Hartford-Empire Co. v. Commissioner

43 B.T.A. 113, 1940 BTA LEXIS 845
CourtUnited States Board of Tax Appeals
DecidedDecember 19, 1940
DocketDocket Nos. 94788, 95673.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 43 B.T.A. 113 (Hartford-Empire Co. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Board of Tax Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hartford-Empire Co. v. Commissioner, 43 B.T.A. 113, 1940 BTA LEXIS 845 (bta 1940).

Opinion

[121]*121OPINION.

Smith :

The question for decision in these proceedings is whether the petitioner is entitled to deduct, from the gross income of each of the years 1932, 1933, and 1934, $133,944.19 representing depreciation on the Empire patents and $27,811.56 depreciation on the Howard patents. The petitioner has claimed and been allowed in its tax returns like amounts for depreciation on the Empire and the Howard patents for each of the years 1923 to 1931, inclusive. The allowance was taken upon the .costs of the patents and patent [122]*122riglits to the petitioner as stipulated in Hartford-Empire Co., 26 B. T. A. 134, which involved deficiencies determined for the years 1923 to 1928, inclusive. Petitioner has assumed that this was the correct basis for the computation of the allowance and the respondent has not questioned the correctness of the basis in the audit of the petitioner’s returns for those years. For the taxable years before us the respondent contends that the petitioner is not entitled to allowances for depreciation based upon the values of patents and patent ¡applications as of January 1, 1923, but upon the basis of cost to the predecessor owners. The respondent contends that the petitioner for years prior to 1932 has claimed and been allowed greater amounts for depreciation in respect of the Empire and the Howard patents than it was entitled to under the law; that it has already more than recovered the basis through deductions for depreciation; and, hence, that it is not entitled to any further deductions.

It is the position of the petitioner herein that the question of the proper basis for the computation of the allowances is res ad judicata; that the question has already been decided by the Board in Hartford-Empire Co., supra.

In Bouvier’s Law Dictionary it is stated :

The doctrine of res judicata is plain and intelligible, and amounts simply to this, that a cause of action once finally determined, without appeal, between the parties, on the merits, by a competent tribunal, cannot afterwards be litigated by a new proceeding either before the same or any other tribunal; Foster v. The Richard Busteed, 100 Mass. 409, 1 Am. Rep. 125.

In Sand Springs Railway Co., 31 B. T. A. 392, the Board said at page 394:

The doctrine of res judicata is so well fixed in the law that no useful purpose could be served here by further discussion. Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351, 352, and 353; New Orleans v. Citizens Bank, 167 U. S. 371; Southern Pacific Railroad Co. v. United States, 168 U. S. 1; United States v. Moser, 266 U. S. 236; Tait v. Western Maryland Railway Co., 289 U. S. 620, 623; Mary Haller, 26 B. T. A. 395; Charles P. Leininger, 29 B. T. A. 874; Portage Silica Co., 29 B. T. A. 881; Edwin J. Marshall, 29 B. T. A. 1075.
Our inquiry, therefore, is as to the propriety of its application in bar of the pending proffer of evidence.
Since the parties to both proceedings are the same, but the causes of action different, the decision in the former cases is a bar here, if, and only if, “the point or question to be determined in the latter action is the same as that litigated and determined in the original action.” Tait v. Western Maryland Railway Co., supra.

The question here is whether the basis for the computation of depreciation on the Empire and the Howard patents was judicially determined by the Board in the proceeding at 26 B. T. A. 134.

The parties to the prior proceeding conceded that the basis for depreciation of the assets acquired by petitioner from the Hartford-Fairmont Co. was the same in the hands of petitioner as it had been [123]*123in the hands of the Hartford-Fairmont Co. The only issue for decision by the Board in that connection was whether that basis was the cost of those assets to the Hartford-Fairmont Co. or their fair market value on March 1, 1913. The petitioner’s basis for depreciation on the assets acquired from the Empire Machine Co. and the Howard Co. was not in issue in that case, nor was the question whether the acquisition of assets from any one of the three companies by the petitioner constituted a reorganization or nontaxable exchange. Quite naturally in the recomputation of the deficiencies under Bule 50 the parties took cognizance of the agreement which they had made between themselves with respect to the correct amount of depreciation on the Empire and the Howard patents and the Board entered the agreed upon computation as its decision in the case.

The petitioner contends that in Arthur Gurtiss James, 31 B. T. A. 712, we held that a stipulation of facts filed by the parties in a prior proceeding made the question in the subquent proceeding res adjudí-cala. But in that case the question in issue before the Board was the amount of earnings or profits of the Phelps-Dodge Corporation accumulated since February 28, 1913, on hand and available for dividends on January 1, 1918. That was the precise question raised by the pleadings in the case of the same taxpayer, 13 B. T. A. 764. Since the Board had adjudicated that question by its decision in the earlier case (albeit the decision was entered pursuant to a stipulation of the parties), the Board held that the plea of res ad judicata was well taken. The James case differs from the instant proceedings in that here we have for the first time the question of the proper depreciation allowance on the Empire and the Howard patents. It was not raised by the pleadings in the proceeding at 26 B. T. A. 134, and, consequently, was not adjudicated by the Board in that proceeding.

An earlier judgment is conclusive only as to the precise facts, rights, questions or issues adjudicated in the earlier case that are again facts, rights, questions or issues presented for adjudication in the second case. Charles P. Leininger, 29 B. T. A. 874; D. F. Strickland, 32 B. T. A. 804; Terre Haute Electric Co., 33 B. T. A. 975, 983; (C. C. A., 7th Cir.), 96 Fed. (2d) 383; Hanby v. Commissioner (C. C. A., 4th Cir.), 67 Fed. (2d) 125; Tait v. Western Maryland Railway Co., 289 U. S. 620.

The res adjudícala plea of the petitioner can not be sustained.

The petitioner further submits that, wholly aside from the application of res adjudicaba, the respondent is at this time estopped to deny that the petitioner is entitled to deduct the same amount of amortization on the Empire and the Howard patents for the years [124]*124in question as has been allowed for years prior to 1982.

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Related

Dillard v. Commissioner
1961 T.C. Memo. 30 (U.S. Tax Court, 1961)
Bodell v. Commissioner
4 T.C.M. 258 (U.S. Tax Court, 1945)
Hartford-Empire Co. v. Commissioner
43 B.T.A. 113 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1940)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
43 B.T.A. 113, 1940 BTA LEXIS 845, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hartford-empire-co-v-commissioner-bta-1940.