�Texas v. Florida
�No. 11, Original
�Argued February 7, 1939
�Decided March 13, 1939
�
306
U.S. 398
Syllabus
1. The Court inquires
sua sponte into its jurisdiction
of the case. P.
306 U. S.
405.
2. Private parties whose presence is necessary or proper for the
determination of a case or controversy between States may be joined
as defendants.
Id.
3. Jurisdiction of this suit under Constitution Art. III, § 2,
turns on the questions whether the issue framed by the pleadings
constitutes a justiciable "case" or "controversy" and whether the
facts alleged and found afford an adequate basis for relief
according to accepted doctrines of the common law and equity
systems which are guides to decision of cases within the original
jurisdiction of this Court.
Id.
4. Bills of interpleader and bills in the nature of interpleader
considered.
Id.
5. The equitable jurisdiction by bill in the nature of
interpleader exists where the parties, including the plaintiff,
have independent and mutually exclusive claims upon the same fund
and where, although in point of law or fact only one claimant is
entitled to succeed, there is danger that independent prosecutions
of the claims may result in multiple recoveries and resultant
depletion of the fund to the damage of the claimant properly
entitled. The ground of the jurisdiction is to avoid this danger.
Equity avoids it by requiring the rival claimants to litigate
before it the decisive issue. P.
306 U. S.
406.
6. A suit, by bill in the nature of interpleader, brought by a
State against other States to determine the true domicile of a
decedent as the basis for death taxes, each State claiming the
right to tax the succession to his intangible property upon the
ground that he was there domiciled at the time of death,
held cognizable in equity and within the original
jurisdiction of this Court. Constitution Art. III, § 2. P.
306 U. S.
405.
The sole legal basis asserted by each State for the right to
impose the tax was domicile of the decedent, at the time of his
death, in the taxing State; by the law of each, there could be but
one domicile for death tax purposes; each in good faith claimed the
domicile, and, prior to the suit, was in good faith preparing to
enforce a tax lien upon decedent's intangibles and, but for the
suit, would be taking steps to that end; the net estate was
insufficient
Page 306 U. S. 399
to pay the tax claims of all the States and of the Federal
Government; none of the States would consent to become a party to
any proceeding in any of the others, to determine the right to tax;
there was substantial basis for the claim of domicile in each of
the States; and, due to the jurisdictional peculiarities of the
federal and state judicial systems, and to the special
circumstances of the case, there was a real risk that, through
conflicting assessments aggregating an amount in excess of the
estate, the right of the complainant or some other State might be
defeated; no question was presented of a situs of any of the
intangible property differing, for tax purposes, from the place of
domicile, and no determination in this suit, as to domicile, could
foreclose determination of such questions of other tax situs by any
court of competent jurisdiction in which they might arise.
7. That two or more States may each constitutionally assess
death taxes on a decedent's intangibles upon a judicial
determination that the decedent was domiciled within it, in
proceedings binding upon the representatives of the estate, but to
which the other States are not parties, is an established
principle. P.
306 U. S.
410.
8. The equity jurisdiction in a suit in the nature of
interpleader being founded on avoidance of the risk of loss
resulting from the threatened prosecution of multiple claims, the
risk must be appraised in the light of the circumstances as they
are in good faith alleged and shown to exist at the time when the
suit was brought. P.
306 U. S.
410.
9. In a suit like the present between States, mere adjudication
suffices, and need not be supplemented by an injunction. P.
306 U. S.
411.
10. The Court accepts the Special Master's findings of fact and
his conclusion that the decedent, at the time of his death, was
domiciled in Massachusetts. P.
306 U. S.
413.
11. Residence in fact, coupled with the purpose to make the
place of residence one's home, are the essential elements of
domicile. P.
306 U. S.
424.
12. While one's statements may supply evidence of the intention
requisite to establish domicile at a given place of residence, they
cannot supply the fact of residence there, and they are of slight
weight when they conflict with the fact. This is the more so where,
as here, the statements are shown to have been inspired by the
desire to establish a nominal residence for tax purposes, different
from the residence in fact. P.
306
U.S. 425.
In such circumstances, the actual fact of the place of residence
and the person's real attitude and intention with respect to it
as
Page 306 U. S. 400
disclosed by his course of conduct are he controlling factors in
ascertaining his domicile. When one intends the facts to which the
law attaches consequences, he must abide the consequences, whether
intended or not.
13. One cannot elect to make his home in one place in point of
interest and attachment and for the general purposes of life, and
in another, where he in fact has no residence, for the purpose of
taxation. P.
306 U. S.
426.
14. Physical facts of residence, united with major life
interests may fix domicile -- one's "preeminent headquarters."
Id.
15. The burden of proof is on one who claims that an earlier
domicile was abandoned for a later one. P.
306 U. S.
427.
Original suit by the Texas against the States of Florida, New
York, and Massachusetts, to determine the domicile at death of
Edward H.R. Green, deceased, as a basis for right to levy a death
tax in respect of the succession to his intangible property. His
wife and his sister, claimants upon the estate, were also impleaded
as parties defendant. The defendant States separately denied the
plaintiff's claim of domicile in Texas, and each by counterclaim
asserted its claim of domicile and consequent right to tax. The
wife admitted that the decedent's domicile was in Texas, and laid
claim to a large share of the estate as community property free
from death taxes. She was dismissed from the suit on stipulation.
