Court Opinion

ID: 9420265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:53:33.391395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:23.402737
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
dissenting.*
By fitting together my agreement with portions of the dissenting concurrence and my disagreement with a part of the comprehensive dissenting opinions of my brother Burton, I could indicate, substantially, my views of these cases. But such piecing together would make a Joseph’s coat. Therefore, even at the risk of some repetition of what has been said by others, a self-contained statement on the basic issues of these cases will make for clarity. Particularly is this desirable where disharmony of views supports a common result — a result the upsetting of which by Congress is almost invited.
I.
In the Spiegel case, No. 3, the decedent made a settlement by the terms of which he reserved no interest for himself, and it is not suggested that the form of the settlement disguised an attempted evasion of the estate-tax law. The corpus of the decedent’s estate is found to be subject to the estate tax on the basis of Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, as supplemented by Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, 324 U. S. 108, Commissioner v. Estate of Field, 324 U. S. 113, and Goldstone v. United States, 325 U. S. 687. On that basis it is now decided that if there is a possibility, due to the terms of the instrument or by operation of law, however remote, that settled property may return to the set-*668tlor, the entire trust property must be included in the gross estate for purposes of the federal estate tax. Thus, under the Court's decision tax liability may be incurred by the discovery of a gossamer thread of possession or enjoyment, which has no value. Nevertheless the entire trust corpus is included in the gross estate and taxed as if the settlor really had possession or enjoyment of the property. Such a result not only creates unanticipated hardship for taxpayers; it is also an unrealistic interpretation of § 811 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code. Since such an unrealistic interpretation is not a judicial duty whereas its avoidance is, I am compelled to conclude that Spiegel did not transfer an interest in property “intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after death” within the meaning of § 811 (c) and that the trust corpus settled by him in his lifetime was no part of his gross estate.
This case is brought under the decisions of Hallock and the three subsequent cases only by a disregard of the vital differences between the interest created by the Spiegel indenture and the arrangements before this Court in the four cases upon which reliance is placed.
1. In 1920, Spiegel transferred securities to himself and another person as co-trustees, the income to be paid equally to Spiegel’s three named children during his lifetime. If any of the children died before the settlor, the share of that child was to go to his issue, if any, otherwise to the settlor’s other children. The instrument provided further that upon the settlor’s death the corpus, together with any accumulated income, should be divided “equally among my said three (3) children, and if any of my said children shall have died, leaving any child or children surviving, then the child or children of such deceased child of mine shall receive the share” of the trust to which his or her parent would have been entitled. *669If any of the settlor’s three children died without leaving surviving children, that share was to go to the two remaining children. When the trust was established Spiegel was 47 years old, and his three children were aged 25, 15, and 13. At his death twenty years later the children were still living and there were three grandchildren. Upon the assumption that there would have been a re-verter to Spiegel by operation of Illinois law in the event that all his children predeceased him without leaving “surviving children,” the value of this remote contingency was determined mathematically to be worth $4,000.1
2. In the Helvering v. Hallock series, supra, each of the several donors created a trust giving an estate to another but providing that the property would revert to the donor if the donee predeceased him. The donor’s death in each case was the operative fact which established final and complete dominion as between the donor and the donee according to the terms of the instruments. Until the former’s death the donor was, as it were, competing with the donee for the ultimate use and enjoyment of the property. We there held that the particular form of conveyancing words is immaterial if the net effect is that transferred property will revest in a donor who survives the donee. Except on a contingency of Illinois law so remote as to be nonexistent in the practical affairs of life, the property would never revert to Spiegel. His death no doubt would finally determine which children or grandchildren would have the ultimate enjoyment of the trust corpus settled upon his children, but in the real world the property could never come back to him as a windfall. His death did not determine contingencies *670from which he could benefit. His death merely definitively closed the class of beneficiaries and fixed the quantum of each child’s share.
Contrary to the suggestion in the concurring opinion in this case — a suggestion accepted by the majority opinion — the Court of Appeals did not find that Spiegel retained an interest because he had not provided for all contingencies. It included the settled property in the gross estate on the theory that every trust carries as it were the seed of its own destruction through failure of the trust, thereby generating a resulting trust. It said, “If none of the beneficiaries survived the settlor, and that was a possibility, then the trust failed, and the trustees would hold the bare naked title to the corpus as resulting trustees for the settlor.” 159 F. 2d at 259. But this mode of argument would have swept into the gross estate a conveyance in trust in fee to any of Spiegel’s children in 1920 since the failure of the trust for any conceivable reason presumably would not turn the trust property into an outright gift to the trustees.
