St. Luke's Hospital Ass'n of Cleveland v. United States

212 F. Supp. 387, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5777
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedDecember 17, 1962
DocketCiv. A. No. 36271
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 212 F. Supp. 387 (St. Luke's Hospital Ass'n of Cleveland v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Luke's Hospital Ass'n of Cleveland v. United States, 212 F. Supp. 387, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5777 (N.D. Ohio 1962).

Opinion

GREEN, District Judge.

This is an action instituted by St. Luke’s Hospital of Cleveland, Ohio, against the United States of America brought under § 1346, Title 28 of the United States Code as amended, and is for the recovery of Federal Insurance Contributions Act employment taxes imposed by Sections 3101 and 3111 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 as amended, 26 U.S.C.A. §§ 3101 and 3111, and Sections 1400 and T410 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939.

Plaintiff operates a general hospital at 11311 Shaker Boulevard, Cleveland 4, Ohio-, and is a non-profit corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the State of Ohio.

Plaintiff for many years and during all of the period involved in this lawsuit has maintained and conducted a formal program of in-hospital education and training for graduates of accredited medical schools, designed to prepare such graduates for the practice of medicine in both general and special fields. Those participating in the in-hospital training program are paid varying sums of money, denominated as a subsistence allowance by the hospital.

Plaintiff filed with the District Director of Internal Revenue at Cleveland, Ohio, its F.I.C.A. employment tax returns for each taxable period from January 1, 1953 through June 30, 1958, and paid to said District Director the F.I.C.A. employment taxes therein determined to be due. In such returns plaintiff included none of the funds classed as subsistence allowances paid to the medical school graduates engaged in its training program.

[389]*389No collection of the so-called “employees’ tax” for such periods was made by the plaintiff from the medical school graduates and no remittance to the District Director of either the “employer’s tax” or the “employees’ tax” was made by the plaintiff.

Under date of July 30, 1958, the Internal Revenue Service notified plaintiff of a proposed assessment for additional F.I.C.A. employment taxes in the amount of $16,722.42. This sum represented taxes claimed to be due based on subsistence allowances paid by the plaintiff to medical school graduates engaged in their second or subsequent years of in-hospital training during the period of January 1, 1953 through June 30, 1958.

Under date of December 2, 1958, plaintiff paid to the District Director of Internal Revenue the sum of $16,722.42, and on March 25, 1959, paid interest thereon in the amount of $2,578.97. The total amount of taxes and interest paid to said District Director was $19,301.39.

On June 4,1959, plaintiff filed with the District Director a claim for refund for the $19,301.39 additional F.I.C.A. employment taxes together with interest. Subsequently, plaintiff received from the District Director a notice of disallowance of its claim for refund.

Plaintiff thereafter filed this action, claiming that the F.I.C.A. employment taxes and interest covering the medical school graduates engaged in their second and subsequent years of in-hospital training were illegally assessed and collected.

Plaintiff alleged:

1. That under provision of Title 26 U.S.C.A. § 3121(b) (13), all of the medical school graduates who were in attendance in in-hospital training, whether in the first, second or subsequent years of their training at the hospital, were exempted from the Act.

2. That the modest subsistence allowance given to the medical school graduates were gifts or gratuities granted in order to aid their education and training and did not constitute wages within the meaning of Sections 3101 and 3111, Title 26 U. S.C.A.

The Government contends that the exclusion under § 3121(b) (13) applied only to medical school graduates who were in their first year of in-hospital training and did not apply to any such medical school graduates who were in their second and subsequent years of training; that only medical school' graduates in their first year of in-hospital training are “interns” and that those in second and subsequent years were known as “residents”; that the two classes are separate and distinct, and that therefore the exemption to “interns” in § 3121(b) (13) did not apply to graduates in their second or subsequent years of in-hospital training.

The Social Security Act Amendments of 1939, 26 U.S.C.A. § 1426(b) (14), first introduced into the social security law the exclusion from coverage for services performed by “interns”. That Section now appears as 26 U.S.C.A. § 3121(b) (13), I.R.C., 1954, and reads as follows:

“(b) Employment. — For purposes of this chapter, the term ‘employment’ means any service performed after 1936 and prior to 1955 which was employment * * * under the law applicable to the period in which such service was performed, and any service, of whatever nature, performed after 1954 * * * except that, in the case of service performed after 1954, such term shall not include—
* -X- -X- -X- X X
“(13) service performed as a student nurse in the employ of a hospital or a nurses’ training school by an individual who is enrolled and is regularly attending classes in a nurses’ training school chartered or approved pursuant to State law; and service preformed as an intern in the employ of a hospital by an individual who has completed a J years’ course in a medical school chartered or approved pursuant to State law” (Emphasis added).

[390]*390The issue before the Court is the meaning and scope of the word “intern” as it is used in 26 U.S.C.A. § 3121(b) (13).1

As previously stated, this provision was first enacted into law by the 1939 Amendments, and has not been materially altered by subsequent amendments to the Internal Revenue Code.

The interpretation of the words of a statute must be taken in the sense in which they were understood at the time when the statute was enacted. 50 Am.Jur., Statutes § 236, p. 224. Amendments of a statute by the Legislature will not affect the meaning of portions of the statute which are readopted by the Legislature without change. 50 Am.Jur., Statutes § 441, p. 461. Therefore, the question for determination by the Court is the meaning of the word “intern” as used by Congress in the year 1939 in 26 U.S.C.A. § 1426(b) (14).

Plaintiff’s claim is that in the year 1939 the natural, ordinary and everyday use of the term “intern” included any medical school graduate whether in his first, second or subsequent year of in-hospital training, and that under provisions of Title 26 U.S.C.A. § 3121(b) (13) medical school graduates who were in attendance for their second or subsequent years of in-hospital training were exempted from the act the same as medical school graduates in their first year of training.

The Government claim is that in the year 1939 there was in use in medical circles the words “intern” and “resident”. An “intern” being a medical school graduate in his first year of in-hospital training and a “resident” being a medical school graduate in his second or subsequent year of in-hospital training. That in the year 1939 and at all times relevant to the lawsuit there was a well recognized distinction in the medical profession between residents and interns and that Congress in providing a specific exemption from the social security laws for “interns” did not thereby provide for an exemption for “residents”.

Plaintiff’s principal witnesses were men of the medical profession.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
212 F. Supp. 387, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5777, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-lukes-hospital-assn-of-cleveland-v-united-states-ohnd-1962.