Court Opinion

ID: 9640853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:17:06.475811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.359120
License: Public Domain

VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judge,
(concurring). I concur in the conclusion reached by Judge SCOTT in the foregoing opinion, but the conditions presented in these cases differ so materially from those in cause No. 8325, United States v. Gould Dietz, 33 F.(2d) 576, just decided by us, that I desire to state some of my reasons for so 'doing.
In causes No. 8425 and. No. 8426 Alfred H. Rogers died testate, leaving a widow and two children surviving him. The will was probated, and the widow rejected the terms thereof and elected to take a child’s share of the estate. Whether the estate consisted of personal property alone, or both real and personal, does not appear. As the main argument is addressed to the inherent nature of dower, the latter situation may be presumed. The estate, then, would fall under sections 319 and 324, R. S. Mo. 1919.
In No. 8427, Charles D. Zook died intestate, leaving his widow and a daughter surviving him. The widow elected to take a child’s share of the realty. The estate consisted of both real and personal property, the value of each class not pleaded. The widow also takes, without the necessity of election, a child’s share in the personalty. Here, again, sections 319 and 324 apply.
The Supreme Court of Missouri in Howard v. Strode, 242 Mo. 210, 219, 221, 146 S. W. 792, Ann. Cas. 1913C, 1057, holds specifically that the portion of the husband’s personalty given to the widow by section 349 (319) is not dower; that the wife, under that section, is not a doweress but a distributee; that as such distributee she takes subject to debts of the husband, and her interest can be ascertained only upon final settlement of the estate; furthermore, that as such distributee she stands in the same relation to the personal estate as does a ehild. Weindel v. Weindel, 126 Mo. 640, 29 S. W. 715 is cited with approval to the same effect. In that case (loc. cit. 650, 651 [29 S. W. 717]) it is assumed that the widow’s share in the personalty under section 4517, R. S. Mo. 1889 (sections 349 [1909] and 319 [1919]) is subject to the debts of her deceased husband. In re Estate of Messersmith, 264 Mo. 610, 619, 175 S. W. 914; Howard v. Strode, supra, is cited and approved as to the character, capacity, and relationship of the widow under section 349 (319).
These cases dispose of the holding of the St. Louis Court of Appeals in Schaper’s Ex’r v. Schaper, 158 Mo. App. 605, 138 S. W. 896, that, under section 349 (319), the widow takes the share of a ehild in respect to quantity only, and does not take in the character and capacity of a ehild, and speak more authoritatively with respect to subjecting to the husband’s debts personalty taken under section 319, than does the casual and unnecessary reference in Re Rogers’ Estate (Mo. Sup.) 250 S. W. 577. Section 558, R. S. Mo. 1919, imposed a tax upon transfer of property “when the transfer is by will or by the intestate laws of this state from any person dying possessed of the property while a resident of the state.”' •. The opinion proceeds to demonstrate that the laws by which the widow elected to take, on renunciation of the will, are not “intestate laws,” and therefore the- property which she acquired was *575not subject to the state inheritance tax. It will thus be seen that the question there presented was entirely different from that before us. Furthermore, there can be no conflict between state and federal jurisdictions in this regard. Each is supreme in its own field. Allen, Collector, v. Henggeler, Adm’r (C. C. A. 8) 32 F.(2d) 69, decided March 25, 1929. It is true that the law of the state fixes “the quantity and quality of the decedent’s interest in property left by him”; but, in determining whether any interest is taxable under federal law, “the act of Congress has its own criteria, irrespective of local law, that look to certain rather severe tests of liability and exemption.” Weiss v. Wiener, decided April 22, 1929, 49 S. Ct. 337, 73 L. Ed. -.
I confess that prior to the decisions of the Supreme Court in Reinecke v. Northern Trust Co., 278 U. S. 339, 49 S. Ct. 123, 73 L. Ed. ——, and in Chase National Bank v. United States, 278 U. S. 327, 49 S. Ct. 126, 73 L. Ed.-, I should have thought that the absolute and indefeasible character of the estate vested in the wife under the Missouri statutes, as construed by the Supreme Court of that state, would exempt that estate from inclusion in the gross estate of a decedent under the provisions of section 402 of the Revenue Act of 1918. Sections 315, 319, 324, 325, and 326, R. S. Mo. 1919; Collier on Bankruptcy (13th Ed.) vol. 2, p. 1697; Holt v. Hanley, 245 Mo. 352, 149 S. W. 1; Blevins v. Smith, 104 Mo. 583, 16 S. W. 213, 13 L. R. A. 441; McClanahan v. Porter, 10 Mo. 746; Roberts v. Nelson, 86 Mo. 21; Davis v. Evans et al., 102 Mo. 164, 14 S. W. 875; McCrillis v. Thomas, 110 Mo. App. 699, 85 S. W. 673; Porter v. Lazaer, 109 U. S. 84, 3 S. Ct. 58, 27 L. Ed. 865; Marine National Bank v. Swigart (C. C. A. 6) 262 F. 854; Thomas v. Woods (C. C. A. 8) 173 F. 585, 586, 592, 26 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1180, 19 Ann. Cas. 1080; and that the following language in Nichols v. Coolidge, 274 U. S. 531, 542, 543, 47 S. Ct. 710, 714 (71 L. Ed. 1184, 52 A. L. R. 1081), would have controlling application :
“And we must conclude that section 402 (c) of the statute [40 Stat. 1097] here under consideration, in so far as it requires that there shall be included in the gross estate the value of property transferred by a decedent prior to its passage merely because the conveyance was intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after his death, is arbitrary, capricious and amounts to confiscation.”
It may be added that the great weight of prior decision, both state and federal, was to this effect. It is true that the subject-matter under consideration in the Chase National Bank and Reineeke Cases differs in marked-degree from that now before us, but the language employed in those opinions is susceptible of wide application and would seem to be decisive of the eases at Bar if so extended. “The determination by death of any of the other legal incidents of property through which its use or economic enjoyment may be controlled” is pronounced a “transfer” and is made the legitimate subject of this tax. It is stated that the word “transfer” is not used in the commonly understood and restricted sense of the transmission of property directly from decedent to a transferee, and that “termination of the power of control at the time of death inures to the benefit of him who owns the property subject to the power and thus brings about, at death, the completion of that shifting of the economic benefits of property which is the real subject of the tax.”
Possession, use, enjoyment, or control by the decedent are evidently made the test. The property here involved responds thereto. As to real estate, the husband has full possession, use, and enjoyment during his lifetime, •and control, short of conveyance or incumbrance in hostility to the dower interest. The personal property he may use and dispose of as he pleases, in regular course. It follows, then, under the cases cited, that the three conditions conjunctively essential to render an estate taxable under clause (a) of section 402, to wit, (1) an interest of the decedent at the time of his death, (2) subject after his death to the payment of charges against his estate and expenses of administration and (3) subject to distribution as part of his estate, are all present. United States v. Field, 255 U. S. 257, 41 S. Ct. 256, 65 L. Ed. 617, 18 A. L. R. 1461.
In. deference to the latest rulings of the Supreme Court, as I construe them, I am constrained to concur, in the reversal of these judgments.