The trust indenture is a comprehensive arrangement for the children and their offspring to take care of the contingencies of mortality among the children and their offspring. Provisions such as were made in the Spiegel case are precisely the kind of arrangement made by an ancestor for his children and children’s children by which he settles property upon them with a view to the contingencies of successive generations and reserves no interest in himself. Nothing was reserved in the settlor except what feudal notions about seisin may have reserved. But feudal notions of seisin are no more pertinent in tax cases when they lead to imposition of an estate tax than when they lead away from it. At the very basis of the decision of the Hallock case was the insistence that these “unwitty diversities of the law of property derive [d] from medieval concepts as to the necessity of a continuous *671seisin. . . . are peculiarly irrelevant in the application of tax measures now so largely directed toward intangible wealth.” Helvering v. Hallock, supra at p. 118. The metaphysical remoteness of the present settlor’s interest at the time the trust was created is clearly shown by the fact that it depended upon the highly unlikely event that all the children in existence at the time of the conveyance would die and would die childless. Even this remote possibility evaporated long before the settlor died. And certainly the only tenable construction of the statute is that not only must there have been a transfer of the sort designated in §811 (c) but the settlor’s interest must also persist up to the time of his death. Cf. Estate of Miller, 40 B. T. A. 138; see Griswold, Cases and Materials on Federal Taxation 145 (1940).
3. The three later decisions invoked by the Court bear no resemblance to the situation presented by the Spiegel case and give no justification for the ruling now made. In Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, supra, the settlement provided for a life estate in the settlor, life estates in the two daughters, and a reversion in the settlor unless the daughters had issue. See Brief for Respondent, p. 8, Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, supra; Goldstone v. United States, 325 U. S. 687, 693, n. 3. The birth of the grandchildren which cut off the settlor’s interest did not occur until after the death of the settlor. Since, therefore, the taxability is to be determined at death, it followed that the value of the trust property was to be included in the gross estate. The sole controversy was whether deduction should be allowed for the mother’s and daughters’ life interests and for a contingent gift to unborn children.2 Likewise in the Estate of Field case it was conceded that the settlor retained until death a substantial interest — the right to *672reduce or cancel the interest of life tenants and a reversion of the corpus to himself if he survived these tenants. In the Estate of Field case too the controversy concerned the basis on which the estate was to be assessed — whether the value of the life tenancies was to be deducted from the corpus. The Goldstone case was in effect another Hallock case, the insurance being payable upon the donor’s death to the wife but with a reserved right in the donor if she predeceased him.
The birth of grandchildren in Spiegel’s lifetime destroys all resemblance between his case and the cases just discussed. On the least favorable reading of the trust instrument — whereby the grandchildren would have to survive not only their parents but also the settlor — the possibility that the settlor would regain the property was extremely tenuous. Reading the trust instrument in a customary and not in a hostile spirit, the grandchildren would merely have to survive their parents and not the settlor for their interest to become indefeasible. Thus the remote contingency of reacquisition by the settlor vanishes.3
To be sure, in both the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. and the Estate of Field cases there is generality of *673language about indifference regarding the remoteness or uncertainty of the decedent’s “reversionary interest.” But in both cases as we have seen there was no question that the trust instrument itself purposely reserved in the settlor an interest which in its context was substantial. The talk of uncertainty and remoteness was merely a way of indicating that where the settlor himself had reserved an interest terminable only by his death, it was not for the law to make nice calculations as to the chance he was giving himself to regain the property. In these two cases the settlor thought the reserved interest had significance and of course the law gave that significance monetary value. Spiegel contrariwise designed to retain nothing and his estate should not be held to include property of which he divested himself many years before his death.
4. But even the gossamer thread which binds the majority together in subjecting the Spiegel trust corpus to an estate tax is visible only to their mind’s eye. The gossamer thread is the remote possibility that at the time of Spiegel’s death there would be a reverter of the trust property to him. But that possibility depends entirely upon its recognition by the law of Illinois. It is at best a dubious assumption that such a reverter exists under Illinois law. My brother Burton’s argument in disproof is not lightly to be dismissed. At best, however, this Court’s guess that Illinois law would enforce such a reverter may be displaced the day after tomorrow by the Illinois Supreme Court’s authoritative rejection of the guess. If tax liability is to hang by a gossamer thread, the Court ought to be sure that the thread is there. Since only the courts of Illinois can definitively *674inform us about this, it would seem to me common sense to secure an adjudication from them if some appropriate procedure of Illinois, like the Declaratory Judgment Act, is available.4 To justify at all the Court’s theory, the rational mode of disposing of the case would be to remand it to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in order to allow that court to decide whether in fact a procedure is available under Illinois law for a ruling upon the point of Illinois law which is made the basis of this Court’s decision, since the correctness of this Court’s assumption is at best doubtful. Cf. Thompson v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 309 U. S. 478, 483-484; Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101. A determination so made would conclusively fix the interests actually held by the parties to the instrument and at the same time leave to the federal courts the tax consequences of these interests. Blair v. Commissioner, 300 U. S. 5, 9-14; Freuler v. Helvering, 291 U. S. 35.
