An Oregon resident died in a United States Veterans'
Administration Hospital in Oregon without a will or legal heirs,
leaving a net estate of personal property. He had not entered into
a contract with the United States concerning such property, and was
mentally incompetent to do so. Oregon claimed such property under
its escheat law, and the United States claimed it under 38 U.S.C.
(1952 ed.) § 17, which provides that, when a veteran dies in such a
hospital without a will or legal heirs, his personal property
"shall immediately vest in and become the property of the United
States as trustee for the sole use and benefit of the General Post
Fund."
Held: the United States was entitled to the property as
such trustee. Pp.
366 U. S.
643-649.
(a) The federal statute operates automatically, and does not
require that the veteran shall have entered into a contract with
the United States. Pp.
366 U. S.
645-648.
(b) The statute is within the power of Congress, and it does not
violate the Tenth Amendment. Pp.
366 U. S.
648-649.
222 Ore. 40,
352 P.2d
539, reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Adam Warpouske, an Oregon resident, died in a United States
Veterans' Administration Hospital in Oregon without a will or legal
heirs, leaving a net estate composed of personal property worth
about $13,000. Oregon law provides
Page 366 U. S. 644
that such property shall escheat to the State. [
Footnote 1] A United States statute, on the
other hand, provides that, when a veteran dies without a will or
legal heirs in a veterans' hospital, his personal property "shall
immediately vest in and become the property of the United States as
trustee for the sole use and benefit of the General Post Fund. . .
." [
Footnote 2] In reliance
upon these provisions of their respective statutes, both the State
of Oregon and the Government of the United States filed claims for
Warpouske's estate in the Oregon probate court having jurisdiction
of the matter.
Recognizing that the federal statute, if applicable and valid,
would make the claim of the United States paramount, the State
attacked the Government's reliance upon that statute on two
grounds: first, it urged that the federal statute did not apply to
this case on the theory that its provisions depended upon the
Government's having made a valid contract with the veteran prior to
his death, and that Warpouske had made no such contract because he
had been mentally incompetent to do so when he entered the hospital
and at all times thereafter up to his death; and, secondly, it
urged that the federal statute, even if applicable, was invalid
because it pertains to the devolution of property, a matter
contended to have been wholly reserved to the States by the Tenth
Amendment.
After hearings, the probate court found as a fact that Warpouske
had been unable to enter into a valid contract with the Government
because of his mental
Page 366 U. S. 645
incompetence. That court then accepted the State's
interpretation of the federal statute as requiring a valid contract
as a prerequisite to its application, and concluded that, since
such a contract could not, in this case, have been made, the State
was entitled to Warpouske's property by virtue of its escheat law.
On appeal, the State Supreme Court affirmed on the same grounds.
[
Footnote 3] Because of the
importance of this question of federal statutory construction and
an alleged conflict between this decision and decisions previously
made by other state courts of final jurisdiction, [
Footnote 4] we granted certiorari. [
Footnote 5]
Since we accept the findings of the two state courts that
Warpouske could not and did not enter into a contract to leave his
property to the United States, the crucial question is whether the
Government can prevail in the absence of such a contract. We hold
that it can on the grounds that the federal statute relied upon
does not require a contract, and that this statute does not violate
the Tenth Amendment.
The controlling provision was passed in 1941 as an amendment to
the Sundry Appropriations Act of 1910. [
Footnote 6] The 1910 Act quite plainly and unequivocally
provided that the admission of an applicant to a veterans' home
should
"be and constitute a valid and binding contract between such
applicant and the Board of Managers of said home that, on the death
of said applicant while a member of such home, leaving no heirs a
law nor next of kin, all personal property owned by said applicant
at the time of his death, including money or choses in action held
by him and not disposed of by will . . . shall vest in
Page 366 U. S. 646
and become the property of the said Board of Managers for the
sole use and benefit of the post fund of said home. . . ."
The contractual nature of these provisions of the 1910 Act was
clear, and, indeed, we expressly recognized that fact when the
question of the validity of the Act was brought before this Court.
