Court Opinion

ID: 9443495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:22:56.677519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:30.770666
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
With deference, I dissent. I think the trial Court and the majority here have misconceived the controlling facts and misapplied the controlling law. There is no proper basis here to support the holding that the legal expense sought to be deducted bad been incurred in “the management, conservation, or maintenance of property held for the production of, income.” The Executor refused to recognize Mrs. Selig’s claim unless, and until, she had established it. She had no evidence of title. She therefore proceeded by suit to establish title, and upon the trial twice unequivocally testified that such was her purpose. This purpose can not be said to be only an incident of the suit. Under the circumstances, it was the only means by which she could establish her title. If, and when, she might ultimately have received title by inheritance, such title would have been the husband’s title, not her own original title, and of course a different title from that she sought to have established in the litigation in question. Furthermore, the devolution of the husband’s title to her in the administration of his estate was subject to contingencies not at all existing if she established her own title.
Garrett v. Crenshaw, 4 Cir., 196 F.2d 185, rules the precise question here involved and I do not understand it to declare any rule in Virginia different from that which obtains in such cases in Georgia. That decision shows why the similar legal expense in the present case was not properly deductible.