II.
The reach of the Church case, No. 5, extends far beyond the proper construction of the tax statute.5 It concerns the appropriate attitude of this Court toward a series of long-standing unanimous decisions by this Court. More than that, it involves the respect owed by this Court to the expressed intention of Congress.
*675The short of the matter is this. More than eighteen years ago this Court by a unanimous ruling found that Congress did not mean to subject a trust corpus transferred by a decedent in his lifetime to the estate tax imposed by the Revenue Act of 1918 merely because the settlor had reserved the income to himself for life. May v. Heiner, 281 U. S. 238. At the earliest opportunity, in three cases having minor variations but presenting the same issue, the Treasury invited the Court’s reconsideration of its decision. But the Court, after having had the benefit of comprehensive briefs and arguments by counsel specially competent in fiscal matters, unanimously adhered to its ruling in May v. Heiner. Burnet v. Northern Trust Co., 283 U. S. 782; Morsman v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 783; McCormick v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 784. These decisions, now cast aside, were shared in by judges of whom it must be said without invidiousness that they were most alert in recognizing the public interest and resourceful in protecting it. There were brave men before Agamemnon. If such a series of decisions, viewed in all their circumstances, as that which established the rule in May v. Heiner, is to have only contemporaneous value, the wisest decisions of the present Court are assured no greater permanence.
In fairness, attention should be called to the fact that in joining the Court’s decisions laying down, and adhering to, the May v. Heiner ruling, Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, Mr. Justice Holmes, Mr. Justice Brandéis, and Mr. Justice Stone were not denied argument which the Government has now urged upon us. But it is also fair to the Government to point out that it has not of its own accord asked this Court to overrule the four decisions rendered eighteen years ago. It was only after the case was ordered for reargument and a series of questions was formulated by the Court which shed doubt upon the continued vitality of May v. Heiner, that the Government *676suggested that the decision be cast into limbo. 68 Sup. Ct. 1524. No doubt stare decisis is not “a universal, inexorable command.” Brandeis, J., dissenting in Washington v. Dawson & Co., 264 U. S. 219, 238. But neither is it a doctrine of the dead hand. In the very Hallock case relied upon so heavily in these cases the Court said, “We recognize that stare decisis embodies an important social policy. It represents an element of continuity in law, and is rooted in the psychologic need to satisfy reasonable expectations.” 309 U. S. at 119. And one of the most recent reliances on stare decisis for decision was expressed with such firmness as to manifest allegiance to principle, not utilization of an ad hoc argument.6 We are not dealing here with a ruling which cramps the power of Government; we are not dealing with a constitutional adjudication which time and experience have proved a parochial instead of a spacious view of the Constitution and which thus calls for self-correction by the Court without waiting *677for the leaden-footed process of constitutional amendment. We are dealing with an exercise of this Court’s duty to construe what Congress has enacted with ample powers on its part quickly and completely to correct misconstruction.
Those powers were promptly invoked in this case. Because the Treasury was dissatisfied with the meaning given by this Court to the estate-tax provision, the very next day after the three decisions reaffirming May v. Heiner were handed down, the Treasury appealed to Congress for relief and Congress gave relief. The true significance of today’s decision in the Church case is not to be found in the Court’s failure to respect stare decisis. The extent to which judges should feel in duty bound not to innovate is a perennial problem, and the pull of the past is different among different judges as it is in the same judge about different aspects of the past. We are obligated, however, to enforce what is within the power of Congress to declare. Inevitable difficulties arise when Congress has not made clear its purpose, but when that purpose is made manifest in a manner that leaves no doubt according to the ordinary meaning of English speech, this Court, in disregarding it, is disregarding the limits of the judicial function which we all profess to observe.
The Treasury no doubt was deeply concerned over the emphatic reaffirmation of May v. Heiner. The relief sought from Congress was formulated by the fiscal and legal expert who had that very day failed in persuading this Court to overrule May v. Heiner. What relief did the Treasury seek from Congress? Did the Secretary of the Treasury ask Congress to rewrite § 302 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1926, now §811 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code, so as to sterilize May v. Heiner ? Certainly not. Not one word was altered of the language of the provision which this Court felt compelled to construe *678as it did in May v. Reiner. What the Treasury proposed and what Congress granted was a qualifying addition to the statute as construed in May v. Heiner whereby trust settlements reserving a life interest in the settlor were to be included in a decedent’s gross estate, but only in the case of settlements made after this qualification became operative, that is, after March 3, 1931. Such, in the light of the legislative history, was the inescapable meaning of what Congress did, and the only thing it did, to qualify the reading which this Court four times felt constrained to place upon the mandate of Congress in the imposition of the estate tax. The history is recounted in Hassett v. Welch, 303 U. S. 303, again without a dissenting voice. This history is so crucial to the exercise of the judicial process in this case, that it bears repetition.
When the Joint Resolution of March 3, 1931, was adopted, it was clear that it was to be only of prospective effect. Its sponsors specifically declared:
