Court Opinion

ID: 9601096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:36:31.895809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:49:34.886841
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, J.,
dissenting.
I do not join with the majority in denying the petition for rehearing. The brief in support of the petition for rehearing makes it appear to me that our original opinion was wrong and that we should have applied the law of Washington, the state of the decedent’s domicile.
The law of the situs of real property should be applied in deciding questions relating to such property. But the question present in the instant case does not directly relate to the real property in Oregon; the question here relates only to the manner in which the federal tax is to be imposed upon the beneficiaries of the trust.
I believe that the apportionment rule is preferable to that which imposes the tax on the residuary beneficiaries. But I think that it is more important to have a unitary rule which applies to all of the assets of the trust. The only way this can be accomplished is to apply the law of the domicile. There are other reasons pointed out in petitioner’s brief and in the article by Scoles, Apportionment of Federal Estate Taxes and Conflict of Laws, 55 Colum L Rev 261 (1955) cited in the original opinion which further support the choice of the law of the domiciliary state. I would grant the petition.
Rossman, J., joins in this opinion.