Willis v. United States Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service

CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedMarch 23, 2020
Docket6:16-cv-03251
StatusUnknown

This text of Willis v. United States Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (Willis v. United States Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Willis v. United States Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, (W.D. Mo. 2020).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI SOUTHERN DIVISION

CARRIE S. WILLIS, ) ) Plaintiff, ) v. ) Case No. 6:16-cv-03251-SRB ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

On November 12, 2019, the Court commenced a two-day bench trial on Plaintiff Carrie S. Willis’s claims based on the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346, et seq. (“FTCA”). Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a)(1), “In an action tried on the facts without a jury . . ., the court must find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately.” The Court need not make specific findings on all facts but only “on the ultimate facts necessary to reach a decision.” Allied Van Lines, Inc. v. Small Bus. Admin., 667 F.2d 751, 753 (8th Cir. 1982) (citations omitted). “Findings are adequate if they afford a reviewing court a clear understanding of the basis of the trial court’s decision.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). I. Findings of Fact Based on the evidence presented at trial and the Court’s credibility determinations of the witnesses who provided testimony, the Court makes the following fact findings: $1 Presidential Coin History 1. In 2007, the United States Treasury (“Treasury”) began issuing $1 coins depicting deceased United States Presidents with the intended purpose of having the coins replace paper dollars. 2. The initial release of these $1 Presidential coins (George Washington through James Garfield) was done by the Treasury on a rolling basis between February 15, 2007, (George Washington) and November 17, 2011 (James Garfield). 3. The $1 Presidential coins from George Washington through James Garfield were intended for wide circulating production and accordingly were minted in large numbers ranging from a high of over 163 million George Washington coins to a low of over 36 million James Buchanan coins. 4. In all, over two billion $1 Presidential coins were produced by the United States Mint at facilities in Denver and Philadelphia between 2007 and 2011, using a production process that moved as quickly as possible for the purpose of getting the coins into circulation as United States currency. 5. The minting process involved taking a massive metal coil, feeding the coil into a blanking press to create coin-sized disks, placing the metal disks into a larger heater (running between 700° to 900° F.), feeding the annealed disks into “cleaning” and “upsetting” processes, and then running the disks into high-speed stamping and edge- lettering presses. 6. The $1 Presidential coins minted between 2007 and 2011 were produced with no particular care, were dumped into bins by the thousands, and shot into “ballistic” bags at ballistic speed causing a lot of friction to the surface of the coins. 7. Newly-minted coins were then placed into bags of 2,000 coins each. 8. A large portion of the $1 Presidential coins minted between 2007 and 2011 were then sent from the United States Mint to a third-party vendor, Coin Wrap, a commercial processor for wrapping, rolling, and boxing to be used in commerce as currency. 9. This wrapping, rolling, and boxing process subjected the surface to considerable friction impacting the circulating quality of the coins by using a vacuum to draw up coins into an industrial hopper and then dropping them into a wrapping process. 10. To commercially wrap the coins, the coins in each roll were compressed by machine and then wrapped in multiple thin layers of paper, making an extremely tight package. To unwrap the coins, a roll would have had to be cracked open with considerable force. 11. The wrap was also meant to be a security feature to ensure that any tampering with a roll would be evident because the roll would lose its structural integrity. 12. Following the wrapping of the coins, Coin Wrap placed 25 rolls of 40 $1 Presidential coins into boxes (sometimes referred to as “bricks”) and sent them out to banks so as to permit individuals and businesses to directly order the $1 Presidential coins in these $1,000 bricks. 13. The distribution of $1 Presidential coins in bricks was done to help commercial retailers get the coins into circulation more quickly and cheaply, and not to identify the coins as collector’s items. 14. The United States Mint has no “first strike” designation for coins. Moreover, the metal “dies” utilized by the United States Mint, which strike each side of a coin with artwork, wear out and are replaced at random times making it impossible to predict when a batch of coins might contain a coin struck by a brand-new die. 15. The $1 Presidential coins minted between 2007 and 2011 had no designation as to when produced, other than the name of the president and a “do not open until” the release date sticker on each box, making it impossible to tell when a coin was struck by looking at the box. 16. The $1 Presidential coins were not popular with the public and by 2011 were deemed by the Treasury to be unsuccessful. 17. Following the issuance of the James Garfield coins in 2011, the Treasury ended the circulating production of $1 Presidential coins. 18. Due to the unpopularity of the $1 Presidential coins, a surplus of over one billion unwanted coins remains in Federal Reserve terminals and in vaults under the United States Mint, including millions of coins never circulated in commerce, some in original boxes. 19. From the moment that they were minted through the present day, the $1 Presidential coins were and still are legal United States tender with a face value of $1 per coin.

Seizure of the Willis $1 Presidential Coins

20. Between 2007 and 2011, Bobby Willis and Carrie Willis purchased $1 Presidential coins in 364 $1,000 bricks, obtaining coins depicting Presidents George Washington through James Garfield, with the following distribution:

President Quantity President Quantity 2007 George Washington 7,000 2009 James K. Polk 20,000 2007 John Adams 10,000 2009 Zachary Taylor 20,000 2007 Thomas Jefferson 10,000 2010 Millard Fillmore 20,000 2007 James Madison 10,000 2010 Franklin Pierce 20,000 2008 James Monroe 20,000 2010 James Buchanan 20,000 2008 John Quincy Adams 26,000 2010 Abraham Lincoln 20,000 2008 Andrew Jackson 26,000 2011 Andrew Johnson 20,000 2008 Martin Van Buren 20,000 2011 Ulysses S. Grant 20,000 2009 William Henry Harrison 20,000 2011 Rutherford B. Hayes 20,000 2009 John Tyler 20,000 2011 James Garfield 15,000

21. Twenty-percent of the funds used to purchase the $1 Presidential coins came from the James and Norma Willis Trust, Bobby Willis’s grandparents, and eighty-percent of the funds came from the Bobby L. and Carrie S. Willis Trust. 22. Bobby Willis and Carrie Willis divorced in early 2012. 23. As part of the divorce, Bobby Willis gave up any ownership interest in the $1 Presidential coins. 24. Bobby Willis was removed as a trustee and beneficiary of the Bobby L. and Carrie S. Willis Trust, leaving Carrie Willis as the lone trustee and beneficiary. 25. After Bobby and Carrie Willis’s divorce, 20% of the $1 Presidential coins were owned by the James and Norma Willis Trust, and 80% of the $1 Presidential coins were owned by the Bobby L. and Carrie S. Willis Trust. 26. Plaintiff owned 80% of the $1 Presidential coins. 27. Prior to September 26, 2012, state and federal authorities in the State of New Mexico were actively investigating claims of financial fraud, including embezzlement and misappropriation of escrow money, involving the title company and escrow business previously operated by Bobby Willis and Carrie Willis. 28.

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Willis v. United States Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/willis-v-united-states-department-of-the-treasury-internal-revenue-mowd-2020.