“Entirely apart from the refunds that may be expected to result, it is to be anticipated that many persons will proceed to execute trusts or other varieties of transfers under which they will be enabled to escape the estate tax upon their property. It is of the greatest importance therefore that this situation be corrected and that this obvious opportunity for tax avoidance be removed. It is for that purpose that the joint resolution is proposed.” 74 Cong. Rec. 7198 and 7078.
And there was good reason for not making it retroactive:
“We did not make it retroactive for the reason that we were afraid that the Senate would not agree to it. But I do hope that when this matter is considered in the Seventy-second Congress we may be able to pass a bill that will make it retroactive.” 74 Cong. Rec. 7199.
*679These statements on the floor by those in charge of the Resolution are controlling, as much as though they had been submitted in a Committee Report, for they were the authoritative explanation of the Resolution’s purpose and meaning. In fact, Representative Schafer of Wisconsin had stated that unless the sponsors explained the bill he would object, thus preventing its acceptance as a resolution. 74 Cong. Rec. 7198.
When the section was reenacted by the 72d Congress as § 803 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1932, it remained in the pre-lkfay v. Heiner language with the Joint Resolution of March 3, 1931, added in slightly different phrasing. 47 Stat. 279. This section was interpreted in 1938 by a unanimous Court as not applying to a reserved life estate created in 1924. Hassett v. Welch, 303 U. S. 303. The briefs filed by the Government in that case again contained much of the same data now found to demand a contrary result.7 On the same day this Court also decided Helvering v. Bullard, 303 U. S. 297, which held the Joint Resolution applicable to reserved life estates created after the passage of the Resolution. It quoted the same language from Matter of Keeney, 194 N. Y. 281, 287, now quoted by the majority, thus indicating that it appreciated the tax-avoidance problem and would have interpreted § 803 (a) retroactively had Congress indicated that it intended to tax reserved life estates created before March 3, 1931.8 It *680is especially difficult to say that in Hassett v. Welch, supra, the Court considered only the language added by the Joint Resolution and not the section in its entirety, since it phrased the issue before it in this' way:
“The petitioners ask us to hold that § 302 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1926 as amended by the Joint Resolution of Congress of March 3, 1931, and § 803 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1932, includes in the gross estate of a decedent, for estate tax, property which, before the adoption of the amendments, was irrevocably transferred with reservation of a life estate to the transferor . . . .” 303 U. S. at 304.
If May v. Heiner had not been accepted as authoritative, it would have been pointless to decide that the amendment to § 302 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1926 did not operate retroactively. See Learned Hand, J., in Helvering v. Proctor, 140 F. 2d 87, 89 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
Of course the Government did not attack May v. Heiner in Hassett v. Welch, supra. Having been rebuffed three times by this Court in its efforts to secure its overruling and having resorted to Congress to nullify its effect, the whole claim of the Government in Hassett v. Welch was that Congress had, as it were, overruled May v. Heiner by the Resolution of March 3, 1931, not only prospectively, but retrospectively. That construction of the Resolution of 1931 had to be rejected in the light of the legislative history of the Resolution. The unanimity of *681the Court’s decision in Hassett v. Welch confirms the inevitability of the decision. And the considerations that led the Government not to attack May v. Heiner in Hassett v. Welch likewise led the Government not to ask the Court to overrule May v. Heiner in this litigation until propelled to do so by this Court’s order for reargument. These considerations were of the same nature, except reenforced by another decade’s respect for May v. Heiner by the Treasury in the actual administration of the revenue law.
Congress has made no change in this section since 1932 and the identical language was carried over as § 811 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code in 1939. There has been no amendment to this language in the Code. Although the sponsors of the Joint Resolution in the House expressed the hope that the next Congress would make the Resolution’s provisions retroactive, nothing of the sort was done. See 74 Cong. Rec. 7199, partially quoted ante at p. 678. Nor did the Treasury remind any subsequent Congress of this unfinished business, despite the fact that it urged amendment of other provisions of the estate-tax law.9
*682The Court during the past decade, in an impressive body of decisions, has given effect to legislative history under circumstances far less compelling than the story here summarized. See the massive body of cases collected in Appendix A, post, p. 687. Moreover, in the face of the legislative history set out above, even an overruling of the five cases in which this precise issue was decided would not give this Court a free hand. For the subsequent actions of Congress make the meaning announced in May v. Heiner and reaffirmed four times as much a part of the wording of the statute as if it had been written in express terms. See Note, 59 Harv. L. Rev. 1277, 1285. An interpretation that “came like a bombshell” certainly had the attention of the Congress. Its failure to alter the language indicates that it accepted that interpretation. See the cases collected in Appendix B, post, p. 690. Due regard for this Court’s function precludes it from ignoring explicit legislative intention even to “yield results more consonant with fairness and reason.” Anderson v. Wilson, 289 U. S. 20, 27; see Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 14 (1921). What the Treasury could not induce the House to do because the Senate would not vote for it we should not now, eighteen years later, bring to pass simply because our action in this case does not depend upon that body’s concurrence.