[
Footnote 7]
The 1910 Act was greatly amplified, however, by the amendments
adopted in 1941, [
Footnote 8]
and the central provision of the Act, quoted above, was
significantly changed. Section 1 of the new Act restates this
provision without reference to the word "contract," providing
simply that, when a veteran dies "while a member or patient in any
facility, or any hospital while being furnished care or treatment,"
all his personal property
"not disposed of by will or otherwise shall immediately vest in
and become the property of the United States as trustee for the
sole use and benefit of the General Post Fund. . . . [
Footnote 9]"
The Act then goes on to supplement this basic provision with
other provisions that are drawn in the language of contract. But
these provisions must be read in the context of § 2 of the Act,
which provides that the death of a veteran in a veterans' hospital
"shall give rise to a conclusive presumption of a valid contract."
[
Footnote 10] Read in this
context, the language of contract which appears in these other
provisions of the Act is not at all inconsistent with the provision
for automatic vesting without a contract in § 1. Quite the
contrary, it seems plain to us that
Page 366 U. S. 647
these "contractual" provisions were included in the Act for the
purpose of reinforcing, rather than detracting from, the provisions
of § 1 -- the thought apparently being that there was some chance
that the Act would be attacked as unconstitutional, and that it
would consequently be advisable to include alternative bases upon
which it could be upheld. [
Footnote 11]
This natural construction we give to § 1 makes it fit well in
the pattern of legislation dealing with this subject. The
solicitude of Congress for veterans is of long standing. [
Footnote 12] Veterans' pensions,
homes, hospitals and other facilities have been supplied on an
ever-increasing scale. Many veterans, as did the deceased veteran
here, have had to depend upon these benefits for long periods of
their lives. Warpouske, for example, appears to have spent more
than ten years of his life at various intervals from time to time,
in veterans' homes and hospitals throughout the country. These were
the only homes he had at those times. The congressional plan here
is that whatever little personal property veterans without wills or
kin happen to leave when they die in veterans' homes and hospitals
should be paid into the General Post Fund, to be used for the
recreation and pleasure of other ex-service men and women who have
to spend their days in veterans' homes and hospitals. This idea was
expressed by Representative Jennings during the discussion of the
1941 Act on the floor of the House:
"And would it not be much better to let that money go into a
fund that would inure to the benefit of other veterans than to
Page 366 U. S. 648
let . . . it go into a fund under the escheat laws of [a] State?
[
Footnote 13]"
Having concluded that the provisions of § 1 are clear and
unequivocal on their face, we find no need to resort to the
legislative history of the Act. [
Footnote 14] Since the State has placed such heavy
reliance upon that history, however, we do deem it appropriate to
point out that this history is, at best, inconclusive. It is true,
as the State points out, that Representative Rankin, as Chairman of
the Committee handling the bill on the floor of the House,
expressed his view during the course of discussion of the bill on
the floor that the 1941 Act would not apply to insane veterans
incompetent to make valid contracts. [
Footnote 15] But such statements, even when they stand
alone, have never been regarded as sufficiently compelling to
justify deviation from the plain language of a statute. They are
even less so here, for there is powerful countervailing evidence as
to the intention of those who drafted the bill. The bill was drawn
up and sent to the Speaker of the House, in the very form in which
it was passed, by the Veterans' Bureau itself. [
Footnote 16] And that Bureau, we are told,
has consistently interpreted the 1941 Act as making the sanity or
insanity of a veteran who dies in a veterans' hospital entirely
irrelevant to the determination of the Government's rights under
the Act.
We see no merit in the challenge to the constitutionality of § 1
as construed in this natural manner. Congress undoubtedly has the
power -- under its constitutional powers to raise armies and navies
and to conduct wars -- to pay pensions, and to build hospitals and
homes for veterans. We think it plain that the same sources of
Page 366 U. S. 649
power authorize Congress to require that the personal property
left by its wards when they die in government facilities shall be
devoted to the comfort and recreation of other ex-service people
who must depend upon the Government for care. The fact that this
law pertains to the devolution of property does not render it
invalid. [
Footnote 17]
Although it is true that this is an area normally left to the
States, it is not immune under the Tenth Amendment from laws passed
by the Federal Government which are, as is the law here, necessary
and proper to the exercise of a delegated power. [
Footnote 18]
The judgment of the Oregon Supreme Court is reversed, and the
cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with
this opinion.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
Ore.Rev.Stat. § 120.010 provides:
"Immediately upon the death of any person who dies intestate
without heirs, leaving any real, personal or mixed property,
interest or estate in this state, the same escheats to and vests in
the state, subject only to the claims of the creditors and as
provided in ORS 120.060 to 120.130; and the clear proceeds derived
therefrom shall be paid into and become a part of the Common School
Fund of this state and be loaned or invested by the State Land
Board, as provided by law."