302 U.S. 662. The sister denied the plaintiff's claim of domicile
in Texas and prayed that the true domicile for purposes of taxation
be determined. The case was referred to John S. Flannery, Esq., as
Special Master, who took voluminous evidence and made his report.
He found that the domicile of decedent at the time of his death was
in Massachusetts. The case was heard on exceptions to the Special
Master's conclusions of fact and subsidiary findings.
Page 306 U. S. 401
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
This original suit, in the nature of a bill of interpleader,
brought to determine the true domicile of decedent as the basis of
rival claims of four states for death taxes upon his estate, raises
two principal questions: whether this Court has jurisdiction of the
cause, and, if so, whether the report of the Special Master,
finding that decedent at the time of his death was domiciled in
Massachusetts, should be confirmed.
On March 15, 1937, this Court granted the motion of the Texas
for leave to file its bill of complaint against the States of
Florida and New York and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and
against decedent's wife, Mabel Harlow Green, and his sister, Hetty
Sylvia Ann
Page 306 U. S. 402
Howland Green Wilks, both alleged to be residents of New York.
The bill of complaint alleges that Edward H.R. Green died at Lake
Placid, New York, on June 8, 1936, leaving surviving him his wife
and sister as his only heir and next of kin; that he left a gross
estate of approximately $44,348,500, and a net estate valued at
$42,348,500, comprising real estate and tangible personal property
located in Texas, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts, of an
aggregate value of approximately $6,500,000, and intangible
personal property consisting principally of stocks, bonds, and
securities, the paper evidences of most of which were located in
New York.
The bill of complaint alleges that decedent, at the time of his
death, was domiciled in Texas, but that Florida, New York, and
Massachusetts each asserts, through its taxing officials, that
decedent was at the time of his death domiciled within it. It
alleges in detail that Texas and each of the defendant states
maintains and enforces a system of taxation upon the inheritance or
succession of the estates of decedents domiciled within the state
at death, under which laws real estate and tangible personal
property located within the state and all intangibles, regardless
of their situs, are subjected to the tax; that each of the four
states asserts and proposes to exercise the right to tax the estate
of decedent on the assumption that decedent was domiciled within it
at the time of his death, and that certain judicial proceedings
have been instituted in each of the four states for the
administration of decedent's estate or some parts of it. [
Footnote 1] It is further alleged
that
Page 306 U. S. 403
none of the four states and no officer or representative of any
state, except as already noted, has become a party to any of those
proceedings, and that no state or its officer or representative
will appear or become a party to any such proceedings instituted in
any other state to fix or assess death taxes on decedent's estate,
and that no judgment in any such proceeding will be binding on any
state not a party to it; that each of the four states claims a lien
for taxes and the right to collect a tax, based on decedent's
alleged domicile within it, upon the tangibles located in the state
and upon all decedent's intangibles wherever located, the total of
such claims amounting to a sum far greater than the net value of
the estate; that the amount of decedent's property located in Texas
is negligible in amount, and insufficient to pay its tax, and, in
the event that the states should obtain adjudications in their own
or other courts in pending proceedings, or others instituted for
the purpose of collecting the tax on the ground that decedent was
domiciled elsewhere than in Texas, Texas would be deprived of its
lawful tax. The bill prays that the Court determine whether
decedent's domicile,
Page 306 U. S. 404
for purposes of taxation, was in either of the defendant states,
and that particularly it determine and adjudicate that his domicile
was in Texas, and that it alone has the right to assess and collect
death taxes on decedent's intangibles.
The several defendant states, answering, admit that decedent's
estate is insufficient to satisfy the total amount of the taxes
claimed. All deny that Green was domiciled in Texas, and, by way of
counterclaim and cross-bill against the other defendants, each
asserts that he was domiciled in it, and that it is entitled to
collect death taxes upon all of decedent's intangible property and
upon all his tangibles within the state. The answer of decedent's
wife admitted that he was domiciled in Texas and asserted that, by
Texas law, she owned, as community property, one-half of
substantially all of decedent's estate acquired by him after their
marriage, free and clear of all death taxes. Pursuant to
stipulation showing that she had released all interest in
decedent's estate, the suit was dismissed as to her by order of the
Court on January 17, 1938. 302 U.S. 662. The answer of defendant
Wilks, decedent's sister, denies that Green was domiciled in Texas
and asks the Court to determine in which of the defendant states he
was domiciled for purposes of taxation.
On June 1, 1937, this Court appointed a Special Master, 301 U.S.
671, to take evidence, to make findings of fact and state
conclusions of law, and to submit them to this Court, together with
his recommendations for a decree. The Special Master has reported
his findings, with certain evidentiary facts, and his finding that
decedent, at the time of his death, was domiciled in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this latter conclusion being
supported by elaborate subsidiary findings. The case is now before
us on exceptions to the Special Master's conclusions of fact and
subsidiary findings that decedent's domicile was in Massachusetts
at the time of his death.
