Court Opinion

ID: 9452644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:47:07.0283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:18.007425
License: Public Domain

DAVID T. LEWIS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In determining the rights of rival claimants to a fund created by a compromise of a filed law suit it is indeed fundamental that first inquiry should be made through the contract of settlement which, if certain and unambiguous, v/ould control. In the case at bar the contract of settlement unambiguously settles all claims of both Homestake and the United States against the State of New Mexico. And the undisputed facts show that the claims of Homestake and the United States against each other and to the fund were intended to be and were specifically preserved in the settlement proceedings. I can accord no further dispositive legal significance to the nature of the filings or the settlement agreements. The United States is entitled summarily to succeed now because it was entitled to succeed in the law suit that was settled. As Chief Judge Mur-rah clearly points out, the subject tax imposition by New Mexico was, as a matter of law, a “precluded tax” within the meaning of the parties’ contract. The claim of the United States to the disputed fund thus has merit in law and the claim of Homestake is without merit. There is no factual dispute involving intent nor contractual relationship existing between these parties that prevents summary disposition.