*683No comparable legislative history was flouted in Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106. It is one thing to hold that Congress is not charged either with seeking out and reading decisions which reach conflicting views in the application of a sound principle or with taking steps to meet such decisions. This is the meaning of our holding in the Hallock case.10 It is quite a different thing to *684say that a statute does not acquire authoritative content when a decision interpreting it has been called to the attention of the public and of Congress and has engendered professional controversy, and when Congress, after full debate, has not merely refused to undo the effect of the decision but' has seen fit to modify it only partially. Helvering v. Griffiths, 318 U. S. 371; United States v. South Buffalo R. Co., 333 U. S. 771, 773-785; cf. Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 487-489. That is this case.11
*685The opinion of the majority in the Hallock case did not, either explicitly or by implication, declare that May v. Heiner was no longer the accepted interpretation of the pre-1931 part of the language in § 811 (c). When we spoke of what had been “Congressionally discarded” — a reference, incidentally, made to answer the argument that Congress had legislatively recognized the distinction between the Klein12 and the St. Louis Trust13 cases — we meant just what Congress meant, that where a settlor created a trust after May 3, 1931, in which he reserved a life estate, the property transferred would be included in the gross estate. It is significant that only one14 of the many circuit judges who have dealt with the Hallock opinion has thought that it overruled May v. Heiner or that the interpretation there announced was to be changed. Commissioner v. Hall’s Estate, 153 F. 2d 172 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Helvering v. Proctor, 140 F. 2d 87 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Commissioner v. Church’s Estate, 161 F. 2d 11 (C. A. 3d Cir.); United States v. Brown, 134 F. 2d 372 (C. A. 9th Cir.). The contention that the Hallock case overruled May v. Heiner was, one would have supposed, conclusively answered by Judge Learned Hand in Helvering v. Proctor, supra at pp. 88-89:
“The opinion of the majority in Helvering v. Hal-lock, supra, did not explicitly, or by inference from *686anything said, declare that May v. Heiner, supra . . . was no longer law. We do not forget that in a note on page 120 of 309 U. S. . . . Frankfurter, J., spoke of the 'Congressionally discarded May v. Heiner doctrine;’ but it would be quite unwarranted from that to infer that the court meant to overrule that 'doctrine,’ and the note was added for quite another purpose. ... it cannot properly be interpreted as holding that the amendment was a legislative interpretation that May v. Heiner, supra, had been wrongly decided. Perhaps it was wrongly decided; perhaps the amendment is evidence that it was; but the Supreme Court did not say so, or indicate that it thought so. It is true that Roberts, J. in his dissent found no difference (309 U. S. at page 127 . . .) between that decision and Helvering v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., supra, 296 U. S. 39 . . . and apparently thought that consistently, May v. Heiner, supra, must also fall, but the majority did not share his opinion.
''Helvering v. Hallock, supra, 309 U. S. 106 . . . was concerned with quite another situation. The settlor had provided that, if he survived his wife— who had a life estate — the remainder went to him; but if she survived him, the remainder went to her. All that was decided was that, when that was the intent, it made no difference what was the form of words used. It was enough that the settlor’s death cut off an interest which he had reserved to himself upon a condition then determined; that made the remainder a part of his estate. ... If therefore May v. Heiner, supra, 281 U. S. 238 . . . is to be overruled, we do not see how Helvering v. Hallock, supra, can be thought to contribute to that result; it must be overruled by a new and altogether *687independent lift of power, which it is clearly not ours to exercise. Furthermore, if the Commissioner is right, Helvering v. Hallock, supra, 309 U. S. 106 . . . also overruled Hassett v. Welch, 303 U. S. 303 . . . sub silentio. That decision had held that the amendment to § 302 (c) did not operate retroactively; and it would not have been necessary to discuss that question, nor would the actual result have been the same, if May v. Heiner, supra, 281 U. S. 238 . . . had not been law.”
I would reverse Spiegel v. Commissioner, No. 3, and affirm Commissioner v. Estate of Church, No. 5.
Appendix A
DECISIONS DURING THE PAST DECADE IN WHICH LEGISLATIVE HISTORY WAS DECISIVE OF CONSTRUCTION OF A PARTICULAR STATUTORY PROVISION
United States v. Durkee Famous Foods, Inc., 306 U. S. 68; United States v. Towery, 306 U. S. 324; Kessler v. Strecker, 307 U. S. 22; United States v. Maher, 307 U. S. 148; United States v. One 1936 Model Ford, 307 U. S. 219; Sanford v. Commissioner, 308 U. S. 39; Palmer v. Massachusetts, 308 U. S. 79; Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U. S. 141; Haggar Co. v. Helvering, 308 U. S. 389; American Federation of Labor v. Labor Board, 308 U. S. 401; Kalb v. Feuerstein, 308 U. S. 433; Morgan v. Commissioner, 309 U. S. 78; South Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251; Amalgamated Utility Workers v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, 309 U. S. 261; Germantown Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 309 U. S. 304; Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 309 U. S. 390; United States v. City and County of San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16; Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381; United States v. American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S. 534; United States v. Dickerson, 310 U. S. 554; Helvering v. Northwest Steel Rolling Mills, Inc., 311 U. S. 46; Neuberger v. Commissioner, 311 U. S. 83; Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union v. Lake Valley Farm Products, 311 U. S. 91; Helvering v. Janney, 311 U. S. 189; Taft v. Helvering, 311 U. S. 195; Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52; United States v. Gilliland, *688312 U. S. 86; Palmer v. Webster & Atlas National Bank, 312 U. S. 156; United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S. 600; Helvering v. Enright, 312 U. S. 636; Maguire v. Commissioner, 313 U. S. 1; Helvering v. Campbell, 313 U. S. 15; Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U. S. 100; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177; Helvering