Rothensies v. Cassell , 103 F.2d 834 ( 1939 )

103 F.2d 834 (1939)

ROTHENSIES, Collector of Internal Revenue,
v.
CASSELL.

No. 6842.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

April 6, 1939.

James W. Morris, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Sewall Key, Norman D. Keller, and Lyle M. Turner, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen. (J. Cullen Ganey, U. S. Atty., of Bethlehem, Pa., and Thomas J. Curtin, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Philadelphia, Pa., of counsel), for appellant.

Isaac S. Grossman and George V. Strong, both of Philadelphia, Pa., for appellee.

Before BIGGS, MARIS, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

CLARK, Circuit Judge.

We rather question the soundness of the Treasury's approach to the case at bar. The problem is one phase of the application of taxation to the "cake and eat it" weakness of our human nature. Congress and the courts have had to draw the line between "devices through which men of substance continued their dominion over property and yet evaded taxes which others with no more substantial dominion over the property had to pay", and cases involving genuine relinquishment of property and dominion over it, Sutter and Owen, Federal Taxation of Settlors of Trusts, 33 Michigan Law Review 1169, 1174; Surrey and Aronson, Inter Vivos Transfers and The Federal Estate Tax, 32 Columbia Law Review 1332. Cases may fall on either side of this line — a particular application of Mr. Justice Holmes' line theory first developed in "The Common Law" (1881), p. 127. See Bullen v. Wisconsin, 240 U.S. 625, 630, 36 S. Ct. 473, 60 L. Ed. 830. As Mr. Randolph E. Paul (incidentally at one time a fellow legal Helot of the writer of this opinion) discussing the case last cited in his stimulating Restatement of Tax Avoidance puts it: "The issue is drawn as one in which legitimate avoidance must be recognized and put on the safe side of the line and in which illegitimate avoidance (or evasion) must be put on the wrong side of the same line. Condemnation is for others than courts, the question being a matter of cold-blooded analysis which places a transaction with reference to a line which shifts to some extent as the policy of the law may dictate." Studies in Federal Taxation First Series, p. 101. The same learned author in footnote 349 on p. 101 observes that the decedent was on the right side of the line in Becker v. St. Louis Union Trust Company, 296 U.S. 48, 56 S. Ct. 78, 80 L. Ed. 35. In that we agree with him and by the same token must disagree with the government in the principal case.

The one "phase" referred to in our opening paragraph has been a matter of much litigation ever since the imposition of the first state inheritance tax. The best discussion we know of is contained in two articles by Professor Rottschaefer (Professor of law, University of Minnesota) in 14 Minnesota Law Review 452 and 613. He entitles both articles in the stock words of the statutes, state and federal (26 U.S.C.A. § 411(c), "Taxation of Transfers Intended to Take Effect in Possession or Enjoyment at (or after) Grantor's Death". He phrases our particular circumstance:

"A donor may dispose of property on such terms that there remains a possibility of its reverting to him. The question arises whether the mere existence of this possibility makes a transfer taxable." P. 482.

"The preceding discussion leads naturally to the cases in which the factor that a remainder interest continued contingent or conditional until the donor's death weighed heavily in holding the succession thereto taxable. The provision most frequently considered in this connection is that which makes the right to succeed depend on the remainderman surviving the donor." P. 484.

In reviewing the cases in the state courts holding the transfer taxable, the Professor says: "The theory in the above cases seems to have been that the remainderman's interest continued contingent in right until the donor's death." P. 485. This view of the state cases and of the learned Professor did not meet with the approval of the majority of the Supreme Court. In the Restatement of Tax Avoidance, above cited, Mr. Paul says: "A remote possibility of reverter does not vary the rule that a complete and final transfer will not result in the imposition of estate tax." Studies in Federal Taxation First Series, above cited, pp. 45-46. He cites Becker v. St. Louis Union Trust Company, above cited; Helvering v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 296 U.S. 39, 56 S. Ct. 74, 80 L. Ed. 29, 100 A.L.R. 1239; Bingham v. United States, 296 U.S. 211, 56 S. Ct. 180, 80 L. Ed. 160, decisions which had in fact been anticipated by the snuggest possible affirmance of a case arising in this circuit, Helvering, Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Duke, 3 Cir., 62 F.2d 1057; Duke v. Commissioner, 23 B. T.A. 1103, 1104, affirmed by a divided court, 290 U.S. 591, 54 S. Ct. 95, 78 L. Ed. 521. See also Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Grosse, 9 Cir., 100 F.2d 37.

We complain of the Treasury counsel's failure to meet this existing state of the law with complete candor. The taxpayer very properly made use of the deadly parallel and compared his trust with that of Becker:

In the Becker case              In the case at bar
"(a) If the said beneficiary     "In trust if the said R.
should die before                S. shall die during the
my death, then this trust        lifetime of said G. F. U.
estate shall thereupon           to pay over the principal
revert to me and become          and all accumulated
mine immediately and             income thereof unto the
absolutely, or                   said G. F. U. in fee, free
and clear of any trust.
"(b) If I should die before      "In trust if the said
her death, then this             R. S. after the marriage
property shall thereupon         shall survive the said
become hers immediately          G. F. U. to pay over the
and absolutely and be            principal and all accumulated
turned over to her and           income unto the
in either case this trust        said R. S. — then R. U. —
shall cease." [296 U.S.          in fee, free and clear of
48, 56 S. Ct. 79.]                any trust."

