Chapman v. United States

347 F. Supp. 89, 31 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 431, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12220
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedAugust 23, 1972
DocketCiv. A. No. 67-335-PH
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 347 F. Supp. 89 (Chapman v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chapman v. United States, 347 F. Supp. 89, 31 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 431, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12220 (C.D. Cal. 1972).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM and ORDER

PEIRSON M. HALL, District Judge.

More than 26 years ago the United States seized the Long Beach Federal Savings and Loan Association in Long [91]*91Beach, California. This precipitated a series of litigation which has continued ever since. The within case is the last case still pending growing out of that seizure. It was expected, and hoped I may add, that with the summary affirmance by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit of the July 10, 1970 Judgment as modified on October 12, 1971 would finally end this saga of litigation thus begun 26 years ago.

But the United States refuses to abide by the judgments of this Court as they were affirmed. This is consistent with the actions of the defendant in this case for failing to file an answer, refusing to respond to interrogatories, refusing to respond to various orders of this Court, and Local Rule 7(h) directing it to make and file its computations of claimed taxes due for the years 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967 and 1969, all of which are referred to in detail in the findings of fact and conclusions of law and judgments of July 10, 1970 and October 12, 1971. Reference is made to them, as well as to all of the other files and records in this case, and in the previous cases to show that the central issue involved in this ease, viz., whether or not the receipt by “Chapman,” the plaintiff herein, of $504,000 from the Long Beach Federal Savings and Loan Association in 1962 was a loan or a payment of a fee. That matter has been twice litigated, adjudicated and affirmed.

The findings above-referred to which were made in the within case found that the United States had no defense and that its actions in opposing the plaintiffs’ claims in this case were vexatious, but plaintiffs point out that that vexatiousness has since been continued by the following incidents:

1. A refusal of the Internal Revenue Bureau to make payment of a tax refund (not part of the judgment), claiming that the plaintiffs were bankrupt, which was totally false, and which could have been easily verified by the Internal Revenue Bureau by a mere referral to the Social Security number of whoever the bankrupts were, and the Social Security numbers of both plaintiffs in this case, which appear on their income tax returns.

2. Sending a check to the plaintiffs Chapman in the sum of $15,421.06 on March 19, 1972 without any accompanying description of what it was for, saying in April 1972 it was “a computer’s mistake,” and in May 1972' claiming it was a payment on the July 10, 1970 judgment, and now demands it be returned as an overpayment.

3. A notice of assessment for $13,617.81 for 1971 taxes received by plaintiffs on July 10, 1972, the morning of the day of a hearing the Court had set for a hearing in order to determine, from the parties just what disputes remained and just how the litigation could be terminated and the judgments complied with. But the United States has never given plaintiffs any computation as to how they arrived at that sum.

4. On that same morning the United States Attorney thereafter appeared in court and stated that the Notice of Assessment was a mistake. But the United States is still claiming $13,231.60 of that amount and demanding that the plaintiffs pay that sum before the satisfaction of judgments are made in the within case. The Court understood from the statement of the United States Attorney that the whole claim was a mistaken claim for any additional taxes.

5. Refusal by the United States to make itemized claims for taxes for any of the years in question.

At the hearing on July 10, the Court made an Order requiring each side to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law in order that the various contentions of the parties could be better understood. These were filed. The Court declines to accept either one of them, and is making the within Memorandum as its own Order.

A careful examination of the proposed findings of fact, conclusions of law and proposed orders submitted by the United States shows that should the Court comply with the Government’s contentions, [92]*92it would be re-adjudieating the years 1962, 1963 and 1964, 1965, 1967 and 1969, which were adjudicated not only in the July 10, 1970 judgment affirmed October 28, 1970, but also in the October 12, 1971 modification of that judgment which also adjudicated the plaintiffs’ 1971 loss affirmed March 15,1972.

It is evident from an examination of all of the files and records in this case that in order to set at rest the issues that were raised concerning the 1962, 1963 and 1964 taxes of the plaintiffs herein, it was necessary to determine the 1965, 1967 and 1969 taxes and the 1971 loss of the plaintiff .taxpayers. Or, putting it another way, the failure to adjudicate that loss in 1971 would result in the failure to determine the tax liability of the plaintiffs going back as far as 1962, determined by the judgments above-referred to, affirmed by the Court of Appeals. This is demonstrated by the demand in the telegram, Exhibit “A” attached to the defendant’s proposed findings of fact of July 20, 1972, to the United States Attorney from someone in the Internal Revenue Bureau. Such demand was that plaintiffs refund overpayments for the year 1962, 1963 and 1964 in the total sum of $21,635.76.

That telegram also refers to a letter to the plaintiffs of June 19, 1972, wherein the defendants by their claims of taxes due, refuse to recognize this Court’s judgments of October 12, 1971 as affirmed by the Circuit on March 15, 1972, allowing a loss in 1971 to the plaintiffs of $361,685.

The United States contends that this Court has no jurisdiction to make any judgment concerning the 1969 taxes and 1971 losses. There are two answers to that, either one of which is sufficient. The time to have raised that is long since past. This Court made the adjudication on the basis that the 1969 taxes and the 1971 losses are inextricably combined with the adjudications of 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1967 taxes, and that adjudication was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals. And while the defendant did not make that contention in this Court, it did make the contention in briefs on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals which, by affirmance of this Court’s judgment on March 15, 1972, rejected the contention of the defendant that the Court had no jurisdiction.

Moreover the jurisdiction of the Court is amply supported by Title 28 U.S.C. § 1346, which by sec. (a) (1) authorizes a suit against the United States for the recovery of the Internal Revenue taxes, and subdivision (c), of Sec. 2 thereof confers jurisdiction “of any * * * demand whatever on the part of the United States against any plaintiff commencing an action under this section.” This statute is to be liberally construed. Cherry Cotton Mills v. United States (1946), 327 U.S. 536. at 539, 66 S.Ct. 729, 90 L.Ed. 835.

The 1969 and 1971 taxes were inextricable issues in this ease and, if not before, they were precipitated into it by the demands made in defendant’s motion to change the Judgment of July 10, 1970 as affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, which motion resulted in the Judgment of this Court of October 12, 1971, which was likewise summarily affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

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Bluebook (online)
347 F. Supp. 89, 31 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 431, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12220, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chapman-v-united-states-cacd-1972.