Fiske v. Missouri

62 F.2d 150, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 3105
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedNovember 26, 1932
DocketNo. 9428
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 62 F.2d 150 (Fiske v. Missouri) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fiske v. Missouri, 62 F.2d 150, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 3105 (8th Cir. 1932).

Opinion

STONE, Circuit Judge.

Ehrhardt D. Franz loft a testate estate to his wife, Sophie, and their ten children. A portion thereof later passed into a trust with the same persons as beneficiaries. Extended litig’ation developed, wherein three and one-third of the ten interests represented by the children were arrayed against Sophie, the trustees, and six and two-thirds of the children interests. The history, issues, and results of that litigation, are set forth in opinions in the various appeals to this court.1 For the present, it is helpful to note only that the litigation determined the interests of all parties to the trust to he (as far as pertinent here) that Sophie Franz had a life interest in the income from the trust which would terminate at her death and then the corpus he distributable by the trustees to the other beneficiaries. This applied to shares of stock of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company which were the main part of the trust estate. Sophie Franz died. Various of the beneficiaries have moved for distribution of the trust estate. The testate estate of Sophie is in course of administration in a probate court of Missouri. The state is entitled to collect inheritance taxes upon the estate of Sophie passing to her devisees. The appellants here represent five of the six and two-thirds children interests, and were some of* the defendants in this litigation, and all are nonresidents of Missouri.

Claiming that these six and two-thirds interests in the Burroughs stock held in the trust estate were subject to inheritance taxes as part of the estate of Sophie, that they had not been inventoried in her estate, and that the state had a lien thereon for such taxes, the state was given leave to intervene in this litigation. It filed its petition in intervention wherein it prays that a portion of this stock be transferred from the trustees to the court registry to secure the inheritance taxes thereon and be held “until it may ho determined in the Probate Court of the City of St. Louis whether such stock should have been inventoried therein” as part of the Sophie Franz estate.

Shortly after the petition in intervention was filed, the representatives of five of the above six and two-thirds children interests filed their “Ancillary and Supplemental, Bill of Complaint for an Injunction.” This bill was directed at “the State of Missouri, Stratton Shartel, Attorney General of the State of Missouri, Franklin Miller, Circuit Attorney of the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, Richmond C. Coburn and Henry II. Stern”— the last two being attorneys for the state in connection with inheritance taxes in the Sophie Franz estate. This hill alleged that the state and the other parties, as its attorneys, had caused to he served on the executor of the Sophie Franz estate a citation from the probate court intended to discover and have inventoried as a part of such estate the Burroughs stock in the trust estate belonging to them; that such action was contrary to the decree of the trial court adjudging them entitled to receive this stock from the trustees; and that the respondents would attempt to obtain orders in the probate court which would he “adverse and prejudicial to the rights and interests of the above named plaintiffs in this cause in this Court and orders, decrees and judgments which will prejudicially affect, impair and defeat the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court and the decree rendered by it in the premises.” The prayer for restraint was from “directly or indirectly prosecuting further the said citation * * * and particularly from seeking or obtaining any order, decree or judgment therein until the further direction of this Honorable Court,” and for temporary relief.

Thereafter the state, specially appearing, filed its motion to dismiss the ancillary and supplemental hill on the grounds that; it failed to state facts warranting the relief;, that it [152]*152was an action against the state which had not consented to be sued, in violation of the Eleventh Amendment; that it sought to enjoin proceedings in a state court, in violation of section 265 of the Judicial Code (28 USCA § 379), and sought to interfere with the proper administration of an estate in the state probate court.

The trial court sustained the motion on the ground that the Eleventh Amendment prevented the action without the eoüsent of the state, and that the state had neither consented nor waived its rights to such immunity. Declining to plead further, an order was entered dismissing the ancillary and supplemental bill. This appeal is from that order.

Three issues are presented on this appeal, as follows: Did the intervention proceedings constitute a waiver by the state of its immunity under the Eleventh Amendment? If no waiver, is this abtion within the immunity of the amendment? Is this action within the protection of section 265 of the Code?

Waiver.

The immunity from suit of a state under the Eleventh Amendment is a personal privilege which may be waived (Gunter v. Atlantic Coast L. R. Co., 200 U. S. 273, 284, 26 S. Ct. 252, 50 L. Ed. 477), and this rule is applicable to an intervention (Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447, 448, 2 S. Ct. 878, 27 L. Ed. 780). The action of the state claimed by appellants to constitute a waiver is its intervention in this main case. Appellees oppose that such is not the effect of the intervention. The motion of the state for leave to intervene prayed that it be permitted so to do as “a party defendant herein.” Standing alone, this would strongly suggest that the intervention was to be of a character which would constitute a waiver. This is, however, not conclusive. The petition in intervention must be examined to ascertain what right or remedy the state was seeking to obtain from the federal court. The substance of that petition is that certain stoek of appellants within the jurisdiction of the federal court was claimed by the state to be derived through the estate of Sophie Franz, and therefore subject to state inheritance taxes ; that the state had a lien thereon for such taxes; that the stoek had not been included in the inventory of the Sophie Franz estate in the probate court; that citation of the executor to show why this stoek was not included had been issued, and that matter would be determined in the probate court; that these appellants have moved for distribution to them by the federal court. On the situation thus set out, the prayer is that a portion of this stoek be transferred from the trustees to the registry of the court “to secure the assessment and collection” of the inheritance taxes, and to be there held “until it may be determined in the probate court * * * whether said stoek should have been inventoried therein” by the executor of the Sophie Franz estate. The state seeks no determination of any rights or title, but expressly pleads that such determination will take place in the probate court. The only relief asked is that the federal court do not distribute this stoek from the trustees to appellants, but place it in its registry to abide the result of the determination of the rights of the state by the probate court. Obviously, the only purposes and possible results of the intervention would be to retain the stoek within Missouri and in a place where it could be made to respond to the tax claims of the state if those claims (then being pressed in the probate court but undetermined) should be upheld. The substance of the relief sought is the temporary retention of custody by the federal court.

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Related

Buder v. Walsh
314 S.W.2d 739 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1958)
In Re Buder
217 S.W.2d 563 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1949)
Fiske v. Buder
125 F.2d 841 (Eighth Circuit, 1942)
Fiske v. Wallace
117 F.2d 149 (Eighth Circuit, 1941)
Franz v. Security-First National Bank
145 S.W.2d 400 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1940)
Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co.
102 F.2d 16 (Eighth Circuit, 1939)
Wallace v. Fiske
80 F.2d 897 (Eighth Circuit, 1936)
Fiske v. Missouri
69 F.2d 683 (Eighth Circuit, 1934)
Wallace v. Franz
68 F.2d 313 (Eighth Circuit, 1933)

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Bluebook (online)
62 F.2d 150, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 3105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fiske-v-missouri-ca8-1932.