United States v. C. Gordon Anderson, Trustee

334 F.2d 111
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 1964
Docket20400, 20563, 20659
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 334 F.2d 111 (United States v. C. Gordon Anderson, Trustee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. C. Gordon Anderson, Trustee, 334 F.2d 111 (5th Cir. 1964).

Opinions

RIVES, Circuit Judge:

This proceeding under Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. §§ 501-676, for the reorganization of TMT Trailer Ferry, Inc., has been pending for more than six years, and has been before this Court on three prior occasions.1 The United States is now appealing from an order which denies priority to its nontax claims.2 The United States also appeals from subsequent orders of the district court amending, confirming and authorizing consummation of a plan of reorganization which fails to recognize the priority of the Government’s nontax claims.3

The basic issue presented by the appeals is whether R.S. § 3466, 31 U.S.C.A. § 191,4 is operative to give all debts due to the United States priority in this Chapter X corporate reorganization proceeding. The district court held that the only debts due the United States granted priority in Chapter X reorganization proceedings are those for taxes and customs duties, and that the controlling statute is section 199 of the Bankruptcy [114]*114Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 599.5 Two of the nontax claims 6 were held not entitled to priority in any event because, according to the district court, “at the time the petition herein was filed they were not owed to the United States.”

Any priority allowed to claims of the United States must be founded upon statute. As was said by Mr. Justice Story in the early case of United States v. State Bank of North Carolina, 1832, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 29, 35, 8 L.Ed. 308:

“The right of priority of payment of debts due to the government, is a perogative of the crown well known to the common law. It is founded not so much upon any personal advantage to the sovereign, as upon motives of public policy, in order to secure an adequate revenue to sustain the public burdens, and discharge the public debts. The claim of the United States, however, does not stand upon any sovereign perog-ative, but is exclusively founded upon the actual provisions of their own statutes. The same policy which governed in the case of the royal perogative, may be clearly traced in these statutes; and as that policy has mainly a reference to the public good, there is no reason for giving to them a strict and narrow interpretation. Like all other statutes of this nature, they ought to receive a fair and reasonable interpretation, according to the just import of their terms.”

Mr. Justice Story then referred to the duty-collection act of August 4, 1790, ch. 62, see. 45, to the Act of March 3, 1797, 1 Stat. 515, and to the Act of March 2, 1799, 1 Stat. 676. The pertinent provisions of the latter two Acts have remained substantially unchanged throughout nearly the entire history of our Nation, and are now embodied in R.S. § 3466, quoted in footnote 4, supra. As was more fully developed in an even earlier case, that priority extends to debts of all kinds, equitable as well as legal, and even to endorsements of a bill of exchange of which the Government is a holder. United States v. Fisher, 1805, 2 Cranch (6 U.S.) 358, 383-397, 2 L.Ed. 304.

Acts on the subject of bankruptcy were enacted in 1800 (2 Stat. 19), which Act was repealed in 1803; in 1841 (5 Stat. 440, 614), which Act was repealed in 1843; and in 1867 (14 Stat. 530, R.S. § 5101), which Act was repealed in 1878.

The 1800 Act provided, in sec. 62 thereof, that:

“[N]othing contained in this law shall, in any manner, effect the right of preference to prior satisfaction of debts due the United States as secured or provided by any law heretofore passed.”

The 1841 Act provided, in section 5 thereof, that all creditors should share in the bankrupt’s estate pro rata, without preference or priority:

“except only for debts due by such bankruptcy to the United States.”

[115]*115The 1867 Act carried forward the priority in section 28 thereof by providing that:

“the following claims shall be entitled to priority or preference, and to be paid in full in the following order:—
“ ‘First. (Administrative expenses)
“ ‘Second. All debts due to the United States and all taxes and assessments under the laws thereof.’ ”

While these Acts were in effect there was, therefore, no question but that non-tax claims of the United States had priority in bankruptcy proceedings. From the time the 1867 Act was repealed in 1878 until the present Bankruptcy Act was enacted in 1898, we had no federal bankruptcy laws.

The Bankruptcy Act of 1898, as originally enacted, was construed by the Supreme Court to give priority only to “all taxes, legally due * * * to the United States,” and not to afford priority for ordinary debts due to the United States. Davis v. Pringle, 1924, 268 U.S. 315, 317-319, 45 S.Ct. 549, 550, 69 L.Ed. 974.

By the amendment of 1926 (44 Stat. at L. 662, chap. 406), Congress repealed the effect of that decision by adding the words now in section 64, sub. a(5) [11 U.S.C.A. § 104] which specifically include the United States within the definition of the word “persons” to whom a priority status was given. So at the present time, by reason of the provisions of section 64, sub. a(5) as amended in 1926, all claims of the United States, whether tax or non-tax, are given priority in conventional bankruptcy proceedings under Chapters I to VII of the Act, just as they were under the 1867 Act until it was repealed.

This Chapter X reorganization is, of course, not a conventional bankruptcy. Section 64 (11 U.S.C.A. § 104) is expressly made inapplicable to Chapter X proceedings by section 102 of Chapter X (11 U.S.C.A. § 502). Section 64 being thus excluded, the appellees argue that Davis v. Pringle, supra, teaches that R.S. § 3466 is not applicable to bankruptcy proceedings in the absence of a provision to that effect in the Bankruptcy Act, or otherwise stated, that we must look solely to the Bankruptcy Act for any priority status that must be recognized.7 That is true, however, only when the terms of the Bankruptcy Act evidence an intention to cover all matters of priorities or when they are inconsistent with previous statutes such as R.S. § 3466. Davis v. Pringle, supra; Guaranty Title and Trust Co. v. Title Guaranty and S. Co., 1911, 224 U.S. 152, 32 S.Ct. 457, 56 L.Ed. 706; New York v. Saper, 1949, 336 U.S. 328, 340, n. 18, 69 S.Ct. 554, 93 L.Ed. 710.

Chapter X proceedings resemble equity receiverships more closely than they resemble conventional bankruptcy proceedings. As Mr. Justice Cardozo said in Lowden v. Northwestern National Bank & Trust Co., 1936, 298 U.S. 160, 163, 56 S.Ct. 696, 698, 80 L.Ed. 1114:

“A proceeding to reorganize is not a bankruptcy, though an amendment to the bankruptcy act creates and regulates the remedy.”

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