Court Opinion

ID: 6920711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 23:00:30.741131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:47.486690
License: Public Domain

HAMLEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring) .
Under section 6323(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C.A. § 6323(a), a tax lien of the United States is not valid against a “judgment creditor” until notice thereof has been filed. The notice of the lien here in question *491was not filed until after the bankrupt’s property came into the possession or control of the bankruptcy court. Thus, if the trustee stands in the position of a judgment creditor within the meaning of section 6323, the lien is not valid as to the trustee.
Under section 70(c) of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 110(c), a trustee in bankruptcy is deemed to be vested as of the date particular property comes into the possession or control of the court, with “all the rights, remedies, and powers of a creditor then holding a lien thereon by such proceedings, whether or not such a creditor actually exists.” In my view this statute states as clearly as words can speak that a trustee is to be treated as if he were a judgment creditor, although obviously he is not one.
As pointed out in the majority opinion, several courts, including this one, have denied the trustee this section 70(c) status. They have done so because in United States v. Gilbert Associates, 345 U.S. 361, 364, 73 S.Ct. 701, 703, 97 L.Ed. 1071, it was stated that section 3672(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 56 Stat. 798, 26 U.S.C.A. (1946 ed.) § 3672(a), which was similar to section 6323(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, used the words “judgment creditor” in “the usual, conventional sense of a judgment of a court of record, since all states have such courts.”
This statement was made in Gilbert Associates in rejecting a contention that a New Hampshire statute which declared a tax assessment to be in the nature of a judgment had the effect of giving city tax liens judgment creditor status under the then section 3672(a). The Supreme Court thus denied to the states and local governments the right to appropriate to themselves by statutory fiat a defense against United States liens which the United States originally intended to be applicable only with respect to ordinary judgment creditors.
But the Supreme Court did not say, and had no reason to say, that Congress could not make available to trustees in bankruptcy a defense which it originally made available only to judgment creditors. The defense having been created by act of Congress, the same legislative body was free to extend its benefits however it pleased. I am thus in full agreement with the very exhaustive dissenting opinion of Judge Kalodner, joined in by Judge Hastie, filed in In re Fidelity Tube Corporation, 3 Cir., 278 F.2d 776, petition for writ of certiorari pending.
If the question discussed above were now before this court for the first time I would accordingly vote to reverse. Since, however, this court adopted a contrary view in United States v. England, 9 Cir., 226 F.2d 205, and Congress may, if it chooses, overturn that ruling for the future by enacting clarifying legislation, I am content to note the above views by way of a concurring opinion.