A skeletonization of the diverse expressions used in both trusts is, we think, even more revealing:

In the Becker case            In the case at bar
(1) "my daughter"               "R. S." (fiancee)
(2) "before my death"           "during the life time
of the said G. F. U."
(3) "trust estate"              "the principal and all
accumulated income"
(4) "revert to me"              "pay over * * * unto
the said G. F. U."
(5) "mine absolutely"           "free and clear of any
trust"
(6) "if I should die before     "shall survive the said
her death"             G. F. U."
(7) "turned over"               "pay over"
(8) "this trust shall           "free and clear of any
cease"                 trust"

It is apparent that the only differences are in the relationship of the settlor to the beneficiary and in the first and third person phraseology. To force a distinction from them is as futile as measuring the relative affection implicit in the different ties or appraising the delicacy implicit in avoiding the possessive appellation of the bride-to-be. Our argument notes indicate that counsel finally abandoned this uncongenial task and frankly stated that he agreed with the minority of the United States Supreme Court in Helvering v. St. Louis Union Trust Company, above cited, and Becker v. St. Louis Union Trust Company, above cited.

Why he did so may appear from a continuance of the deadly parallel method of argument:

Mr. Justice Sutherland           Mr. Justice Stone dissenting
speaking for five                        for four
Justices                            Justices
"The grantor here, by            "It seems plain that
the trust instrument,            the gift here was not
left in himself no power         complete until decedent's
to resume ownership,             death. He did not desire
possession, or enjoyment,        to make a complete
except upon a contingency        gift. He wished to keep
in the nature                    the property for himself
of a condition subsequent,       in case he survived his
the occurrence of                daughter. He kept this
which was entirely fortuitous    hold upon it by reserving
so far as any                    from his gift an interest,
control, design, or volition     terminable only
on his part was                  at his death, by which
concerned. After the             full ownership would be
execution of the trust           restored to him if he
he held no right in the          survived his daughter.
trust estate which in any        * * *
sense was the subject
of testamentary disposition.       "Having in mind the
His death passed                 purpose of the statute
no interest to any of the        and the breadth of its
beneficiaries of the trust,      language it would seem
and enlarged none beyond         to be of no consequence
what was conveyed                what particular conveyancers'
by the indenture.                device, what
His death simply put an          particular string, the
end to what, at best,            decedent selected to hold
was a mere possibility           in suspense the ultimate
of a reverter by extinguishing   disposition of his property
it; that is to                   until the moment of
say, by converting what          his death. * * * However
was merely possible into         we label the device
an utter impossibility."         it is but a means by
which the gift is rendered
Helvering v. St. Louis         incomplete until the
Union Trust Co., above           donor's death."
cited, 296 U.S. page 43,
56 S.Ct. page 76, 80 L.            Helvering v. St. Louis
Ed. 29, 100 A.L.R. 1239.         Union Trust Co., above
cited, 296 U.S. page 47,
56 S.Ct. page 77, 80 L.
Ed. 29, 100 A.L.R. 1239.
"Unlike the Klein Case           "If he had reserved a
[Klein v. United States,         power to revoke the
283 U.S. 231, 51 S. Ct. 398,      trust, if he survived her,
75 L. Ed. 996], where the         Reinecke v. Northern
death was the generating         Trust Co., supra [278 U.
source of the title,             S. 339, 49 S. Ct. 123, 73 L.
here, as the court below         Ed. 410, 66 A.L.R. 397],
said, the trust instrument       would have made the
and not the death                gift taxable, as would
was the generating               Klein v. United States,
source. The death did            supra, if he had reserved
not transmit the possibility,    a remainder in
but destroyed it."               himself with gift over,
if he did not survive his
Helvering v. St. Louis         daughter. Instead, by
Union Trust Co., above           using a different form
cited, 296 U.S. pages 45,        of words, he attained
46, 56 S.Ct. page 77, 80         the same end and has
L.Ed. 29, 100 A.L.R.             escaped the tax. * * *
1239.
"In determining
whether a taxable transfer
becomes complete
only at death we look to
substance, not to form.
Klein v. United States,
supra, 283 U.S. [231], 234,
51 S. Ct. 398, 75 L. Ed.
996."
Helvering v. St. Louis
Union Trust Co., above
cited, 296 U.S. page 47,
56 S.Ct. page 77, 80 L.
Ed. 29, 100 A.L.R. 1239.

Why we cannot be so persuaded needs no elaboration. Counsel may in the vernacular pay their money, and take their choice. The choice is not one for an "inferior" Federal court. It must await the judicial miracle of the loaves and fishes, four becoming five.

Mr. Justice Brandeis has, with his customary erudition, collected the cases (some twenty-six in all) in which that parable may be truly applied to the Supreme Court, Washington v. Dawson Co., 264 U.S. 219, 238, 44 S. Ct. 302, 68 L. Ed. 646; Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406, 52 S. Ct. 443, 76 L. Ed. 815. The passage of time enables us to add: Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 52 S. Ct. 546, 76 L. Ed. 1010, overruling Long v. Rockwood, 274 U.S. 729, 47 S. Ct. 587, 71 L. Ed. 1319; West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S. Ct. 578, 81 L. Ed. 703, 108 A.L.R. 1330, overruling Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 43 S. Ct. 394, 67 L. Ed. 785, 24 A.L.R. 1238; Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 303 U.S. 376, 58 S. Ct. 623, 82 L. Ed. 907, overruling Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U.S. 501, 42 S. Ct. 171, 66 L. Ed. 338, and significantly Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., above cited; Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S. Ct. 817, 82 L. Ed. 1188, 114 A.L.R. 1487, overruling Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. 1, 10 L. Ed. 865; and Graves et al. v. People of New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 59 S. Ct. 595, 83 L.Ed. ___, 120 A.L.R. 1466 overruling Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 20 L. Ed. 122, and New York ex rel. Rogers v. Graves, 299 U.S. 401, 57 S. Ct. 269, 81 L. Ed. 306.

The order of the District Court is affirmed.