Source: https://openjurist.org/339/us/87
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:39:43+00:00

Document:
BURNISON et al. UNITED STATES v. GAYETTY et al.
Mr. Melvin Richter, Washington, D.C., for appellant.
Mr. J. Harold Decker, Los Angeles, Cal., for Gayetty and others.
These appeals involve the power of the California Supreme Court to declare invalid testamentary dispositions to the United States by two California residents. The bequest to the United States in No. 171 included only personal property; in No. 188 the United States was designated to receive both real property and United States bonds. The situs of all the property is assumed to be California. After appropriate procedural steps, the California Supreme Court held void these testamentary gifts and directed that they be distributed to the statutory heirs of each decedent.1 The two cases were consolidated for argument below and will be considered here in one opinion.
The California court construed § 27 of the California Probate Code2 to prevent a California domiciliary from making an unrestricted testamentary gift to the United States, although such a gift may be made to California, its counties and municipal corporations.3 The court arrived at this interpretation despite the contention of the United States that it would raise serious constitutional questions. The construction of the California Code by the California Supreme Court is, of course, binding on us. It leaves us, however, with the federal constitutional questions that the United States urged the California court to avoid.
In these appeals the United States makes two contentions. It urges that the California Code, as interpreted, violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, art. 6, cl. 2, 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.
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 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 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.
When a state refuses to hear pleas based on federally created rights while it takes cognizance of those created by state law, there may be invalid discrimination because by the Supremacy Clause federal laws are made laws of the state.16 Therefore to allow a suit based on state law and to refuse one based on federal law could 'discriminate' without any reason for the classification.17 But the United States' capacity to receive, even though called a 'right' or a 'power,' is not a 'law of the state.' As we have shown in the earlier discussion, that capacity cannot be magically transformed into something that must be enforced. The cases upholding the rights of persons to sue are not in point.
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.
One judge dissented on the authority of In re Estate of Hendrix, 77 Cal.App.2d 647, 651—653, 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, 77 Cal.App.2d at page 651, 176 P.2d page 400, 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.
Matter of Will of Fox, 52 N.Y. 530, 11 Am.Rep. 751.
United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315, 321, 24 L.Ed. 192.
Graves v. People of State of New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466, 477, 59 S.Ct. 595, 596, 83 L.Ed. 927, 120 A.L.R. 1466; Pittman v. Home Owners' Loan Corp., 308 U.S. 21, 32, 60 S.Ct. 15, 17, 84 L.Ed. 11, 124 A.L.R. 1263; Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U.S. 95, 102, 62 S.Ct. 1, 5, 86 L.Ed. 65.
United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324, 331, 332, 57 S.Ct. 758, 761, 81 L.Ed. 1134.
Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596, 97 A.L.R. 1355.
United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733, 51 S.Ct. 220, 222, 75 L.Ed. 640, 71 A.L.R. 1381; United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 123, 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 461, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L.R. 1430.
Mager v. Grima, 8 How. 490, 493—494, 12 L.Ed. 1168; United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315, 321, 24 L.Ed. 192; United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 627, 628, 16 S.Ct. 1073, 1074, 41 L.Ed. 287; Plummer v. Coler, 178 U.S. 115, 137, 20 S.Ct. 829, 837, 44 L.Ed. 998; Maxwell v. Bugbee, 250 U.S. 525, 536, 40 S.Ct. 2, 5, 63 L.Ed. 1124; Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U.S. 188, 193, 59 S.Ct. 155, 158, 83 L.Ed. 119, 119 A.L.R. 410; Irving Trust Co. v. Day, 314 U.S. 556, 562, 62 S.Ct. 398, 401, 86 L.Ed. 1734, 137 A.L.R. 1093; Demorest v. City Bank Farmers Trust Co., 321 U.S. 36, 48, 64 S.Ct. 384, 391, 88 L.Ed. 526.
Mayo v. United States, 319 U.S. 441, 63 S.Ct. 1137, 87 L.Ed. 1504, 147 A.L.R. 761.
United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 628, 630, 16 S.Ct. 1073, 1075, 41 L.Ed. 287.
Clark v. Allen, 331 U.S. 503, 67 S.Ct. 1431, 91 L.Ed. 1633, 170 A.L.R. 953. Cf. Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633, 68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249.
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, 23 L.Ed. 449. 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.
Second Employers' Liability Cases, (Mondou v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.), 223 U.S. 1, 56, 32 S.Ct. 169, 177, 56 L.Ed. 327, 38 L.R.A., N.S., 44; Douglas v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co., 279 U.S. 377, 49 S.Ct. 355, 73 L.Ed. 747; McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F.R. Co., 292 U.S. 230, 54 S.Ct. 690, 78 L.Ed. 1227.
Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U.S. 130, 136, 23 L.Ed. 833; Second Employers' Liability Cases, supra, 223 U.S. 57, 32 S.Ct. 178.
McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F.R. Co., supra, 292 U.S. 234, 54 S.Ct. 692; cf. Douglas v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co., supra.
E.g., City and County of Denver v. New York Trust Co., 229 U.S. 123, 33 S.Ct. 657, 57 L.Ed. 1101; Rast v. Van Deman & Lewis Co., 240 U.S. 342, 36 S.Ct. 370, 60 L.Ed. 679, L.R.A. 1917A, 421, Ann.Cas.1917B, 455; La Tourette v. McMaster, 248 U.S. 465, 39 S.Ct. 160, 63 L.Ed. 362; Maxwell v. Bugbee, 250 U.S. 525, 40 S.Ct. 2, 63 L.Ed. 1124; New York Rapid Transit Corp. v. City of New York 30 U.S. 573, 58 S.Ct. 721, 82 L.Ed. 1024; Queenside Hills Realty Co. v. Saxl, 328 U.S. 80, 66 S.Ct. 850, 90 L.Ed. 1096.
Board of Education of Kentucky Annual Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church v. State of Illinois, 203 U.S. 553, 27 S.Ct. 171, 51 L.Ed. 314, 8 Ann.Cas. 157; cf. Connecticut Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Moore, 333 U.S. 541, 551, 68 S.Ct. 682, 688, 92 L.Ed. 863.

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