Mason Station’s lawyer told Maine’s highest court on Friday, April 10, if he had been representing the corporation sooner, he would have advised it to respond to Wiscasset’s claims for back taxes.

But that didn’t happen, Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said. 

“What do we do with that,” she asked Mason Station’s attorney Brian Willing.

Because the town had gone through the lien process on the properties, Mason Station believed the taxes were no longer owed, Willing said.

“My client thought that by virtue of those liens ripening, that the (taxes) had been satisfied,” Willing said.

Saufley’s question was among several the justices posed to Willing and Wiscasset’s lawyer Ben Smith as the town and the corporation gave the court their oral arguments in Mason Station’s appeal.

The corporation has asked the law court to vacate an August 2014 order in Wiscasset’s favor regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.

With interest, that amount may now exceed $1 million in taxes on properties assessed at $7 million, justices said. While they pressed Willing on Mason Station’s prior inaction in the tax case, the justices pressed Smith on why an affidavit the town provided didn’t report the town’s ownership of the properties as a potential credit on the taxes owed.

Justice Joseph Jabar asked Smith if Wiscasset was obligated to disclose that it had something of value that could have gone toward offsetting the taxes.

“It was an omission, if it was worth $60,000, if it was worth $100,000,” Jabar said. “Why are you assessing and taxing against property ... if it’s worthless?”

Smith said he wasn’t saying there was no value; the town had no obligation to divulge a value, he said.

“Mason Station is trying to flip the (legal) burden here,” Smith said.

Smith argued that the Superior Court ruling should stand, because Mason Station did not respond to the town’s pursuit of the taxes.

“This case boils down to a simple rule. That is, to follow the rules, because if you don’t follow the rules, there can be consequences,” Smith said.

Mason Station has failed to address its year-and-a-half delay in taking action, he said.

At several points in Friday’s proceeding, justices brought up the specter of potential environmental issues with the Mason Station properties. They questioned the impact that may have had on how Mason Station and the town both dealt with the back taxes.

“It sure seems to look like a business decision to let it go and not pay the cleanup costs,” Justice Donald Alexander told Willing.

“There are some cleanup issues. I’m not going to say there are not,” Willing said. The town rejected an abatement request, he said.

The court took the appeal under advisement to rule on later. No time frame was given for a decision.

Asked how he felt the arguments went, Smith said the justices focused on the case’s core issue, Mason Station’s inaction.

“I think the court had some interesting questions,” he said. Smith declined to predict how the court would rule.

Willing said later that he was cautiously optimistic. He was pleasantly surprised at the justices’ interest in the double-dipping issue he had raised, in that the town had the properties and was still seeking taxes on them, Willing said.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they come down,” he said about the pending decision.