Page 306 U. S. 405
JURISDICTION
While the exceptions do not challenge the jurisdiction of the
Court, the novel character of the questions presented and the duty
which rests upon this Court to see to it that the exercise of its
powers be confined within the limits prescribed by the Constitution
make it incumbent upon us to inquire of our own motion whether the
case is one within its jurisdiction.
Minnesota v.
Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373,
185 U. S. 382,
185 U. S. 385.
By the Judiciary Article of the Constitution, the judicial power
extends to controversies between states, and this Court is given
original jurisdiction of cases in which a state shall be a party.
Art. 3, § 2. The present suit is between states, and, the other
jurisdictional requirements being satisfied, the individual parties
whose presence is necessary or proper for the determination of the
case or controversy between the states are properly made parties
defendant.
Cf. United States v. West Virginia,
295 U. S. 463,
295 U. S. 470.
So that our constitutional authority to hear the case and grant
relief turns on the question whether the issue framed by the
pleadings constitutes a justiciable "case" or "controversy" within
the meaning of the Constitutional provision, and whether the facts
alleged and found afford an adequate basis for relief according to
accepted doctrines of the common law or equity systems of
jurisprudence, which are guides to decision of cases within the
original jurisdiction of this Court.
See
Robinson v.
Campbell, 3 Wheat. 212,
16 U. S.
222-223;
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling &
Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 460,
59 U. S. 462;
Irvine v.
Marshall, 20 How. 558,
61 U. S.
564-565;
Payne v. Hook,
7 Wall. 425,
74 U. S.
430.
Before the Constitution was adopted, a familiar basis for the
exercise of the extraordinary powers of courts of equity was the
avoidance of the risk of loss ensuing from the demands in separate
suits of rival claimants to the same debt or legal duty.
Alnete
v. Bettam, Cary, 65 (1560);
Hackett v. Webb and
Willey, Finch 257 (1676);
Page 306 U. S. 406
see 9 Viner Abr., 419-440; 1 Spence, The Equitable
Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, 659; Maclennan, Law of
Interpleader, 5
et seq. Since, without the interposition
of equity, each claimant, in pursuing his remedy in an independent
suit, might succeed, and thus subject the debtor or the fund
pursued to multiple liability, equity gave a remedy by way of bill
of interpleader, upon the prosecution of which it required the
rival claimants to litigate in a single suit their ownership of the
asserted claim. A plaintiff need not await actual institution of
independent suits; it is enough if he shows that conflicting claims
are asserted and that the consequent risk of loss is substantial.
Evans v. Wright, 13 W.R. 468;
Michigan Trust Co. v.
McNamara, 165 Mich. 200, 130 N.W. 653;
Webster v.
Hall, 60 N.H. 7;
Thomson v. Ebbets, 1 Hopk.Ch., N.Y.
272;
Dorn v. Fox, 61 N.Y. 264;
Yarborough v.
Thompson, 3 Smedes & M. 291, 11 Miss. 291, 294; 4 Pomeroy,
Equity Jurisprudence (4th ed.) §§ 1319-1329, 1458-1482; Maclennan,
supra, 119.
The peculiarity of the strict bill of interpleader was that the
plaintiff asserted no interest in the debt or fund, the amount of
which he placed at the disposal of the court and asked that the
rival claimants be required to settle in the equity suit the
ownership of the claim among themselves. But, as the sole ground
for equitable relief is the danger of injury because of the risk of
multiple suits when the liability is single,
Farley v.
Blood, 30 N.H. 354, 361;
Bedell v. Hoffman, 2 Paige,
N.Y.199, 200;
Mohawk & Hudson R. Co. v. Clute, 4
Paige, N.Y. 384, 392;
Atkinson v. Manks, 1 Cowen 691, 703;
Story, Equity Pleadings (10th ed.) §§ 291, 292, and as plaintiffs
who are not mere stakeholders may be exposed to that risk, equity
extended its jurisdiction to such cases by the bill in the nature
of interpleader. The essential of the bill in the nature of
interpleader is that it calls upon the court to exercise its
jurisdiction to guard against the risks of loss
Page 306 U. S. 407
from the prosecution in independent suits of rival claims where
the plaintiff himself claims an interest in the property or fund
which is subjected to the risk. The object and ground of the
jurisdiction are to guard against the consequent depletion of the
fund at the expense of the plaintiff's interest in it, and to
protect him and the other parties to the suit from the jeopardy
resulting from the prosecution of numerous demands, to only one of
which the fund is subject. While, in point of law or fact, only one
party is entitled to succeed, there is danger that recovery may be
allowed in more than one suit. Equity avoids the danger by
requiring the rival claimants to litigate before it the decisive
issue, and will not withhold its aid where the plaintiff's interest
is either not denied or he does not assert any claim adverse to
that of the other parties other than the single claim determination
of which is decisive of the rights of all.
Pacific National
Bank v. Mixter, 124 U. S. 721;
Provident Sav. Life Assur. Soc. v. Loeb, 115 F. 357;
Sherman National Bank v. Shubert Theatrical Co., 238 F.
225,
aff'd, 247 F. 256;
Illingworth v. Rowe, 52
N.J.Eq. 360, 28 A. 456;
Carter v. Cryer, 68 N.J.Eq. 24, 59
A. 233; 2 Story, Equity Jurisprudence (14th ed.) § 1140; Story,
Equity Pleadings (10th ed.) § 297b; Chafee, Cases on Equitable
Remedies, 75
et seq.; 3 Daniell, Chancery Pleading and
Practice (6th Amer.Ed.) 1572; Maclennan,
supra, 338
et
seq.