v. William Flaccus Oak Leather Co., 313 U. S. 247; Sampayo v. Bank of Nova Scotia, 313 U. S. 270; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44; Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244; Textile Mills Securities Corp. v. Commissioner, 314 U. S. 326; Gray v. Powell, 314 U. S. 402; District of Columbia v. Murphy, 314 U. S. 441; Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service, 314 U. S. 498; Duncan v. Thompson, 315 U. S. 1; Cudahy Packing Co. v. Holland, 315 U. S. 357; United States v. Local 807 of International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 315 U. S. 521; Stonite Products Co. v. Melvin Lloyd Co., 315 U. S. 561; Labor Board v. Electric Vacuum Cleaner Co., 315 U. S. 685; Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 315 U. S. 698; United States to the use of Noland Co. v. Irwin, 316 U. S. 23; Mishawaka Rubber & Woolen Manufacturing Co. v. S. S. Kresge Co., 316 U. S. 203; Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517; Helvering v. Cement Investors, Inc., 316 U. S. 527; Marine Harbor Properties, Inc. v. Manufacturers Trust Co., 317 U. S. 78; Braverman v. United States, 317 U. S. 49; Riggs v. Del Drago, 317 U. S. 95; Ex parte Kumezo Kawato, 317 U. S. 69; State Bank of Hardinsburg v. Brown, 317 U. S. 135; Pfister v. Northern Illinois Finance Corp., 317 U. S. 144; United States v. Wayne Pump Co., 317 U. S. 200; Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341; Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564; Harrison v. Northern Trust Co., 317 U. S. 476; United States v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537; United States v. Monia, 317 U. S. 424; Ziffrin, Inc. v. United States, 318 U. S. 73; Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U. S. 109; Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125; Robinette v. Helvering, 318 U. S. 184; Smith v. Shaughnessy, 318 U. S. 176; Helvering v. Sabine Transp. Co., 318 U. S. 306; Federal Security Adm’r v. Quaker Oats Co., 318 U. S. 218; United States v. Swift & Co., 318 U. S. 442; Ecker v. Western Pac. R. Co., 318 U. S. 448; Fred Fisher Music Co. v. M. Witmark & Sons, 318 U. S. 643; Jersey Central Power & Light Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 319 U. S. 61; National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190; Boone v. Lightner, 319 U. S. 561; Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118; Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81; Roberts v. United States, 320 U. S. 264; United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277; Crescent Express Lines v. United States, *689320 U. S. 401; Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Co. v. United States, 320 U. S. 422; United States v. Laudani, 320 U. S. 543; United States v. Myers, 320 U. S. 561; McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 67; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Enterprise Lodge, No. 27 v. Toledo, P. & W. R. Co., 321 U. S. 50; B. F. Goodrich Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 126; Davies Warehouse Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 144; Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 321; Cornell Steamboat Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 634; Labor Board v. Hearst Pvolications, 322 U. S. 111; Carolene Products Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 18; Smith v. Davis, 323 U. S. 111; United States v. Rosenwasser, 323 U. S. 360; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U. S. 490; Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 386; Central States Electric Co. v. City of Muscatine, 324 U. S. 138; Gemsco v. Walling, 324 U. S. 244; Canadian Aviator v. United States, 324 U. S. 215; Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 324 U. S. 515; A. H. Phillips, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490; Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697; Federal Trade Commission v. A. E. Staley Mfg. Co., 324 U. S. 746; Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Local No. 6167, United Mine Workers of America, 325 U. S. 161; Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Parker, 326 U. S. 60; Markham v. Cabell, 326 U. S. 404; John Kelley Co. v. Commissioner, 326 U. S. 521; Roland Electrical Co. v. Walling, 326 U. S. 657; Mabee v. White Plains Pub. Co., 327 U. S. 178; Duggan v. Sansberry, 327 U. S. 499; United States v. Carbone, 327 U. S. 633; Williams v. United States, 327 U. S. 711; Federal Trade Commission v. A. P. W. Paper Co., 328 U. S. 193; Hust v. Moore-McCormack Lines, 328 U. S. 707; United States v. Sheridan, 329 U. S. 379; Oklahoma v. United States Civil Service Commission, 330 U. S. 127; United States v. United Mine Workers of America, 330 U. S. 258; United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America v. United States, 330 U. S. 395; American Stevedores, Inc. v. Porello, 330 U. S. 446; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Mechling, 330 U. S. 567; United States v. Ogilvie Hardware Co., 330 U. S. 709; McCullough v. Kammerer Corp., 331 U. S. 96; Ayrshire Collieries Corp. v. United States, 331 U. S. 132; Williams v. Austrian, 331 U. S. 642; Jones v. Liberty Glass Co., 332 U. S. 524; Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U. S. 6; Hilton v. Sullivan, 334 U. S. 323; United States v. National City Lines, 334 U. S. 573; United States v. Zazove, 334 U. S. 602; United States v. Congress of Industrial Organizations, 335 U. S. 106; Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1; Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U. S. 188.
*690Appendix B
OPINIONS DURING THE PAST DECADE RESTING UPON THE RULE THAT THE REENACTMENT OP A STATUTE CARRIES GLOSS OP CONSTRUCTION PLACED UPON IT BY THIS COURT
Electric Storage Battery Co. v. Shimadzu, 307 U. S. 5, 14; Rasquin v. Humphreys, 308 U. S. 54; Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469; Brooks v. Dewar, 313 U. S. 354; Helvering v. Griffiths, 318 U. S. 371; Walling v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co., 331 U. S. 17; Commissioner v. Munter, 331 U. S. 210; Francis v. Southern Pacific Co., 333 U. S. 445; United States v. South Buffalo R. Co., 333 U. S. 771; cf. Federal Communications Comm’n v. Columbia Broadcasting System of California, 311 U. S. 132, 132-133; see Mr. Justice Black dissenting in Washingtonian Publishing Co. v. Pearson, 306 U. S. 30, 42; see Mr. Chief Justice Stone dissenting in Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, 70.