[
Footnote 2]
38 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) § 17.
[
Footnote 3]
222 Or. 40,
352 P.2d
539.
[
Footnote 4]
The conflict alleged is with the decisions in
Skriziszouski's Estate, 382 Pa. 634, 116 A.2d 841; and
In re Gonsky's Estate, 79 N.D. 123,
55 N.W.2d
60.
[
Footnote 5]
364 U.S. 877.
[
Footnote 6]
36 Stat. 703, 736.
[
Footnote 7]
"In passing the Act of June, 1910, Congress merely directed the
terms and conditions under which veterans, consistently with state
law, can obtain admittance to Homes built, maintained, and operated
by the government for the benefit of veterans. Homes for the aged,
needy, or infirm, in return for the benefits bestowed by them,
generally receive some benefit from any property or estates of
their members."
United States v. Stevens, 302 U.
S. 623,
302 U. S.
627.
[
Footnote 8]
55 Stat. 868, 38 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) § 17
et seq.
[
Footnote 9]
38 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) § 17.
[
Footnote 10]
38 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) § 17a.
[
Footnote 11]
These fears doubtless arose, in part at least, from the fact
that the Circuit Court of Appeals had, in the Stevens case, supra,
declared even the milder provisions of the 1910 Act
unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment, Stevens v. United
States, 1 Cir., 89 F.2d 151, a holding ultimately reversed by this
Court.
[
Footnote 12]
See the Brief History of Legislation Pertaining to
Veterans' Benefits, 38 U.S.C.A. 1.
[
Footnote 13]
87 Cong.Rec. 5203-5204.
[
Footnote 14]
Cf. United States v. Bowen, 100 U.
S. 508,
100 U. S.
513-514;
National Home v. Wood, 299 U.
S. 211,
299 U. S.
216.
[
Footnote 15]
87 Cong.Rec. 5203.
[
Footnote 16]
See H.R.Rep. No. 609, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., pp.
1-2.
[
Footnote 17]
See, e.g., Kolovrat v. Oregon, ante, p.
366 U. S. 187.
This was also implicit in the holding in
United States v.
Stevens, 302 U. S. 623.
See note 11
supra. Cf. Hines v. Lowrey, 305 U. S.
85, in which this Court rejected the contention that the
Federal Constitution does not confer any authority upon Congress to
deal with mental incompetents.
[
Footnote 18]
See, e.g., Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S.
92;
Oklahoma v. Atkinson Co., 313 U.
S. 508;
United States v. Darby, 312 U.
S. 100.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER concurs,
dissenting.
I do not see how this decedent's estate can constitutionally
pass to the United States. The succession of real and personal
property is traditionally a state matter under our federal system.
Mager v.
Grima, 8 How. 490,
49 U. S.
493-494. That tradition continues.
United States v.
Burnison, 339 U. S. 87,
339 U. S. 91-92;
Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503,
331 U. S. 517;
Irving Trust Co. v. Day, 314 U. S. 556,
314 U. S. 562;
Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U. S. 188,
305 U. S. 193.
An individual can contract away his assets -- making the United
States the promisee -- and the contract will be enforced, provided
it
Page 366 U. S. 650
is valid under state law.
United States v. Stevens,
302 U. S. 623,
302 U. S. 627.
It may be that an action in
quantum meruit would lie
against the estate of a person who, though utterly incompetent as
Adam B. Warpouske concededly was, received treatment at a federal
hospital. [
Footnote 2/1] It may be
that the United States could appropriate all unexpended funds from
federal pensions or federal insurance policies in exchange for the
services rendered an incompetent.
See United States v.
Hall, 98 U. S. 343;
Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655;
cf. Miller Music Corp. v. Charles N. Daniels, Inc.,
362 U. S. 373. The
power of Congress to legislate concerning the claims of all
veterans, whether competent or incompetent, is well settled.
Hines v. Lowrey, 305 U. S. 85.
We deal here, however, with an inheritance that the incompetent
veteran received from his brother -- an estate worth about $13,000.
How Congress can provide for that sum to pass to the United States
is difficult to understand. Oregon has provided how the property of
one who dies intestate and without heirs shall be distributed,
[
Footnote 2/2] and that is its
constitutional right under the Tenth Amendment. Never before, I
believe, has a federal law governing the property of one dying
intestate been allowed to override a state law. Some state
inheritance laws are affected by federal policy, as we recently
held in
Kolovrat v. Oregon, ante, p.
