A Long Battle, A Total Win

by Ferdinand Peters, attorney

Jack Hoeschler practiced law long after other lawyers his age had retired from fighting the good fight. In one of his final legal challenges, Jack led the charge against an illegal governmental effort to dupe taxpayers. The charade consisted of the city keeping taxes low by imposing annual special assessments totaling $32 million for routine street maintenance costs. With widespread support, Jack marshaled facts, law, and reason, to win the day.

It was not an easy battle. Powerful churches outside Downtown St. Paul were the beneficiaries of the deceptive assessment practice. Jack argued that they shouldn’t be favored to the disadvantage of other taxpayers—nor should downtown churches be treated differently from churches in other parts of the city. He lost at every judicial level until August 24, 2016, five years into the fight. That was the day when the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a decision reversing every lower court result and handing Jack’s clients ultimate victory. The Court opinion, written by Justice David Lillehaug, embraced Jack’s argument that not only was the city’s assessment practice fundamentally unfair, it violated the Minnesota Constitution, as well as statutory law.

Triumph, however, was short-lived. In response to its judicial defeat, the city simply altered the appellation of “street maintenance” and adjusted its processes superficially to camouflage continuation of an assessment policy that had been ruled illegal. Jack returned to the legal battlefield, fighting another six years. The contest ended—with a total “win”—just one month before Jack’s death. Like Pheidippides after his winning race, our hero, Jack Hoeschler, was able to raise his arms in the air and proclaim in the name of justice, “Victory is ours!”