereafter sections cited are to Code (1957, 1975 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, Revenue and Taxes, unless otherwise indicated.
. Section 67 was thereafter twice amended. Acts 1975, ch. 586, designated the former provisions as subsection (a) and added a subsection (b), the provisions of which are not material to this case. Acts 1977, ch. 220, deleted the “final assessing authority” from subsection (a).
. The Appeal Tax Court for Montgomery County was “the final assessing authority” designated in § 67. An appeal tax court for each county was authorized by Acts 1969, ch. 466, and was made mandatory by Acts 1973, ch. 784 under the designation “Property Tax Assessment Appeal Board.”
. According to the preamble to Acts 1945, ch. 724, the primary purpose of the amendment was to make clear the real legislative intent that the existence of another adequate remedy at law or in equity, contrary to recent decisions of this Court, should not preclude a judgment for declaratory relief in cases in which it was appropriate.
. Code (1957, 1975 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 14 (b) provides that all real property directed^ to be assessed shall be assessed at the full cash value on the date of finality. “The phrase ‘date of finality’ means the date as of
. The legislature has also spelled out circumstances under which a change in assessment may be had after the date of finality but before the semiannual date of finality. Land may be reassessed whenever it has been subdivided or the character or use is changed after the date of finality but before the semiannual date of finality. Code (1957,1975 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 19 (a). Further, § 31 (f) of Art. 81 provides that “[f]or real property partially or totally damaged or destroyed by any event such as fire or other cause, which is or should be removed from the tax rolls for such reason, as to the value of the property removed or to be removed from the tax rolls,”
The semiannual date of finality, is “the date as of which assessments shall be made for all real property becoming assessable up to that time and after the next previous date of finality.” Id. § 2 (20). It is July 1st for the State and every county, incorporated city or town, and taxing district. Id. § 29A (a).
. Formerly, Code (1957, 1975 Repl. Vol.) Art. 81, § 229 (1) provided: “Any party to the proceedings may appeal from the [Maryland Tax] Court’s final order directly to the Court of Appeals.” By Acts 1975, ch. 448, the Court of Special Appeals was designated as the appellate forum in place of the Court of Appeals. In Shell Oil Company v. Supervisor,
. Acts 1959, ch. 757 abolished the State Tax Commission. Two separate agencies were created in its place, the Maryland Tax Court, in which was vested the Commission’s “quasi-judicial” functions, and the Department of Assessments and Taxation, in which was vested the Commission’s “administrative” functions. Mont. Co. Council v. Supervisor,
. Acts 1975, ch. 204 added subsection (c) to § 10:
Within 30 days of the final decision of the Board, any claimant aggrieved by the final decision may appeal the decision under the applicable provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, Article 41, Sections 255 and 256 of the Code.
We note that the prohibition against “other judicial review” set out in subsection (a) was not stricken by the 1975 amendment and remains in the law.
.
See
Richmark Realty v. Whittlif,
.
See
Gingell v. County Commissioners,
. Appellees do not contest the legality of the sewer moratorium, and we said in Northampton Corp. v. Wash. S.S. Comm’n,