Court Opinion

ID: 6882949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 21:20:24.023824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:05:38.109345
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
We all agree that the law of Texas is uncertain as to whether the taxpayer’s husband discharged himself of his marital liability by the settlement at bar. Therefore, if the taxpayer in order to escape had to show that the settlement did not discharge her husband, the Board was right; she did not do so. But the uncertainty of the law of Texas is obviously a separate issue from the actual law of Texas. Since she did show that it was uncertain, she therefore succeeded if that was the only relevant issue. As I read Helvering v. Fitch, 309 U.S. 149, 60 S.Ct. 427, 84 L.Ed. 665, and Helvering v. Leonard, 310 U.S. 80, 60 S.Ct. 780, 84 L.Ed. 1087, the husband is liable in these cases not only when the settlement does not discharge his marital liability, but when the law of his domicil leaves it uncertain whether the settlement has done so. For these reasons I think that the Board was wrong.