William B. Rice Eventide Home, Inc. v. Board of Assessors

On June 14, 2004, the William B. Rice Eventide Home, Inc. (Eventide), a nursing facility and qualified charitable organization, entered the tax “twilight zone.” On that date, it received its first property tax bill in the nearly eighty *868years of its existence, ordering it to pay $105,992.81 for fiscal year 2004. One half of that amount, $52,996.41, was due February 2, 2004 (as noted on the bill, that was also the cutoff date to apply for an abatement); the remainder being due on May 3, 2004.

That Eventide presumptively was liable for a property tax it never had to pay in its history was…