366 U. S. 187.
Thus, where a treaty
Page 366 U. S. 651
made by the United States with another nation provides for
reciprocal inheritance rights by the nationals of the two
countries, a State cannot provide otherwise. If it could, one State
would indeed be revising the foreign policy that the Federal
Government makes. In the context of the Fourteenth Amendment, the
rights of a State to provide rules governing inheritance may also
be compelled to bow to federal policy.
See R.S. § 1978, 42
U.S.C. § 1982.
Yet the Supremacy Clause is not without limits. For a federal
law to have supremacy, it must be made "in pursuance" of the
Constitution. The Court, of course, recognizes this, and it
justifies this federal law governing devolution of property under
the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I, § 8.
The power to build hospitals and homes for veterans and to pay
them pensions is plainly necessary and proper to the powers to
raise and support armies and navies and to conduct wars. The power
to provide for the administration of the estates of veterans (which
are not made up of federal funds owing the veterans) is to me a far
cry from any such power. But the present Act is of that
character.
This federal law governing estates of veterans is phrased in the
language of contract. It is designed to draw into the federal
treasury all estates of the kind mentioned, whether they be worth
six cents or a million dollars. The federal claim is not for
services rendered, as no effort is made to restrict the amount of
the federal claim to benefits received. The Act plainly is a
federal succession law.
The Act under which the United States purports to act is now
found in 38 U.S.C. §§ 5220-5228. In its present form, it came into
the law in 1941. Act of Dec. 26, 1941, 55 Stat. 868. Section 1
regulates the disposition of the property of any veteran who dies
while in a Veterans' Hospital
Page 366 U. S. 652
and who leaves personal property not disposed of by will and to
which no surviving spouse, next of kin or heirs are entitled under
the laws of his domicile. Such property, the Act says, "shall
immediately vest in and become the property of the United States."
§ 1. The acceptance of care or treatment at a Veterans' Hospital
is, by the terms of the Act, acceptance of the provisions of the
Act, and has "the effect of an assignment" of the property
effective at death. § 1. The fact of death in a Veterans' Hospital
of a veteran "leaving no spouse, next of kin, or heirs" gives rise
"to a conclusive presumption" of a valid contract for the
disposition of the property in that way to the United States. § 2.
Moreover, the Veterans' Administration is authorized to administer
the estate, paying creditors' claims, if presented within
designated times, and granting them the preference and priorities
prescribed by local law. § 4.
We know that, while the Act is based on "a conclusive
presumption" that a contract to assign the property to the United
States was made, there was, in fact, no contract in this case.
During the period of Warpouske's hospitalization -- from March 1,
1956, to March 19, 1956, the day of his death -- he was either
comatose or semi-comatose. [
Footnote
2/3] We deal with a presumption that is contrary to the fact
(
cf. Tot v. United States, 319 U.
S. 463). We have then a case involving the power of
Congress to provide for the administration of the estate of a
deceased veteran where he has, in fact, made no assignment of it to
the Federal Government. To what power is that necessary and
proper?
Page 366 U. S. 653
Only recently, we warned against an expansive construction of
the Necessary and Proper Clause. We stated that it is "not itself a
grant of power, but a caveat that the Congress possesses all the
means necessary to carry out" the powers specifically granted.
Kinsella v. Singleton, 361 U. S. 234,
361 U. S. 247.
Powers not given "were reserved," as Madison said. VI Writings of
James Madison (Hunt ed.) 390. And "no powers were given beyond
those enumerated in the Constitution, and such as were fairly
incident to them."
Ibid.
Veterans or anyone else may make the United States a beneficiary
of their estate, absent a state law that precludes it.
See
United States v. Burnison, supra. But if it is "fairly
incident" to raising and supporting armies and navies and
conducting wars for the United States to take over the
administration of the personal property of veterans who die
intestate, I see no reason why Congress cannot take over their real
estate too. I see no reason why, if the United States can go as far
as we allow it to go today, it cannot supersede any will a veteran
makes, and thus better provide for the comfort, care, and
recreation of other ex-service men and women who are dependent on
the United States for care. And the more money the Federal
Government collects for veterans, the better the care they will
receive. No greater collision with state law would be present where
Congress took realty or displaced an entire will than here.
Oregon's law providing for escheat is as explicit as her law
providing for the administration of the estates of deceased people.
