Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/339/87.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 00:58:32+00:00

Document:
1. The construction of the section by the highest court of the State is binding here, but the question of its validity under the Federal Constitution is for this Court to determine. P. 89.
2. The section, as construed, does not violate the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution. Pp. 90-93.
(a) The power of the United States to receive testamentary gifts does not preclude a State from denying a testator the right to will his property to the United States. United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315 . Pp. 90-93.
(b) The Tenth Amendment reserves to the States the power to determine the manner of testamentary transfer of a domiciliary's property and the power to determine who may be made beneficiaries. Pp. 91-93.
(c) In the determination of the question here involved, no distinction is to be drawn between realty and personalty. P. 93.
3. The section, as construed, does not discriminate against the United States in violation of the Federal Constitution. Pp. 93-95.
(a) Decisions upholding the right of persons to sue in state courts on federally created rights are not in point here. Pp. 93-94.
(b) Assuming that the United States is protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the section is nevertheless justified by the State's close relationship to its residents and their property. P. 95.
33 Cal. 2d 638, 647, 204 P.2d 330, 335, affirmed.
The Supreme Court of California held void under state law certain testamentary gifts to the United States and directed that the property be distributed to the statutory heirs of each decedent. 33 Cal. 2d 638, 647, 204 P.2d 330, 335. On appeal to this Court, affirmed, p. 95.
Melvin Richter argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Assistant Attorney General Morison, Joseph W. Bishop, Jr. and Paul A. Sweeney.
J. Harold Decker argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief for appellees in No. 188 was J. P. Patterson.
Casper A. Ornbaun and Everett H. Roan filed a brief for Burnison; and Frank J. Fontes was of counsel for Katz, appellees in No. 171.
In these appeals the United States makes two contentions. It urges that the California Code, as interpreted, violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution in that it infringes upon the "inherent sovereign power" of the United States to receive testamentary gifts. Alternatively it argues that the Code effects an unconstitutional discrimination against the National Government, since a testamentary gift may be made by a Californian to California, but may not be made to the United States.
We have no doubt that the receipt of gifts, testamentary and nontestamentary, is within the ambit of federal powers. Uninterrupted usage from the foundation of the Government has sanctioned it. The first question here, therefore, is whether the power to receive testamentary gifts reaches so far as to forbid a state to deny a testator the right to will his property to the United States.
In asking us to overrule the Fox case, the United States contends that since it has the power to accept testamentary gifts, the Supremacy Clause bars a state from stopping this stream of federal revenue at its source. The argument is that every authorized activity of the United States represents an exercise of its governmental power, 6 and that therefore the power to receive property through a will is a governmental power. Since a state cannot interpose "an obstacle to the effective operation of a federal constitutional power," 7 the Government argues a state cannot interfere with this power to receive. This argument fails to recognize that the state acts upon the power of its domiciliary to give and not on the United States' power to receive. As a legal concept a transfer of property may be looked upon as a single transaction or it may be separated into a series of steps. The approach chosen may determine legal consequences. 8 Where powers flow so distinctly from different sources as do the power to will and the power to receive, we think the validity of each step is to be treated separately.
The United States would have no semblance of a claim here were it not for wills probated under California law. The Fox case is only one of a long line of cases which have consistently held that part of the residue of sovereignty retained by the states, a residue insured by the Tenth [339 U.S. 87, 92] Amendment, 9 is the power to determine the manner of testamentary transfer of a domiciliary's property and the power to determine who may be made beneficiaries. 10 It would be anomalous to hold that, because of an amorphous doctrine of national sovereignty, federal constitutional law reached into a California statute and made impotent that state's restrictions on the designation of beneficiaries.
The United States' argument leads to the conclusion that no obstruction whatever may be put in the way of the United States' power to receive by will. Thus the United States could claim rights under the will of a testator whom the state had declared incompetent, or under a will that had not been witnessed and attested according to the laws of the state. The United States could take to the complete exclusion of a surviving spouse, notwithstanding the state law.
"Certainly, if it be true that the right of testamentary disposition is purely statutory, the State has a right [339 U.S. 87, 93] to require a contribution to the public treasury before the bequest shall take effect. . . .
The alternative contention is that 27 of the Probate Code, as interpreted, discriminates against the United States in violation of the Constitution. The argument is that even if the Supremacy Clause would not be violated [339 U.S. 87, 94] if the statute provided that no governmental body could be made the beneficiary of a California will, there is a violation of the Supremacy Clause when the United States is treated less advantageously than California. Apparently the capacity of the United States to receive gifts is analogized to the right of a person to sue on a federal cause of action in a state court. Reliance is placed on the cases which have held that federal rights must be enforced by the courts of a state when "ordinary jurisdiction as prescribed by local laws is appropriate to the occasion." 15 Thus, urges appellant, since state courts may not discriminate in the availability of judicial relief between state created rights and federally created rights, no more can a state discriminate between California and the United States as beneficiaries under wills.
