Legal News

Nigro's Tax Dispute Sent to Federal Court

By Brian Harris

By Shannon P. Duffy
Of the Legal Staff

Russell M. Nigro, the former state Supreme Court justice, is now a tax protester and is serving as the lead plaintiff in a proposed class-action suit that challenges the assessment imposed on his $1.3 million condominium by the Center City District.

But lawyers for CCD - the municipal authority charged with keeping Center City's streets and sidewalks clean - have now removed the case from the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, where Nigro was once a judge, to U.S. District Court on the grounds that some of Nigro's claims are premised on federal constitutional rights.

The case, Nigro v. City of Philadelphia, 10-cv-987, has been assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Norma L. Shapiro.

The petition for removal was filed by attorneys Brian P. Flaherty, Dexter R. Hamilton and Jillian R. Thornton of Cozen O'Connor, who represent CCD. The city of Philadelphia, which was also named as a defendant in the suit, consented to the removal.

In the suit, Nigro complains that condo owners who purchased their property after Sept. 13, 2005, must pay the assessment while those who purchased prior to that date can sign an annual affidavit voluntarily waiving the payment.

Nigro's lawyer, George Bochetto of Bochetto & Lentz, contends in the suit that such a system is fundamentally unfair.

"The disparities between who pays and who does not give rise to violations of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the United States Constitution and the Pennsylvania statutes under which the CCD was created and from which it derives its power and authority," the complaint alleges.

Now that the case is pending in federal court, the city and CCD must either filed formal answers to the suit or motions to dismiss the claims.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on March 09, 2010 (boomark / email).