[This is also a dissent from Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner, post, p. 701.]

 The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit did not determine whether a grandchild who survived his parent also had to survive the settlor-decedent to have the right to his share of the principal go to his estate.

 The grant of certiorari was “limited to the question of whether the entire value of the corpus of the trust at the time of decedent’s *672death should have been included in the decedent’s gross estate.” Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, 324 U. S. 108, 110. The same is true in Commissioner v. Estate of Field, 324 U. S. 113, 114.

 In No. 5, Commissioner v. Church, it is even clearer that events subsequent to the creation of the trust removed whatever possibility of reverter had previously existed even if one assumes that when the trust was created the settlor would regain the property if children or his brothers and sisters did not survive him. The trust indenture provided that the corpus was to go to the issue of deceased brothers and sisters if he survived his brothers and sisters, but there was no requirement that the children survive anyone to take. Unless we are going to import notions of tortious conveyances into modern trust arrangements, the subsequent birth of the children *673of his brothers and sisters removed any possibility that the property would come back to the settlor. Since I do not reject May v. Heiner, I do not regard the retention of the life estate as causing the estate to be taxed.

 See Smith-Hurd, Ill. Stat. Ann., Title 110, § 181.1. (Added May 16, 1945.)

 The portion of § 811 (c) with which we are now concerned has been continuously on the statute books since 1916, when the first federal estate-tax law was enacted. Revenue Act of 1916, § 202 (b), 39 Stat. 777; Revenue Act of 1918, §402 (c), 40 Stat. 1097; Revenue Act of 1921, § 402 (c), 42 Stat. 278; Revenue Act of 1924, § 302 (c), 43 Stat. 304; Revenue Act of 1926, § 302 (c), 44 Stat. 70, amended by Joint Resolution of March 3, 1931, 46 Stat. 1516; Revenue Act of 1932, § 803 (a), 47 Stat. 278; Int. Rev. Code §811 (c).

 See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 112-113. “But beyond that is the problem of stare decisis. The construction given § 20 in the Classic case formulated a rule of law which has become the basis of federal enforcement in this important field. The rule adopted in that case was formulated after mature consideration. It should be good for more than one day only. We do not have here a situation comparable to Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96, where we overruled a decision demonstrated to be a sport in the law and inconsistent with what preceded and what followed. The Classic case was not the product of hasty action or inadvertence. It was not out of line with the cases which preceded. It was designed to fashion the governing rule of law in this important field. We are not dealing with constitutional interpretations which throughout the history of the Court have wisely remained flexible and subject to frequent reexamination. The meaning which the Classic case gave to the phrase ‘under color of any law’ involved only a construction of the statute. Hence if it states a rule undesirable in its consequences, Congress can change it. We add only to the instability and uncertainty of the law if we revise the meaning of § 20 to meet the exigencies of each case coming before us.”

 See Brief for Petitioner, pp. 20 et seq., in Hassett v. Welch, 303 U. S. 303.

 The Court made it clear in May v. Heiner and the three cases following it that it was resolving a statutory, rather than a constitutional, question. May v. Heiner, 281 U. S. 238, 244-245; Burnet v. Northern Trust Co., 283 U. S. 782, 783; Morsman v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 783, 783-784; McCormick v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 784, 784-785. Nor was Congress left in doubt that the Court had merely construed the statute which Congress was then being asked to qualify. In the House, Mr. Black of New York asked, “Was the Supreme *680Court decision based on a constitutional question, or a discussion of the statute?” To which a sponsor of the legislation, Mr. Garner of Texas, replied, “It was on the statute itself, and was not constitutional.” 74 Cong. Rec. 7199. Indeed it is difficult to assume that the Court was affected by notions of constitutionality in view of the fact that when the courts of the State of New York held similar words to apply to a reserved life estate, this Court rejected the contention that the law offended the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Keeney v. New York, 222 U. S. 525.

