City of Hartford v. Kirley
Wisconsin Supreme Court
493 N.W.2d 45 (1992)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
The City of Hartford (plaintiff) created a tax-incremental financing district (the district) to house an industrial project. To finance the district, the city sought to issue tax-incremental bonds (TIF bonds). The assumption underlying the TIF bonds was that the industrial project would generate increased property values in the district, and the city would use the resulting increased property-tax revenue to repay its bond obligations. As part of the bonding process, the city committed not to terminate the district until the bonds were discharged, which would be after 23 years if the bonds were not repaid before then. The bonds were payable solely from the city’s property-tax revenue. Property owners in the city paid the same property-tax rate whether their property was inside the district or not. The city filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the TIF bonds did not qualify as debt subject to the city’s constitutional debt limit.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Abrahamson, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 804,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.