When, by appropriate procedure, a court possessing equity powers
is in such circumstances asked to prevent the loss which might
otherwise result from the independent prosecution of rival but
mutually exclusive claims, a justiciable issue is presented for
adjudication which, because it is a recognized subject of the
equity procedure which we have inherited from England, is a "case"
or "controversy," within the meaning of the Constitutional
provision, and when the case is one prosecuted between states,
which are the rival claimants, and the risk of loss
Page 306 U. S. 408
is shown to be real and substantial, the case is within the
original jurisdiction of this Court conferred by the Judiciary
Article.
See Nashville, C. & St.L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace,
288 U. S. 249,
288 U. S. 261
et seq., and cases cited.
Here, it is conceded by the pleadings and upon brief and
argument that the sole legal basis asserted by the four states for
the imposition of death taxes on decedent's intangibles is his
domicile at death in the taxing state. There is no question
presented of a situs of decedent's intangibles differing, for tax
purposes, from the place of his domicile, such as was considered in
New Orleans v. Stempel, 175 U. S. 309;
Safe Deposit & Trust Co. of Maryland v. Virginia,
280 U. S. 83;
Beidler v. South Carolina Tax Commission, 282 U. S.
1,
282 U. S. 8;
First National Bank v. Maine, 284 U.
S. 312,
284 U. S. 331;
Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Fox, 298 U.
S. 193,
298 U. S. 210;
First Bank Stock Corp. v. Minnesota, 301 U.
S. 234,
301 U. S.
237-238;
Long v. Stokes, 174 Tenn. 1, 118
S.W.2d 228,
probable jurisdiction noted Nov. 14, 1938;
Graves v. Elliott, 274 N.Y. 10, 8 N.E.2d 42,
certiorari granted November 14, 1938, 305 U.S. 667. And no
determination made here as to domicile can hereafter foreclose the
determination of such questions by any court of competent
jurisdiction in which they may arise. By the law of each state, a
decedent can have only a single domicile for purposes of death
taxes, and determination of the place of domicile of decedent will
determine which of the four states is entitled to impose the tax on
intangibles so far as they have no situs different from the place
of domicile. No relief is sought to restrain collection of the tax
or to interfere with the determination of its amount by appropriate
state procedure.
The Special Master has found that each of the four states in
good faith asserts that the decedent was domiciled within it at his
death; that, prior to the commencement of these proceedings, each
state in good faith was preparing to enforce a lien on decedent's
intangibles,
Page 306 U. S. 409
wherever located, and would now be taking appropriate action but
for these proceedings, and that the net estate is not sufficient to
pay the aggregate amount of the taxes claimed by them and by the
federal government. [
Footnote
2] He has
Page 306 U. S. 410
also found, as averred in the pleadings, that none of the four
states has become or will consent to become a party to any
proceedings for determining the right to collect the tax in any
other state; that the right of Texas to assert its tax lien and to
prosecute its claim for taxes with success is in jeopardy, and that
it is without adequate remedy save in this Court.
The risk that decedent's estate might constitutionally be
subjected to conflicting tax assessments in excess of its total
value, and that the right of complainant or some other state to
collect the tax might thus be defeated was a real one, due both to
the jurisdictional peculiarities of our dual federal and state
judicial systems and to the special circumstances of this case.
That two or more states may each constitutionally assess death
taxes on a decedent's intangibles upon a judicial determination
that the decedent was domiciled within it in proceedings binding
upon the representatives of the estate, but to which the other
states are not parties, is an established principle of our federal
jurisprudence.
Thormann v. Frame, 176 U.
S. 350;
Overby v. Gordon, 177 U.
S. 214;
Burbank v. Ernst, 232 U.
S. 162;
Baker v. Baker, Eccles & Co.,
242 U. S. 394;
Iowa v. Slimmer, 248 U. S. 115,
248 U. S.
120-121;
Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley,
302 U. S. 292,
302 U. S. 299.
And a judgment thus obtained is binding on the parties to it and
constitutionally entitled to full faith and credit in the courts of
every other state.
Milwaukee County v. White Co.,
296 U. S. 268. The
equity jurisdiction being founded on avoidance of the risk of loss
resulting from the threatened prosecution of multiple claims, the
risk must be appraised in the light of the circumstances as they
are in good faith alleged and shown to exist at the time when the
suit was brought.
Cf. Clark v. Wooster, 119 U.
S. 322;
Rice & Adams v. Lathrop,
278 U. S. 509;
Maclennan,
supra, 132
et seq. In this case, as
will presently be noted, the relations of decedent to each of
the
Page 306 U. S. 411
demanding states was such as to afford substantial basis for the
claim that he was domiciled within it, with fair probability that
the claim would be accepted and favorably acted upon if there were
no participation by the other states in the litigation.
