Hearst v. United States

167 Ct. Cl. 513, 14 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6146, 1964 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 20, 1964 WL 8543
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedJuly 17, 1964
DocketNo. 42-62
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 167 Ct. Cl. 513 (Hearst v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hearst v. United States, 167 Ct. Cl. 513, 14 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6146, 1964 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 20, 1964 WL 8543 (cc 1964).

Opinion

Per Curiam :

The pertinent facts of this case are just like those in Jackson v. United States, 376 U.S. 503, decided by the Supreme Court on March 23,1964. During the administration of the estate of a California decedent who died testate, the California court issued orders, under the Probate Code of that state, pursuant to which there was paid to the widow, out of the estate corpus, a total of $405,000 for her support and maintenance (during a period of somewhat over three years). The executors claim that these payments are deductible from the estate tax as part of the marital deduction allowed by Section 812(e) (1) (B) of the Internal Revenue [515]*515Code of 1939. Jackson held that such payments are not so deductible because they are “terminable” interests excepted by the Code from the marital deduction.

Plaintiffs make no effort to distinguish Jackson on the facts. They say, however, that the Supreme Court’s opinion by-passes and leaves open two of the arguments presented to this court. The first such contention is that the “terminable interest” provisions do not apply at all to support allowances paid to a surviving spouse under applicable state law. The second is that, even though the widow’s interest is terminable, the support payments are still not nondeductible because no interest in that property passes or has passed (under Section 812(e) (3)) from the decedent to a person other than the widow. If plaintiffs are correct that these general legal issues were left open by the Supreme Court and should now be decided in favor of the estate, the strange result would be that the Jackson opinion and decision would affect only that particular estate and would govern the decision in no other case in which these two issues were or could be raised. Nevertheless, plaintiffs insist that we must take these two issues to have been left undecided because the Supreme Court said (316 U.S. at 506) :

The “conditions and limitations” of the marital deduction under § 812(e) are several but we need concern ourselves with only one aspect of § 812(e) (1) (B), which disallows the deduction of “terminable” interests passing to the surviving spouse. It was conceded in the Court of Appeals that the right to the widow’s allowance here involved is an interest in property passing from the decedent within the meaning of § 812(e) (3), that it is an interest to which the terminable interest rule of § 812 (e) (1) (B) is applicable, and that the conditions set forth in (i) and (ii) of § 812(e) (1) (B) were satisfied under the decedent’s will and codicils thereto. The issue, therefore, is whether the interest in property passing to Mrs. Bichards as widow’s allowance would “terminate or fail” upon the “lapse of time, upon the occurrence of an event or contingency, or upon the failure of an event or contingency to occur.”

We think that, in referring to the taxpayers’ concession in the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court meant to accept the [516]*516concession as required by the Code and the decided cases — not to leave those issues open. The basic postulate of the Court’s opinion was that, once it had determined that the widow’s interest was terminable, the necessary consequence would be the non-deductibility of the support payments. In its last paragraph, the opinion says flatly (after referring to the specified exceptions to the “terminable interest rule”): “Courts should hesitate to provide still another exception by straying so far from the statutory language as to allow a marital deduction for the widow's allowance provided by the California statute” (376 U.S. at 510 (emphasis added)). The opinion does not say or suggest that the Court was deferring consideration of any general issue going to the deductability of the California widow’s allowance.1

In addition, the opinion reflects the Court’s rejection of each of the separate arguments plaintiffs now put forward. For instance, the Court specifically characterized “the terminable interest rule” (as applied to support payments) as one of the “limitations” Congress imposed upon the marital deduction (376 U.S. at 510), and in the passage quoted above at some length the Court also referred to “the terminable interest rule” as among the “conditions and limitations” of the marital deduction (id. at 506). There is no doubt, we think, that the Court considered the “terminable interest” provisions as applying to the right to a widow’s allowance under California law. On the other issue of whether an interest in the property passes to another than the widow, the Court’s opinion likewise shows that the contention plaintiffs now make was turned down. The taxpayer’s argument is premised on rejection of the rule of Cunha's Estate v. Commissioner, 279 F. 2d 292 (C.A. 9, 1960) and United States v. Quivey, 292 F. 2d 252 (C.A. 8, 1961), that “the date of death of the testator * * * [is] the correct point of time from which to judge the nature of a widow’s allowance for the purpose of deciding terminability and deductibility under § 812(e)(1).” 376 U.S. at 508. But the Supreme Court embraced and adopted that very rule (ibid.) — thus destroying the foundation of plaintiffs’ [517]*517argument. Moreover, after pointing- out that “under the view advanced by petitioners [the taxpayers in Jaokson], all cash allowances actually paid would fall outside § 812 (e) (1) (B),” the Court noted that “on two different occasions the Senate has refused to give its approval to House-passed amendments to the 1954 Code which would have made the terminable interest rule inapplicable to all widow’s allowances actually paid within specified periods of time” (id. at 510).

Plaintiffs’ case is wholly governed by Jaohson. Under that decision, there can be no recovery and the petition must be dismissed.

FINDINGS OF FACT

The court, having considered the stipulation of the parties, and the briefs and arguments of counsel, makes findings of fact as follows:

1. William Randolph Hearst died testate at Beverly Hills, California, on August 14, 1951. At the time of his death the decedent was a resident of the County of Los Angeles, State of California. The decedent’s will was duly probated in the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles, as Case No. 320,783. Under his will and codicils thereto, the decedent, after making certain specific bequests to his surviving spouse and others, bequeathed the residue of his estate to the California Charities Foundation (now known as the William Randolph Hearst Foundation).

2. Pursuant to petitions duly filed and heard, the said Superior. Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles, did, on August 27,1951, February 25, 1952, March 5, 1953, August 27, 1953, December 28, 1953, April 2, 1954, July 21, 1954, and October 26, 1954, order, adjudge and decree, pursuant to the provisions of Sections 680 to 682, inclusive, of the California Probate Code, that the Executors of the will of the said William Randolph Hearst were authorized and directed to pay from the corpus of decedent’s Estate to Millicent V. Hearst, decedent’s widow, for her support and maintenance, the total amount of $405,000.00.

[518]*5183.

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Related

Farley v. United States
581 F.2d 821 (Court of Claims, 1978)

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Bluebook (online)
167 Ct. Cl. 513, 14 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6146, 1964 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 20, 1964 WL 8543, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hearst-v-united-states-cc-1964.