Court Opinion

ID: 9842171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:13:18.368501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:51.311686
License: Public Domain

Justice Scalia,
with whom Justice Thomas joins,
dissenting.
I join Justice Thomas’s dissent, which points out (to no relevant response from the Court) that a State’s decision to treat the marital partnership as a separate legal entity, whose property cannot be encumbered by the debts of its individual members, is no more novel and no more “artificial” than a State’s decision to treat the commercial partnership as a separate legal entity, whose property cannot be encumbered by the debts of its individual members.
I write separately to observe that the Court nullifies (insofar as federal taxes are concerned, at least) a form of prop*290erty ownership that was of particular benefit to the stay-at-home spouse or mother. She is overwhelmingly likely to be the survivor that obtains title to the unencumbered property; and she (as opposed to her business-world husband) is overwhelmingly unlikely to be the source of the individual indebtedness against which a tenancy by the entirety protects. It is regrettable that the Court has eliminated a large part of this traditional protection retained by many States.