Travelers Insurance v. United States

46 Fed. Cl. 458, 53 Fed. R. Serv. 1068, 85 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1369, 2000 U.S. Claims LEXIS 62, 2000 WL 378130
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedApril 13, 2000
DocketNos. 88-494T, 89-262T
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 46 Fed. Cl. 458 (Travelers Insurance v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Travelers Insurance v. United States, 46 Fed. Cl. 458, 53 Fed. R. Serv. 1068, 85 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1369, 2000 U.S. Claims LEXIS 62, 2000 WL 378130 (uscfc 2000).

Opinion

OPINION

SMITH, Chief Judge.

This case is before the court on defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment and plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment. In Travelers Ins. Co. v. United States, 25 Cl.Ct. 141 (1992), this court found that corporate prepayment charges for 1974 through 1978 qualified for capital gains treatment pursuant to former section 1232 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) of 1954. After this decision and after the parties had begun discovery, plaintiff filed a motion in limine. This motion requested that the court rule in advance of trial on the admissibility of five memoranda prepared by Travelers’ tax department as an exception to the hearsay rule. See Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). The government objected to this motion. It also filed a motion for partial summary judgment, contending that plaintiff would not be able to meet its burden of proof that the prepayment charges for corporate real estate mortgages satisfied the requirements of section 1232, and therefore was not entitled to capital gains treatment. Plaintiff filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, contending that it had met its burden of proof that the amounts of all prepayment charges, which the government disallowed as capital gain, satisfied the criteria for treatment as long-term capital gains pursuant to sections 1222 and 1232.1

The court has already ruled that the memoranda at issue in plaintiffs Motion in Li-mine are admissible. This opinion expands upon the court’s reasons for that ruling. As a result of the existing ruling and for the additional reasons set forth below, the court denies defendant’s motion for summary judgment, denies plaintiffs motion for summary judgment as to the corporate notes and loans as premature, and grants plaintiffs motion for summary judgment as to the corporate mortgage loans.

FACTS

Plaintiff is a life insurance company incorporated under the laws of Connecticut. During the tax years in question, plaintiff regularly made loans to corporate borrowers. These notes could be retired prior to maturity by the payment of the principle, accrued interest and a prepayment charge. In this court’s prior opinion, Travelers Ins. Co. v. [460]*460United States, 25 Cl.Ct. 141, 146 (1992), the court found that such prepayment charges were eligible for treatment as capital gains under IRC § 1232.2

For a corporate obligation to qualify for capital gains treatment under section 1232, it must meet three requirements. The obligation must be: 1) issued by a corporation; 2) issued after December 31, 1954; and 3) held for more than one year. Defendant has engaged in discovery in an effort to determine whether plaintiffs prepayment premiums satisfy the requirements of section 1232. According to plaintiff, defendant is willing to concede the issue with respect to certain notes because plaintiff has been able to provide copies of the debt instruments to defendant. However, because plaintiff is unable to locate copies of the debt instruments with respect to real estate mortgages, defendant refuses to concede these figures. Defendant believes that plaintiff cannot meet its burden of proving that these notes satisfy the requirements of section 1232.

In light of defendant’s position, plaintiff filed the above referenced Motion in Limine. Its motion seeks a ruling, in advance of trial, that five internal memoranda prepared by the tax department of Travelers were admissible pursuant to Rule 803(6) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, commonly known as the “business records exception” to the hearsay rule.

Defendant objected to plaintiffs motion on the grounds that plaintiff had not supplied a sufficient evidentiary foundation for admission of the memoranda. Defendant also contended that several other evidentiary rules, including Federal Rule of Evidence 1006, commonly known as the “best evidence rule,” prevented the introduction of the memoranda in evidence. In addition, defendant filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asserting that even if the memoranda are admissible, plaintiff had failed to meet its burden of proof to establish each element of its case. Plaintiff has responded by filing its own cross-motion for summary judgment, contending it has established every element of its case, and that there is no genuine issue of material fact regarding any of the corporate prepayment premiums at issue.

DISCUSSION

I. PLAINTIFF’S MOTION IN LIMINE

Plaintiff has requested that the court find five internal memoranda to be admissible in advance of trial. During each of the five years at issue, plaintiffs Corporate Tax Department used these forms to request from Travelers’ Investment Accounting Division the amount of prepayment charges received during the calendar year in connection with loans made to corporations subsequent to January 1, 1955. The comptroller’s office of the Investment Accounting Division completed the memoranda using amounts from its records. Along with its Motion in Limine, plaintiff submitted affidavits from several supervisory employees of Travelers, including supervisory employees of both the Investment Accounting Division and the Corporate Tax Department.

Plaintiff contends these memoranda are admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 803(6), the so-called “business record exception” to the hearsay rule. Rule 803(6) states in pertinent part:

A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, unless the source of the information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness.

Fed.R.Evid. 803(6).

Plaintiff contends that the memoranda in question, based on the accompanying affida[461]*461vits, satisfy every requirement of Rule 803(6). The memoranda were prepared contemporaneously with the closing of plaintiffs books at the end of each year. They were prepared by a person within the department with knowledge, in the regular course of business activity, and it was plaintiffs regular practice to prepare the memoranda. Moreover, there are no indicia that the memoranda are not trustworthy. In fact, given the vigorous regulation of the insurance industry, the opposite inference can be drawn.

Defendant makes two principal arguments against the admissibility of the memoranda pursuant to Rule 803(6). Generally, according to defendant, courts have focused their analysis on the admissibility of documents under the business records exception by looking at two factors: 1) general indicia regarding the trustworthiness of the document; and 2) the evidentiary foundation required by Rule 803(6).

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Related

Travelers Insurance v. United States
72 Fed. Cl. 316 (Federal Claims, 2006)

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46 Fed. Cl. 458, 53 Fed. R. Serv. 1068, 85 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1369, 2000 U.S. Claims LEXIS 62, 2000 WL 378130, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-insurance-v-united-states-uscfc-2000.