Court Opinion

ID: 9637360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:04:42.836786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:55.594406
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In Helvering v. Proctor, 2 Cir., 140 F.2d 87, the government urged us to hold that Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 60 S.Ct. 444, 84 L.Ed. 604, 125 A.L.R. 1368, had overruled May v. Heiner, 281 U.S. 238, 50 S.Ct. 286, 74 L.Ed. 826, 67 A.L.R. 1244. A majority of our court refused to so hold; I dissented. For unexplained reasons, the government, having described Proctor to us as a test case, failed to seek certiorari. Its strategy seems to have been, instead, to make flank attacks designed to wear down May v. Heiner. That strategy seems to have been successful. See Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, 324 U.S. 108, 65 S.Ct. 508; Commissioner v. Estate of Field, 324 U.S. 113, 65 S.Ct. 511; Goldstone v. United States, 325 U.S. 687, 65 S.Ct. 1323.1
*175• Ordinarily, when a case has been decided by this court against my dissent, I do not again dissent when the same question again arises.2 But the fact that in the Fidelity-Philadelphia and Field cases, Mr. Justice Douglas, in concurring, indicated that the Supreme Court had not yet decided whether Heiner survived Hallock, persuades me that it is proper here once more to dissent for the reasons set forth in my dissenting opinion in Helvering v. Proctor, supra.
I would, however, not favor reversal here but, instead, woud remand to the Tax Court for determination of the issue whether the grantor in fact relied upon May v. Heiner, i.e., failed to relinquish his life interest on the assumption that May v. Heiner would apply.
In the Proctor case, I suggested that, if Heiner has been overruled, it should nevertheless be regarded as effective in any instance wliere it had thus been relied upon. The rational basis for judicial reluctance to overrule a gravely unsound decision, with not only prospective3 but also retroactive effect, would cease to exist if stare decisis were treated, in that way, solely as a sort of estoppel doctrine.4 Except when a person has detrimentally changed his position because of his knowledge of a decision, I can see no valid reason for adhering to a precedent when, upon subsequent reflection, it shows up as ill-considered and unwise. To assume, without opportunity to prove the contrary, that men have so changed their position — have acted or been inactive because they had in mind a court’s decision — and, on that ground, to refuse to wipe it out, no matter how erroneous, does not seem to me to be an intelligent method of administering justice. For it is difficult not to agree, with reference to most of the conduct of the great majority of men, with the following comment by John Chipman Gray, a profound legal thinker and experienced practical lawyer: “Practically, in its application to actual affairs, for most of the laity, the law, except for a few crude notions of the equity involved in some of its general applications, is all ex post facto. When a man marries, or enters into a partnership, or engages in any other transaction, he has the vaguest possible idea of the law governing the situation, and, with our complicated system of jurisprudence, it is impossible it should be otherwise. If he delayed to make a contract or do an act until he understood exactly all the consequences it involved, the contract would never be made or the act done. Now the law of which a man has no knowledge is the same to him as if it did not exist.”5
In my dissent in Proctor, I suggested that the burden of showing reliance on Heiner should be on the taxpayer. But now (reverting to an earlier suggestion6) I think it would be more fair, if Heiner has been overruled, to remand with directions that the burden of proof on the issue of reliance should rest on the government.

 See Note, 40 Ill.L.Rev.1945, 285, 289.

 I except cases like United States v. Rubenstein, 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 915.

 As to prospective overruling of an unsound decision, see Wigmoro, Problems of Law, 79, 80; Great Northern R. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U.S. 358, 365, 53 S.Ct. 145, 77 L.Ed. 360, 85 A.L.R. 254; People v. Maughs, 149 Cal. 253, 86 P. 187; People v. Ryan, 152 Cal. 364, 92 P. 853; In re Marine Harbor Properties, 2 Cir., 125 F.2d 296, 300, note 2; cf. Warring v. Colpoys, 74 App.D.C. 303, 122 F.2d 642, 645, 136 A.L.R. 1025; Moore and Ogleby, The Supreme Court, Stare Decisis and Daw of the Case, 21 Tex.Law Rev., 1943, 514.

 Cf. Oliver Co. v. Louisville Realty Co., 156 Ky. 628, 161 S.W. 570, 51 L. R.A.,N.S., 293, 300-302, Ann.Cas.l915C, 565; Neff v. George, 361 Ill. 306, 4 N. E.2d 388, 391; 21 C.J.S., Courts, § 193, p. 326.

 Gray, The Nature and Sources of Law (1921) § 225. See also Aero Spark Plug Co. v. B. G. Corporation, 2 Cir., 130 F.2d 290, 297, 298.
As to the ethical aspects of stare de-cisis — the social value of not defeating the “expectation” of persons who have relied upon precedents — see Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and The Functional Approach, 35 Col.L.Rcv. (1935) 809, 840, 841; cf. Kessler, Theoretic Bases of Law, 9 Un. of Chicago L.Rev. (1941) 98, 106, 107.

 Aero Spark Plug v. B. G. Corporation, 2 Cir., 130 F.2d 290, at page 298.