Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/329/509/146266/
Timestamp: 2019-09-22 21:17:14
Document Index: 717555532

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 65', '§ 71']

David G. Legget, Petitioner, v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent, 329 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1964) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 1964 › David G. Legget, Petitioner, v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent
David G. Legget, Petitioner, v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent, 329 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1964)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 329 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1964) Argued January 21, 1964Decided March 20, 1964
Little light is shed by decisions denying deductions to husbands for payments under decrees providing for separate maintenance in jurisdictions whose laws also make specific provision for legal separation or its ancestor, divorce a mensa et thoro. Keleher v. C. I. R., 25 T.C. 1154 (1956) [District of Columbia]; Boettiger v. C. I. R., 31 T.C. 477 (1958) [New Jersey]; C. I. R. v. Rankin, 270 F.2d 160 (3 Cir. 1959) [Pennsylvania]; Fuqua v. Patterson, 193 F. Supp. 313 (N.D. Ala.), aff'd per curiam, 295 F.2d 509 (5 Cir. 1961) [Alabama]. Such decisions show only that the payments would not qualify if the instant decree had been under § 65.10 of the Florida Statutes, F.S.A., which the taxpayer concedes. Our question is whether the relief granted by Florida under § 65.09 is in substance a legal separation although not baptized as such.
An affirmative answer would seem indicated as a matter of good sense. The essence of a legal separation is that each spouse may live apart free from any claim of desertion or demand for cohabitation by the other. Madden, Persons and Domestic Relations, 261 (1931). The Supreme Court of Florida has held that when one spouse has an accrued right to divorce based on desertion for a year, he does not lose the right or become a deserter by refusing his spouse's tardy offer of reconciliation, Anders v. Anders, 153 Fla. 54, 13 So. 2d 603 (Sup.Ct. en Banc 1943), although he may be charged with desertion if, at the time of his refusal of reconciliation, he was living apart merely on grounds that were initially justifiable but would not have sustained an action by him for divorce. Martin v. Martin, Fla., 66 So. 2d 268 (1953). Nothing in the reasoning or language of these opinions suggests that the rule they enunciate is limited to desertion as distinguished from other grounds for divorce. A wife who has obtained a decree under § 65.09 should stand in an even better position with respect to a claim of desertion against her arising out of her husband's subsequent offer of reconciliation; she not only had grounds for divorce but has had them adjudicated. In Naurison v. Naurison, 108 So. 2d 510 (Fla.D.C.App.1959), the court provided for the right of the wife to live separate from her husband in a decree under § 65.09; we think it was doing only what the statute itself established, since any decree under § 65.09 would have this effect.
This seems to be the view of Florida courts and commentators. In Preston v. Preston, 116 Fla. 246, 157 So. 197 (1933), the Florida Supreme Court, comparing a decree under § 65.10 with one under § 65.09, said "On the other hand, the right to the relief authorized by section 4988, Comp.Gen.Laws supra, [now § 65.09] is in the nature of a limited divorce * * *." In Hartzog v. Hartzog, Fla., 65 So. 2d 756, 758 (en banc, 1953), it analogized § 65.09 to an Illinois statute which an Illinois court had characterized as corresponding to a divorce a mensa et thoro. See, to the same effect, Willock, Historical Review of the Divorce Laws of Florida, 5 Fla.Stat.Ann. 531, 542 (1943); Hyman, The Florida Divorce Law, 6.
We recognize there are statements looking somewhat the other way. Schwenk v. Schwenk, 159 Fla. 694, 32 So. 2d 734 (1947); Tinsley v. Tinsley, 125 So. 2d 553 (Fla.1960); Greenberg v. Greenberg, 101 So. 2d 608 (Fla.D.C.App. 1958). We have noted also the recent case of Hieber v. Hieber, Fla.App., 151 So. 2d 646 (1963), in which a District Court of Appeal, acting directly contrary to Naurison v. Naurison, supra, reversed that portion of a decree entered under § 65.09 which expressly authorized the wife to live separate and apart from her husband on the grounds that this amounted to a limited divorce and was thus contrary to the command of § 65.03. Since this intermediate court was apparently not directed by counsel to any of the significant decisions of the Florida courts which we have discussed above, including the Supreme Court's assertion in Preston v. Preston, supra, 157 So. at 199, that relief under § 65.09 is "in the nature of a limited divorce," and since as shown above a decree of separate maintenance under § 65.09 necessarily gives legal sanction to the wife's right to remain separate regardless of the failure of the court to provide expressly therefor, we are not convinced that this decision is an accurate guide to Florida law. In finding a state's law a federal court should not follow mechanically the most recent available statement of an intermediate court but rather must determine on consideration of all relevant factors how the highest court of the state would decide the question if asked today. Cf. Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co., 350 U.S. 198, 204-205, 76 S. Ct. 273, 100 L. Ed. 199, and concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, 209-212, 76 S. Ct. 279-281, 100 L. Ed. 199 (1956); Strubbe v. Sonnenschein, 299 F.2d 185, 188-189 (2 Cir. 1962); Evans v. S. J. Groves & Sons Co., 315 F.2d 335 (2 Cir. 1963). Analyzing the materials as best we can, we hold that a decree under § 65.09 of the Florida statutes gives the wife a legal separation within the meaning of § 71(a) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Subsections (2) and (3) require inclusion in the wife's gross income of periodic payments made by the husband under a written separation agreement executed after the date of the enactment of the 1954 Code and, " [i]f a wife is separated from her husband," periodic payments to her made in compliance with a decree for her support or maintenance entered after March 1, 1954. The Commissioner concedes the latter provision would permit the deduction of payments subsequent to August 16, 1954, if the decree in this case had been entered a month later