See New
Jersey v. Pennsylvania, 287 U.S. 580;
Hill v. Martin,
296 U. S. 393;
Dorrance's Estate, 309 Pa. 151, 163 A. 303,
cert.
denied, 287 U.S. 660; 288 U.S. 617;
In re Dorrance,
115 N.J.Eq. 268, 170 A. 601;
Dorrance v. Thayer-Martin,
116 N.J.L. 362, 184 A. 743,
cert. denied, 298 U.S. 678.
Cf. Matter of Trowbridge, 266 N.Y. 283, 194 N.E. 756. In
addition, the facts most essential to establishing that attitude
and relationship of person to place which constitute domicile were
in this case obscured by numerous self-serving statements of
decedent as to his domicile which, because made for the purpose of
avoiding liability for state income and personal property taxes
levied on the basis of domicile, tended to conceal, rather than
reveal, the true relationship in this case. Taken as a whole, the
case is exceptional in its circumstances and in the principles of
law applicable to them, all uniting to impose a risk of loss upon
the state lawfully entitled to collect the tax.
We think that the Special Master's finding of jeopardy is
sustained, that a justiciable "case" between the states is
presented, and that a cause of action cognizable in equity is
alleged and proved. The fact that no relief by way of injunction is
sought or is recommended by the Special Master does not militate
against this conclusion. While, in most causes in equity, the
principal relief sought is that afforded by injunction, there are
others in which the irreparable injury which is the indispensable
basis for the exercise of equity powers is prevented by a mere
adjudication of rights which is binding on the parties. T his has
long been the settled practice of this Court in cases of boundary
disputes between states.
Louisiana v.
Mississippi,
Page 306 U. S. 412
202 U. S. 1;
Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U. S. 158;
Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U.
S. 516;
Oklahoma v. Texas, 272 U. S.
21;
Michigan v. Wisconsin, 272 U.
S. 398;
New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U.
S. 361. In the case of bills of peace, bills of
interpleader, and bills in the nature of interpleader, the gist of
the relief sought is the avoidance of the burden of unnecessary
litigation or the risk of loss by the establishment of multiple
liability when only a single obligation is owing. These risks are
avoided by adjudication in a single litigation binding on the
parties.
While courts of equity in such suits may and frequently do give
incidental relief by injunction to secure the full benefits of the
adjudication and to terminate the litigation in a single suit, they
are not bound to do so, and their adjudication of the conflicting
claims is not any the less effective as
res judicata
because not supplemented by injunction. We do not doubt that, when
the equity powers of the Court have been invoked, it has power, in
its discretion, to give such incidental relief by way of injunction
as will make its determination the effective means of avoiding risk
of loss to any of the parties by reason of the asserted multiple
tax liability. But the plenary effect of its decision as
res
judicata, and considerations of convenience in the levying of
the tax by the usual state procedure, make it unnecessary and
undesirable that the Court should proceed beyond adjudication. The
fact that the Court, for reasons of policy or convenience, does not
exercise the power which it possesses and which has been
traditionally exercised in like cases between private suitors does
not deprive the suit of its character as a case or controversy
cognizable by the Court in an original suit.
See Fidelity
National Bank & Trust Co. v. Swope, 274 U.
S. 123,
274 U. S.
132-134;
Nashville, C. & St.L. Ry. Co. v.
Wallace, supra.
Page 306 U. S. 413
DOMICILE
The Special Master took voluminous testimony in each of the four
states, recording every available fact having any bearing on the
issue of decedent's domicile. After an exhaustive study of the
evidence, the Special Master has prepared elaborate subsidiary
findings in which he has stated what he considers to be the
essential facts of decedent's life which, taken together, were the
controlling factors in his arriving at the conclusion that
decedent, at the time of his death, was domiciled in the
Massachusetts.
In considering and weighing the evidence, the Special Master
concluded that there was no local law peculiar to any of the states
with respect to the essential fact elements which go to establish
domicile, and that the rule in each of the states defining domicile
was substantially that of the common law. Texas, since Green in the
earlier part of his life lived for a large part of his time in that
state and frequently proclaimed it to be his legal residence,
places great emphasis on the common law rule that, when one has
once acquired a domicile in one place, he does not lose it by mere
residence elsewhere without the intention to make the new place of
residence a domicile in the sense of a permanent home. The
defendant states, as they were all places in which decedent lived
for considerable periods of time during the latter part of his
life, and as they were all places with which he then became more
intimately associated, place greater emphasis on "home" as the
substantial equivalent of domicile as the term is defined in the
American Law Institute's Restatement of Conflict of Laws, § 13,
where it is said:
"A home is a dwelling place of a person, distinguished from
other dwelling places of that person by the intimacy of the
relation between the person and the place. . . . In
Page 306 U. S. 414
determining whether a dwelling place is a person's home,
consideration should be given to:"
"1. Its physical characteristics;"
"2. The time he spends therein;"
"3. The things he does therein;"
"4. The persons and things therein;"
"5. His mental attitude towards the place;"
"6. His intention when absent to return to the place."
"7. Elements of other dwelling-places of the person
concerned."
The Special Master, while not completely adopting either of the
tests proposed, nevertheless finds that both support his
conclusion. We accept the Special Master's findings of fact and his
conclusion that the decedent, at the time of his death, was
domiciled in Massachusetts. As the Master has found and stated in
great detail the circumstances of decedent's life which lead to
that conclusion, and has made them available in his report, we find
it unnecessary to do more than state the salient facts which are
typical of and supported by many others, and which support his
ultimate conclusion.
