PHILADELPHIA — A federal court in Pennsylvania sided with the City of Philadelphia in its request to have a resident’s lawsuit against it and several others tossed.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Jan. 8 granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Richard J. Silverberg’s amended suit that alleged that the city, its employees and others “engaged in unlawful tax collection practices in violation of various state and federal laws.”
Silverberg claimed that Philadelphia had no right to enforce a 2008 judgment in its favor after it discontinued the writs of attachment. There was a lull in activity from Nov. 8, 2008, to June 15, 2017, with a single instance of the city demanding payment occurring in 2013.
Silverberg’s complaint added that a revenue shortfall prompted the defendants to seek payment from him again. “According to plaintiff, this latent, renewed effort to collect on the June 3, 2008, judgment was really designed to address the city’s revenue shortfall,” the memorandum states.
The respondents called for the case’s dismissal on grounds of a lack of subject matter jurisdiction and the plaintiff’s failure to state a claim.
U.S. District Judge Richard Barclay Surrick wrote that “federal courts are loath to interfere in state tax collection matters and routinely abstain from or otherwise decline to exercise jurisdiction over disputes involving state tax collection. ... Under Rule 12(b)(1), the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over this matter and must dismiss it without prejudice."
The court, however, did not side with the city on its assertion of a failure to state a claim since it already determined that its lack of jurisdiction was sufficient.
“[T]he rule is strict that once a court determines that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, it can proceed no further,” Surrick wrote.
The court dismissed without prejudice “because the basis for dismissal is lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case number 19-2691