Court Opinion

ID: 9450993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:02:29.442471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:31.164079
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting :
This is a startling result. Laws of Texas which are designed to protect innocent persons dealing in faith on the revelations of title records are twisted to permit the great national sovereign to take property from one who is the acknowledged owner of it to apply on the tax debts of another the former owner who — as the trial Court found and this Court does not dispute — has transferred 10 the property. I do not believe that Congress ever intended any such result. I do not think that a Court should lend its hand to anything so demeaning to a sovereign.11
The Federal Statute creates a lien only “upon all property and rights to property * * * belonging to such person [taxpayer].”12 Unless there is property belonging to the taxpayer, the Government’s lien is nonexistent. The Texas Statute13 which protects business creditors and those parting with consideration on the faith of apparent record title speaks in terms of the persons against whom the conveyance is not good, such has bona fide purchaser, judgment creditors, etc. Unlike this, the Federal Statute speaks in terms of the origin of the lien. The tax lien arises, the tax lien comes into being, only as to property or rights to property belonging to the taxpayer.
Clearly this property did not belong to Taxpayer. It had no right to such property. True, under Texas law a judgment creditor had a superior claim against the purchaser whose deed was imperfect for late recordation. But the one thing clear is that Taxpayer here had no right in or to the property.14 Not a single Texas case could possibly be dredged up which in even the most remote way would suggest the faintest hope that Maxwell, the vendor-taxpayer, had any rights, legal or equitable, against anyone — Creamer, the public, or the Publican to get the property back or assert any interest in it.
And yet it is this — ownership by the taxpayer — which gives rise to the lien for the National Government. Congress has not said that this Nation has a tax lien against any and all property once owned by a delinquent taxpayer to the same extent as some innocent purchaser or judgment creditor might have under local recordation statutes.
Once Congress so declares, Courts must enforce it. But the morality of the Government’s taking property which the Court’s opinion reflects was sold to, paid for by, and in equitable conscience and law belonged to a stranger, is so disturb*630ing to me that before the heavy hand of the tax gatherer falls, it is for Congress to speak clearly to declare that this is the conscience of the country.
I therefore respectfully dissent.

. See, e.g., “The deed had inadvertently failed to include certain real property * * *. The question is whether the federal tax lien attaches to the property erroneously omitted from the * * * deed. * * * By inadvertence the contract failed to list or describe * * * the six lots of land * * (Emphasis supplied.)

. I am at a loss to understand why there is any question about jurisdiction. United States v. Morrison, 5 Cir., 1957, 247 F.2d 285. Under F.R.Civ.P. 54(c) the power of the Court is not affected by the particular section of the code cited in the complaint or the magic words used to describe the relief sought.

. 26 U.S.C.A. § 6321, note 6 Court’s opinion.

. Tex.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6627.

. Texas’ Article 6627, set out in the Court’s opinion, does speak in terms of conveyances being “void as to all creditors and subsequent purchasers * * * unless * * * recorded * * But the concluding portion of the section is positive that “as between the parties * * * ” the conveyance “shall be valid and binding.”