Campbell River Timber Co. v. Vierhus

86 F.2d 673, 108 A.L.R. 763, 18 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 646, 1936 U.S. App. LEXIS 3820
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 30, 1936
DocketNo. 8259
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 86 F.2d 673 (Campbell River Timber Co. v. Vierhus) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Campbell River Timber Co. v. Vierhus, 86 F.2d 673, 108 A.L.R. 763, 18 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 646, 1936 U.S. App. LEXIS 3820 (9th Cir. 1936).

Opinion

GARRECHT, Circuit Judge.

The appellant sues to recover $1,213, assessed as a documentary stamp tax and collected by the appellee under Schedule A (1) of Title 8 of the Revenue Act of 1926, as amended by section 721 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1932, 26 U.S.C.A. §§ 900 and 901 and note; 44 Stat. 99 and 101, and 47 Stat. 272.

The pertinent provision of the 1926 act is as follows:

“Schedule A. — Stamp Taxes

“1. Bonds of indebtedness: On all bonds, debentures, or certificates of indebtedness issued by any corporation, and all instruments, however termed, issued by any corporation with interest coupons or in registered form, known generally as corporate securities, on each $100 of face.value or fraction thereof, 5 cents: Provided, That every renewal of the foregoing shall be taxed as a new issue.” (44 Stat. 101.)

The act of 1932 raises the rate to ten cents per hundred dollars. Otherwise the foregoing language remains the same.

The appellee’s demurrer was sustained to a complaint containing the following allegations :

On January 2, 1927, the appellant authorized the issuance of a series of first mortgage bonds to a total of $3,000,000, to mature serially over the period from January, 1932, to January, 1941, inclusive, secured by a deed of trust covering timber lands and improvements running to the Detroit Trust Company, as trustee, Article XXX of the deed of trust provided that, upon certain specific notice, a meeting of bondholders might be called by the mortgagor, the trustee, or by any bondholder, at which a quorum should consist of 75 per cent, of the outstanding bonds, and that: “Any action or resolution approved in writing at any such meeting by the holders or owners of at least seventy-five per cent * * * of the bonds represented at such meeting and thereat or subsequently approved in writing by both Timber Company and Trustee, signed by their duly qualified officers, shall be suf[674]*674ficient authority to Timber Company and/ or Trustee to act in pursuance of such action or resolution whether same shall necessitate a change or changes or modification of any or all of the terms of this instrument or shall necessitate other action.”

On November 27, 1933, there had been issued and were outstanding under such authorization bonds of the total principal amount of $1,382,000, of which $59,000 had matured on January 1, 1933, $169,000 were of the maturity of January 1, 1941, and the remainder matured in approximately equal amounts upon January 1 of the intervening years.

Prior to November 27, 1933, the appellant, being unable to meet such maturing obligations, had requested the calling of a bondholders’ meeting under article XXX, supra. As a result of that meeting, a “Supplemental indenture of trust” was entered into as of November 27, 1933, between the appellant and the trustee. The instrument recited the approval of the necessary percentage of bondholders, and provided that:

“First. The maturity dates of all the bonds of this issue maturing prior to the year 1941, are by these presents hereby extended until January 1, 1941, so that all bonds of the issue hereinbefore described shall mature January 1, 1941, anything in said Indenture of Trust or in the bonds themselves contained to the contrary notwithstanding.”

The text of the entire supplemental indenture, exclusive of acknowledgments and verifications, covers seventeen pages of the printed transcript. The appellant concedes .that this supplemental indenture set forth “other new obligations undertaken relating to payment of interest, sinking fund, working capital,” etc., but insists that “these were not the obligations upon which the tax here involved was imposed.”

Upon being advised of these facts, the appellee assessed and collected a tax upon' all the maturities prior to that of January 1, 1941, at the rate prescribed by law. At the time it paid the tax, the appellant filed a claim for refund, which, under date of March 30, 1935, was rejected upon the ground that: “It is clear-that the provisions of the agreement effect an extension of the date of maturity of the bonds with respect to those bonds originally maturing on January 1, 1932, to January 1, 1940, and comes within the provisions of Article 9, of Regulations 71, which provides that an agreement extending the maturity of a mortgage bond operates as a renewal, and that such renewal is subject to tax.”

From the lower court’s judgment sustaining the appellee’s demurrer to the complaint, the present appeal has been taken.

It is the appellant’s position that the language and scope of the supplemental indenture constitute substantially nothing more than a postponement conditioned upon the performance of other terms- to the satisfaction of the trustee; that at the most it is nothing more than an extension; that an extension is not synonymous with the statutory term “renewal”; and that article 9 of Regulations 71, relied upon by the Commissioner in denying the refund, does not and cannot apply to an - extension.

In the first place, it should be observed that the supplemental indentures does more than merely extend the time of payment. Admittedly, in addition to such extension, the instrument provides, in the appellant’s own language, “for the modification of the trust indenture in other respects not deemed material to the present controversy, and all conditioned upon the performance of certain requirements by the Timber Company [appellant] to the satisfaction of the Trustee.”

As we shall see presently, modification of the.original obligation as to matters other than the time of payment might be regarded not only as more than an extension, but even more than a renewal. Such modification could arguably be considered as effecting a new obligation, which clearly could be taxable.

Assuming, however, for the sake of the argument, that the supplemental indenture does indeed amount to an extension, we find respectable authority, including federal decisions, holding that the terms “extension” and “renewal” may be used interchangeably.

In Farmers’ Loan & T. Co. v. Central Park, N. & E. R. R. Co. (C.C.A.2) 193 F. 963, 965, certiorari denied 225 U.S. 712, 32 S.Ct. 841, 56 L.Ed. 1268, the court said: “We agree with appellee’s contention that what was done amounted to an extension of the bonds (or of the indebtedness evidenced by the same), without interest, and are of opinion that such extension is fairly within the provision of the lease for ‘renewal of bonds.’. See Words and Phrases, tit. ‘Renewal,’ for cases holding extensions frequently synonymous with renewals.” See, also, McRoberts v. Spaulding (D.C.) 32 F.(2d) 315, 318.

[675]*675In the well-considered case of Lowry Nat. Bank v. Fickett, 122 Ga. 489, 50 S.E. 396, 397, 398, there is found a scholarly exposition regarding the term “renewal” and its implications: “A renewal, in its broadest sense, means that which is made anew or re-established. In law it has been defined to be ‘an obligation on which time of payment is extended.’ English’s Law.Dict. It has also been said that it is not a word of art, and has no legal or technical signification; has in one instance been defined to be the substitution of a new right or obligation for another of the same nature, and in another instance as a change of something old to something new. 24 Am. & Eng.Enc.L.(2d Ed.) 465.

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86 F.2d 673, 108 A.L.R. 763, 18 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 646, 1936 U.S. App. LEXIS 3820, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/campbell-river-timber-co-v-vierhus-ca9-1936.