Edward Green was born in England August 22, 1868, and was in his
sixty-eighth year at the time of his death, June 8, 1936, at Lake
Placid, New York, where he was temporarily sojourning for reasons
of health. He was the son of Hetty Green, a well known figure in
the financial world, who was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Her forebears had resided in that vicinity since the seventeenth
century, and Green and his sister Mrs. Wilks inherited from her one
hundred and thirty acres of land in the town of Dartmouth, which
had been the family home and had been property of the family for
some two hundred years. The foundation of the family fortune had
been laid in the whaling industry, centering at New Bedford. At her
death, his mother left an estate of $67,000,000,
Page 306 U. S. 415
which, under her will, became the property of decedent and his
sister in substantially equal shares.
His education was in the public schools of Vermont and New York,
and for two years he attended Fordham University in New York City.
His tastes were not artistic or literary; he had a deep interest in
scientific study and experimentation, especially in the fields of
astronomy, geology, electricity, photography, radio, and aviation.
He was fond of the sea and of yachting, and, until a serious
illness in 1921, followed by permanent impairment of his health, he
was interested in athletics and outdoor life. After that time, he
became especially interested in collecting stamps, coins, currency,
and jewels, to which he devoted much attention. He had no interest
in fashionable or social life, but preferred, as he stated,
associating with the common man or "the man in the street."
In 1892, when he was twenty-four years old, his mother sent him
to Texas to foreclose a mortgage on a short line of railroad
located there, later known as the Texas Midland Railroad. As the
result of the foreclosure, she acquired the railroad, and, for the
larger part of Green's time until 1911, he remained in Texas for
the purpose of looking after the management of the road. In that
year, he returned to live in New York at the urgent request of his
mother, who, because of failing health, desired his assistance in
the management of her business affairs.
From 1911 until 1921, Green customarily made two trips a year to
Texas, one to attend the annual meeting of the railroad and the
other to inspect the road, and in alternate years to vote in
Terrell, Texas, in state and municipal elections. From 1922 to
1927, he made but one annual visit, in the spring of each year.
After 1923, he spent only two or three days on each visit to Texas,
in Terrell and its vicinity. In the years 1924 to 1927, he visited
Marlin, Texas, where he remained for about a month each
Page 306 U. S. 416
year for purposes of medical treatment. In 1928, the railroad
was sold. After the agreement for sale was made in 1927, he made no
other visit to Dallas or Terrell, and his only visit to Texas was
in 1935, for treatment at a clinic in Marlin.
During the period of his residence in Texas, decedent was a
bachelor, and maintained domestic establishments at various places.
He at first lived in a hotel. About 1894, he maintained a bachelor
apartment at Terrell. For a time, he also kept rooms at a hotel in
Dallas, and then, about 1896 or 1897, leased an apartment in that
city. Later he purchased a building there which he remodelled and
occupied as a dwelling until 1911, when the building was sold.
After that, he caused a friend to rent a room for him in Terrell,
Texas, admittedly for the purpose of preserving his right to vote
in Texas. The room was never occupied by him, nor were any of his
possessions sent there, except a box containing a pair of trousers
and a vest. He also owned a two hundred acre experimental farm near
Terrell where there were living quarters which he occasionally
used. The farm was afterwards sold, and, from 1911 on, he had no
dwelling place in Texas except his private railroad car, which was
sold with the road in 1927-1928. Upon his removal to New York in
1911, all of the best furniture in the Dallas residence was packed
and shipped to New York for use in his dwelling there. His library
of books on scientific subjects was given to the Dallas Public
Library. At the time of his death, his only real property in Texas
consisted of some unsaleable lots pertaining to the railroad which
were appraised at $2,200.
During the period of his residence in Texas, aside from his
active interest in the management of the railroad, he became
interested in scientific and farm experimentation. He also became
active in Texas politics, was a Texas delegate to the Republican
National Convention at St. Louis, and became Chairman of the
Republican State Executive
Page 306 U. S. 417
Committee, serving in that capacity for four years, and upon
reelection until 1900. In 1906, the nomination for Governor of
Texas on the Republican ticket was offered him, but he declined the
nomination upon the insistence of his mother. He was appointed a
colonel upon the Texas Governor's Staff, and served in that
capacity until January, 1915. Prior to 1911 and until 1920, he
voted in Texas in state and national elections.
Green frequently expressed himself as being attached to the
state and to its people. With few exceptions and in substantially
all deeds, papers, and legal documents, he described himself as of
Terrell, Texas, and instructed his secretary and office manager and
his attorneys in New York, Massachusetts, and Florida to mention in
all important legal documents that Terrell was his legal residence.
He continued this practice until 1935. In his will, executed in
1908, in his application for a marriage license in 1917, and in the
probate proceedings connected with his mother's estate, 1916-1918,
he was described as of Terrell, Texas. In 1922, he declined to
consider running for Congress in Massachusetts because he claimed
to be a resident of Texas. In 1929, he stated he would not be
available for appointment as Federal Radio Commissioner from New
England because he was a former Republican National Committeeman of
Texas, and spent only the summer months in New England. In 1935, he
testified under oath in Florida that his residence was Texas, with
a winter home in Florida and a summer home in New Bedford. In that
year, he returned to the Texas Centennial Committee a certificate
which described him as of Massachusetts, with the statement: "I
have never changed my legal residence from Terrell, Texas."