If a contract between the United States and an utterly incompetent
person can be conclusively presumed to exist when the incompetent
dies intestate, it can be where he leaves a will. If it can be
conclusively presumed in case of a veteran, it can be conclusively
presumed in case of any federal employee, in case of any
Page 366 U. S. 654
federal officeholder, in case of any federal pensioner. Of
course, Congress cannot be expected to use this vast new power to
the extreme. But we -- unlike England -- live under a written
Constitution that limits powers, not entrusting the Constitution to
the conscience of the legislative body.
The Tenth Amendment does not, of course, dilute any power
delegated to the national government. That is one face of the
truism that runs through our decisions.
United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100,
312 U. S. 124;
Oklahoma v. Atkinson Co., 313 U.
S. 508,
313 U. S. 534;
Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S. 92,
327 U. S. 101.
But when the Federal Government enters a field as historically
local as the administration of decedents' estates, some clear
relation of the asserted power to one of the delegated powers
should be shown. At times, the exercise of a delegated power
reaches deep into local problems.
Wickard v. Filburn,
317 U. S. 111,
allowed the commerce power to extent to home-grown and home-used
wheat, because total control was essential for effective control of
the interstate wheat market. But there is no semblance of likeness
here. The need of the Government to enter upon the administration
of veterans' estates -- made up of funds not owing from the United
States -- is no crucial phase of the ability of the United States
to care for ex-service men and women or to manage federal fiscal
affairs.
Today's decision does not square with our conception of
federalism. There is nothing more deeply imbedded in the Tenth
Amendment, as I read history, than the disposition of the estates
of deceased people. I do not see how a scheme for administration of
decedents' estates of the kind we have here can possibly be
necessary and proper to any power delegated to Congress.
Raising money by borrowing or by taxing are explicitly provided
for in Art. I, § 8. Raising money by appropriating assets of those
who have a relationship with the
Page 366 U. S. 655
Federal Government (as most people do today) is not among the
enumerated powers. At bottom of the present statute, as the Court
points out, is a desire to make those who use a Veterans' Hospital
help finance its operations. [
Footnote
2/4] Congress can set rates for services rendered; it can
obtain from patients assignments of assets to the United States; it
can induce and encourage people to make these hospitals
beneficiaries under their wills. But I do not see how it is
possible for the United States to take a man's property without his
consent when the United States is not a creditor in the accepted
sense. The only constitutional way in which that can be done is by
taxation or by condemnation. This law as applied is indeed a levy
that has no support in the Constitution, and it makes a serious
inroad on the Tenth Amendment. With all deference, I dissent.
[
Footnote 2/1]
See Restitution, Restatement of the Law, Am.L.Inst.
(1937), § 114; 5 Corbin on Contracts (1951) § 1109.
[
Footnote 2/2]
Ore.Rev.Stat. 120.010 provides:
"Immediately upon the death of any person who dies intestate
without heirs, leaving any real, personal or mixed property,
interest or estate in this state, the same escheats to and vests in
the state, subject only to the claims of the creditors and as
provided in ORS 120.060 to 120.130; and the clear proceeds derived
therefrom shall be paid into and become a part of the Common School
Fund of this state and be loaned or invested by the State Land
Board, as provided by law."
[
Footnote 2/3]
Adam Warpouske spent a large part of his life in Veterans'
Hospitals, especially during the years from 1930 to 1945. (The
record also shows that he received care in the facilities of
various states.) But the claim to administer his personal property
arises solely from "the fact of death" in a Veterans' Hospital.
[
Footnote 2/4]
The inspiration for this law, as seen from the legislative
history (H.R.Rep.No. 609, 77th Cong., 1st Sess.; S.Rep.No. 900,
77th Cong., 1st Sess.), was the Veterans' Administration, a fact
which perhaps makes relevant the following observation:
"Politicians and taxpayers have assumed (with occasional phases
of doubt) that a rising total in the number of civil servants must
reflect a growing volume of work to be done. Cynics, in questioning
this belief, have imagined that the multiplication of officials
must have left some of them idle or all of them able to work for
shorter hours. But this is a matter in which faith and doubt seem
equally misplaced. The fact is that the number of the officials and
the quantity of the work are not related to each other at all. The
rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson's Law,
and would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to
increase, diminish, or even disappear. The importance of
Parkinson's Law lies in the fact that it is a law of growth based
upon an analysis of the factors by which that growth is
controlled."
Parkinson, Parkinson's Law (1957), pp. 3-4.