 See, e. g., Hearings before Committee on Ways and Means on Revenue Revision, 1932, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. 7, 42-43; Hearings before Committee on Finance on the Revenue Act of 1932, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. 33, 51; 75 Cong. Rec. 5787; Hearings before Committee on Ways and Means on the Revenue Act, 1936, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 624; Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on Revision of Revenue Laws 1938, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. 108; Hearings before the Finance Committee on the Revenue Act of 1938, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. 692-93; Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on Revenue Revision of 1941, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. 74-75; Hearings before the Finance Committee on the Revenue Act of 1941, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. 37; Data on Proposed Revenue Bill of 1942 Submitted to the Committee on Ways and Means by the Treasury Department and the Staff of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation 363-65 (1942), and Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on Revenue Revision of 1942, 77th Cong., 2d *682Sess. 7, 91-92, 94; Revised Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on Revenue Revision of 1943, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 7; Revised Hearings before the Finance Committee on the Revenue Act of 1943, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 46; Federal Estate and Gift Taxes, A Proposal for Integration and for Correlation with the Income Tax, A Joint Study prepared by an Advisory Committee to the Treasury Department and by the Office of the Tax Legislative Counsel, with the cooperation of the Division of Tax Research and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (1948); Letter from the Under Secretary of the Treasury to the Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, February 26, 1948, pp. 3, 5, 8 (mimeographed copy furnished by the Department of the Treasury).

 The entire text of the Hallock opinion insofar as here relevant makes clear why the situation in the Hallock case is not at all similar to that involved in the Church case.
“Nor does want of specific Congressional repudiations of the St. Louis Trust cases serve as an implied instruction by Congress to us not to reconsider, in the light of new experience, whether those decisions, in conjunction with the Klein case, make for dissonance of doctrine. It would require very persuasive circumstances enveloping Congressional silence to debar this Court from reexamining its own doctrines. To explain the cause of non-action by Congress when Congress itself sheds no light is to venture into speculative unrealities. Congress may not have had its attention directed to an undesirable decision; and there is no indication that as to the St. Louis Trust cases it had, even by any bill that found its way into a committee pigeon-hole. Congress may not have had its attention so directed for any number of reasons that may have moved the Treasury to stay its hand. But certainly such inaction by the Treasury can hardly operate as a controlling administrative practice, through acquiescence, tantamount to an estoppel barring reexamination by this Court of distinctions which it had drawn. Various considerations of parliamentary tactics and strategy might be suggested as reasons for the inaction of the Treasury and of Congress, but they would only be sufficient to indicate that we walk on quicksand when we try to find in the absence of corrective .legislation a controlling legal principle.”
Footnote 7 of the Hallock opinion recognized the doctrine of reenactment but stated that it “has no relevance to the present problem” because (1) “the fact of Congressional action in dealing with one problem while silent on the different problems created by the St. Louis Trust cases, does not imply controlling acceptance by Congress of those cases”; (2) “since the decisions in the St. Louis Trust cases, Congress has not re-enacted §302 (c)”; (3) there was “. . . no . . . long, uniform administrative construction and subse*684quent re-enactments of an ambiguous statute to give ground for implying legislative adoption of such construction.” As indicated in the text of this dissent, the footnote also pointed out that Congress by the Joint Resolution of March 3,1931, could plausibly be said to have rejected the attitude underlying the St. Louis Trust cases. The table in the next note shows just how inapposite are these observations to the story of the Treasury’s attempt to undo this Court’s ruling in May v. Heiner and the cases which followed it.

 Bearing of legislation subsequent to Helvering v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 296 U. S. 39, compared with that in response to May v. Heiner, 281 U. S. 238.
Relevant factors St. Louis Trust cases May v. Heiner series
1. Age of questioned interpretation when abandoned Five years Eighteen years
2. Weight of adjudication
(a) Court’s division 5-4 Unanimous
(b) Times decided Once Five times
3. Evidence of Congressional acquiescence None (a) The exact holding explained to Congress
(b) Change expressly made prospective
4.Apparent reason for Congressional adherence to questioned case None Difficulty of getting necessary Senate votes

 Klein v. United States, 283 U. S. 231.

 Helvering v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 296 U. S. 39; Becker v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 296 U. S. 48.

 And even the judge who found May v. Heiner inconsistent with the Hallock case suggested that the Tax Court determine whether the grantor failed to relinquish his life estate in reliance on May v. Heiner. See Frank, J., dissenting in Commissioner v. Hall’s Estate, 153 F. 2d 172, 174, 175 (C. A. 2d Cir.). The Government at the bar of this Court suggested that hardships could be alleviated by a regulation relieving of a tax those estates which could show such reliance. The very suggestion involves a confession that the decision urged upon the Court would be unfair.