If declarations were alone sufficient to establish domicile, the
record would leave no doubt that Green was domiciled in Texas until
the time of his death. But in this connection it should be noted
that Green never paid
Page 306 U. S. 418
an income tax or a personal property tax on intangibles in any
state, and the Special Master was of opinion that the desire to
avoid taxation was a controlling motive for Green's repeated
declarations that he was a resident of Texas long after he had
ceased to have an abiding place or any active connection with
affairs in that state.
In July, 1911, Green removed his household belongings to New
York City, where he established his dwelling place in a house at 5
West 90th Street, which was owned by the estate of his grandfather
and adjoined a house occupied by his mother. He opened an office in
New York City, which remained his business headquarters until his
death, and, with his mother, maintained a joint office in her
residence. When Green came to New York, his mother settled upon
him, as his own, property valued at $500,000. Upon her death in
1916, he became entitled to an interest in the estate of his
grandfather aggregating $4,500,000, and, under the will of his
mother, he became entitled to the income of one-half of her estate
for a period of ten years, when he received one-half of the
principal, aggregating about $33,000,000.
Following his mother's death, he was married, on July 10, 1917,
to Miss Mabel Harlow. The following winter, they removed from the
90th Street house to an apartment in the Waldorf Hotel, where they
lived when in New York until the hotel was demolished in 1921. Then
they removed to the Sherry Netherlands Hotel, where they rented and
used a large suite. He at first took a two-year lease on the
apartment, but from May 1, 1931, the rental was continued on a
monthly basis. The apartments were furnished by the hotels;
decedent's furniture, pictures, and personal belongings, much of
which he had brought from Texas, remained at 5 West 90th Street
until 1921, when most of them were removed to decedent's place at
Round Hills, Massachusetts. In 1928, the remainder was sent to
Round Hills, and the New York house demolished.
Page 306 U. S. 419
During the last ten years of his life, his apartment in New York
was used only as a temporary stopping place on his trips north and
south. At his death, the family belongings in the apartment
consisted of some of his mother's letters, a portion of his stamp
collection, his interest in which had been slight since 1927, some
clothing of Mrs. Green's, and a few personal belongings worth less
than $1,000. His tangible personal property in New York at the time
of his death consisted principally of his collection of jewels,
coins, currency and stamps, having an aggregate value of
$1,583,221.
Green never registered or attempted to vote in New York. In
1916, he was assessed there for personal property taxes, but the
assessment was cancelled upon his submission of affidavits
declaring that his legal residence was in Texas. To the suggestion
of a friend, made in 1917, that he build a home on Long Island, he
replied that he did not want to do so, as he did not wish to pay
taxes in New York. And later he stated that he desired to build on
his mother's place at Round Hills in Massachusetts. During the
period from 1911 to 1921, he was active in business affairs in New
York. He managed his own fortune, which amounted to approximately
$6,000,000 after his mother's death. He also assisted in managing
her extensive business interests, and, after her death, was
actively engaged as executor and trustee in looking after her large
estate, including several family owned holding corporations.
Decedent became a director of a New York National Bank and a
director of two important trust companies and regularly attended
their meetings and participated in their affairs until about 1921.
He maintained large deposit balances in New York banks; his
personal securities were kept in safe deposit vaults there. He did
not enjoy New York life, and sometimes expressed dislike of its
people and business practices. After his illness in November, 1921,
all his activities there ceased.
Page 306 U. S. 420
He never thereafter attended trustees' or directors' meetings,
or went to his New York office.
After his marriage in 1917, Green spent a part of the summer
near Round Hills, Massachusetts, in the vicinity of Dartmouth,
which was the property he had inherited from his mother. On his
first visit on a yachting trip in 1917, he determined to develop
the property into a large country estate and build there an
imposing residence. With that in view and with the consent and
approval of his sister, he began to develop the property in the
fall of that year by clearing the land, constructing breakwaters,
wharves, water tanks, pumping plant, greenhouses and workmen's
cottages. From then until 1921, development of the property was his
principal interest and occupation. While the work was going
forward, decedent spent much time on his yacht or at a hotel in the
vicinity. In July of 1921, the house was ready for occupancy, and
from then until shortly before his death, he spent more time there
almost every year than at any other place, usually coming to Round
Hills immediately after July 1st, evidently because taxes were
assessed as of that date, and remaining just short of six months
each year.
Between 1917 and 1926, Green expended on the Round Hills estate
in excess of $6,688,000. To the land inherited from his mother he
added by purchase one hundred and forty adjoining acres. The house
was large and imposing -- indeed, somewhat "institutional" in
appearance, there having apparently been some thought, which he
never carried out, of converting it into an institution as a
memorial to the Green and Howland families after his own and his
sister's death. Upon the property were some sixty structures,
including the usual outbuildings of a large country estate,
swimming pools, tennis courts, radio broadcasting stations, an
airport, airship hangar, and dock. The house was designed as a
commodious residence, with
Page 306 U. S. 421
carefully planned accommodations for family, guests, and for a
full complement of servants.
