Court Opinion

ID: 9652787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:32:01.00074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:54.084154
License: Public Domain

*11LINDLEY, District Judge
(dissenting).
Each group of contracts provides that the price named includes all taxes “as at present determined by the Secretary of Agriculture by virtue of authority vested in him by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of the United States.” The first group also provides that “if any reduction or reductions are hereafter made in said present taxes affecting the price named in this contract, then the seller agrees * * * to allow to the buyer the amount of such reduction or reductions.” The second group provides that “if any tax included, in the price hereof shall be decreased or abated, then, in that event, said decrease or abatement shall be deducted from the price hereof.” It seems to me that these words clearly disclose an agreement upon the part of the contracting parties that the tax was a part of the purchase price and that, if it was found not due, so much of_the price should fail.
“Abate,” according to Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Rawle’s Third Rev., is to beat down, destroy, quash. According to Webster, it means at law to break down or demolish, or to put an end to, to nullify, to make void. Manifestly such abatement may be in whole or in part. The term, when applied to taxes, is -sometimes used in a technical sense (Gulf States Steel Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 56 F.2d 43, 46), but, as the court there remarked, any proceedings for abatement “go * * * to the very root of the assessment, denying that it has been duly made.”
Here it is obvious that the parties contemplated that if the taxes should be increased there should be an additional sum due to the vendor and that if they should be reduced or abated, the amount of the reduction or abatement should be credited and payable to the purchaser. All. the taxes were abated as a result of judicial adjudication. They were held not legal and, therefore, not collectible. This was an abatement by our supreme judicial authority, certainly having as completely nullifying effect in destroying the taxes and liability therefor as the act of any administrative body. The parties have agreed that the taxes were included in the purchase price; that additional assessments would be due from the purchaser; and that all reductions, and abatements should be credited to the purchaser. It follows, it seems to me, that the plaintiff in its complaint stated a good cause of action. I think the judgment should be reversed with directions to overrule the attack made upon the complaint. With what defendants may present as defense, arising out of the Windfall Tax or. otherwise, we are not now concerned.