Court Opinion

ID: 9419435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:28.799464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:18.067682
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Black concurs:
The New York Court of Appeals stated that in formulating the statutory rule in question the state legislature did no more “than direct a trustee to do what under the decisions of this court he has discretionary power to do.” 289 N. Y. 423, 430, 46 N. E. 2d 501. And it went on to say, “Before the enactment of this statute, the life tenant could not have demanded as of right the payment to him during liquidation of more of the surplus income than he will receive under the statute. Neither does it appear that the remaindermen could properly have insisted that the trustee should be surcharged if in the exercise of his discretion he had paid to the life tenant the amount which the statute now directs.” Id. That is a question of New York law on which the New York court has the final say. It is none of our business—whether we deem that interpretation to be reasonable or unreasonable, sound or erroneous. Sauer v. New York, 206 U. S. 536, 545-548. And there is no suggestion here that state law has been manipulated in evasion of a federal constitutional right. Fox River Paper Co. v. Railroad Commission, 274 U. S. 651, 657; Broad River Power Co. v. South Carolina, 281 U. S. 537, 540. Consequently I can see no possible claim to substantiality of any federal question, whatever view may be taken of the due process clause. I would therefore dismiss the appeal.