In a sense, of course, the United States is being treated differently from California, and differences and distinctions in a state's treatment of persons are frequently claimed to be discriminatory in violation of the Equal Protection and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. But such differences and distinctions, even when applied to persons clearly protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, are not in themselves unconstitutional. It is only when the variations are arbitrary and without reasonable legal basis that an unconstitutional discrimination occurs. A long line of decisions has molded this judicial concept. 18 Thus, although we should make the somewhat dubious assumption that the United States must receive equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no constitutional violation. California's decision to permit only itself and its subordinate municipalities to be unlimited governmental beneficiaries under the wills of its domiciliaries is based on a permissible distinction. It is justified by reason of the state's close relationship with its residents and their property. 19 A state may by statute properly prefer itself in this way, just as states have always preferred themselves in escheat.
[ Footnote 1 ] Estate of Burnison, 33 Cal. 2d 638, 204 P.2d 330; Estate of Sanborn, 33 Cal. 2d 647, 204 P.2d 335.
[ Footnote 2 ] Probate Code of California, 27: "Who may take by will. A testamentary disposition may be made to the state, to counties, to municipal corporations, to natural persons capable by law of taking the property, to unincorporated religious, benevolent or fraternal societies or associations or lodges or branches thereof, and to corporations formed for religious, scientific, literary, or solely educational or hospital or sanatorium purposes, or primarily for the public preservation of forests and natural scenery, or to maintain public libraries, museums or art galleries, or for similar public purposes. No other corporation can take under a will, unless expressly authorized by statute."
[ Footnote 3 ] One judge dissented on the authority of Estate of Hendrix, 77 Cal. App. 2d 647, 651-53, 176 P.2d 398, 400-402. The Hendrix will bequeathed property to the United States Veterans' Administration for the aid, comfort and assistance of disabled veterans. The California District Court of Appeal, at 651, declared that this was really a bequest to the United States, a corporation, and that its agency, the designated beneficiary, was expressly authorized by California Probate Code 27 to take property under a will. Thus the bequest was valid. In its opinion in the present case, the Supreme Court held that this language had been unnecessary to the decision and refused to extend it to the gifts now under consideration. It thought that the Hendrix gift was good as one for charitable purposes to a legally constituted institution. The Supreme Court thought a gift to the United States "without qualification as to administration or purpose," 33 Cal. 2d 646, 204 P.2d 335, did not come under the classifications of associations or corporations in 27.
[ Footnote 4 ] Matter of Will of Fox, 52 N. Y. 530.
[ Footnote 5 ] United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315, 321 .
[ Footnote 6 ] Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466, 477 ; Pittman v. Home Owners' Loan Corp., 308 U.S. 21, 32 ; Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U.S. 95, 102 .
[ Footnote 7 ] United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324, 331 -32.
[ Footnote 8 ] Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465 .
[ Footnote 9 ] United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 ; United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 123 .
[ Footnote 10 ] Mager v. Grima, 8 How. 490, 493-94; United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315, 321 ; United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 627 , 628; Plummer v. Coler, 178 U.S. 115, 137 ; Maxwell v. Bugbee, 250 U.S. 525, 536 ; Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U.S. 188, 193 ; Irving Trust Co. v. Day, 314 U.S. 556, 562 ; Demorest v. City Bank Co., 321 U.S. 36, 48 .
[ Footnote 11 ] Mayo v. United States, 319 U.S. 441 .
[ Footnote 12 ] United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 628 , 630.
[ Footnote 13 ] Clark v. Allen, 331 U.S. 503 . Cf. Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 .
[ Footnote 14 ] As was pointed out in the Fox case, our determination does not affect the right of the United States to acquire property by purchase or eminent domain in the face of a prohibitory statute of the state. Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367 . An authorized declaration of taking or a requisition will put realty or personalty at the disposal of the United States for "just compensation." It may tax testamentary transfers. Its powers will not suffer.
[ Footnote 15 ] Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U.S. 1, 56 ; Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U.S. 377 ; McKnett v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 292 U.S. 230 .
[ Footnote 16 ] Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U.S. 130, 136 ; Second Employers' Liability Cases, supra, 57.
[ Footnote 17 ] McKnett v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., supra, 234; cf. Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., supra.
[ Footnote 18 ] E. g., Denver v. New York Trust Co., 229 U.S. 123 ; Rast v. Van Deman & Lewis Co., 240 U.S. 342 ; La Tourette v. McMaster, 248 U.S. 465 ; Maxwell v. Bugbee, 250 U.S. 525 ; New York Rapid Transit Corp. v. City of New York, 303 U.S. 573 ; Queenside Hills Realty Co. v. Saxl, 328 U.S. 80 .

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