Special furniture was designed for the house, but furnishings
from 5 West 90th Street in New York were also brought to it,
including family possessions and heirlooms, two oil portraits of
his mother, another of his grandfather, personal collections of
prints and engravings of whaling ships and scenes, and framed
certificates of his membership in various historical societies.
Green assembled there a well chosen library of miscellaneous and
scientific books, including many rare volumes on the history of New
England and accounts of the whaling industry, on which the family
fortune had been founded. In a vault in the basement was assembled
a substantial part of his collection of jewelry, coins, and
stamps.
In the social life of the countryside he took no part, but he
associated freely with employees and tradesmen and visitors
interested in scientific research. He developed on a large scale
his interest in various scientific activities, especially
photography, radio, and aviation. A number of his buildings and
radio facilities were placed at the disposal of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology for experimental purposes, and he
contributed his own funds to the cost of experiments. On his
property he established an airport and a school for aviators. He
arranged to have the "Charles W. Morgan," an old whaling ship,
transferred to Whaling Enshrined, Inc., to which he gave a strip of
the shore at Round Hills where he established the vessel and
maintained it as a museum which he kept open to the public. His
grounds and bathing beach were also opened to the public, members
of which visited them in large numbers.
Owing to his failing health, most of these activities, though
not his interest in them, were curtailed during the last three
years of his life, but he continued to spend most
Page 306 U. S. 422
of the summer and the early fall at Round Hills until the year
of his death, and all of his personal and intimate belongings
remained there. He told a friend that he hoped to be there when he
died, and his remains were brought there from Lake Placid for the
funeral service. Green never voted in Massachusetts or openly
acknowledged Round Hills as his legal residence, invariably giving
as his reason that he wished to avoid paying taxes there. When a
demand was made upon him by Massachusetts officials for payment of
income tax in 1928, he declined to file a return on the ground that
his legal residence was Terrell, Texas. No income or personal
property tax on intangibles was paid by him in Massachusetts.
In 1923, he was advised by his physician, following an operation
and illness, to go to Florida. He spent the following winter there
in hotels or upon boats in the vicinity of Miami and Jacksonville.
In April, 1924, he bought land on Star Island, near Miami Beach,
and began landscaping work and construction of a dock. In January,
1925, he returned to Miami Beach, living on a houseboat near Star
Island for about three and a half months. While there, he purchased
additional lots and began the construction of a dwelling.
Part of the following winter was spent on his houseboat near
Star Island, and the house was finally completed and occupied as a
winter residence in 1927. In the following years, until his death,
he spent about four and a half months each winter at Star Island,
between January and May. The house, costing over $600,000, was
fully equipped as a winter residence, with ample accommodations for
family, guests, and servants. His total expenditures there amounted
to about $1,500,000. The house was furnished with new specially
made furniture, and it contained, with negligible exceptions, no
pictures, books, furniture, or mementos of intimate personal or
family association. As in his other places of residence, he
took
Page 306 U. S. 423
little part in the social life of the community. In Florida, he
never carried on any of the activities or experiments with which he
had occupied himself in Texas or Massachusetts. His life in Florida
was typical, on the whole, of a semi-invalid seeking health there
during the winter months. He busied himself for the most part with
automobile rides, cruising in nearby waters, and in working on his
collections, parts of which he had brought with him from
Massachusetts.
Green occasionally spoke to friends of Florida as his home,
saying to one: "This is my home and I expect to live here the rest
of my days." He never voted in Florida or paid intangible property
taxes there, although subject to such taxes if a resident; in 1933,
he declared to the local tax assessor that his legal residence was
in another state. In 1931 and again in 1933, he was advised by a
friend to change his legal residence from Texas to Florida because
of pending tax legislation in Texas. His attorney suggested that,
as he had a residence in Florida, it would only be necessary to
make announcement of his intention. But he took no such action,
and, in March of 1935, testified in a judicial proceeding in
Florida that Texas was his legal residence.
The four persons nearest to decedent in life, his wife, his
sister, his office manager, and his secretary, were able to throw
little light on his purposes and intention with respect to his
domicile. Mrs. Green, who was a party to the present suit, asserted
by her answer that Texas was the domicile of herself and her
husband. After settlement with Mrs. Wilks, the sister, of her
claims upon the estate, the suit was discontinued as to Mrs. Green.
There is nothing in the record to indicate that she has since
claimed or resumed her domicile in Texas. On the contrary, she
remained at Round Hills for six months after Green's death. The
Special Master concluded that her position with reference to her
husband's domicile was influenced
Page 306 U. S. 424
by the advantages which might accrue to her from the community
property laws of Texas. The sister, by her answer in this case as
well as in the New York proceeding where she claimed under her
brother's will, in which he declared Texas to be his legal
residence, denied that her brother was a resident of Texas, and, in
this proceeding, she asserts that his domicile at the time of his
death was in Massachusetts. Neither his wife nor his sister has
given any evidence to explain the inconsistency between Green's
declarations and his actions or the conflict between themselves
upon the issue of domicile. All decedent's books and papers were
made available by his office manager, who testified that, from the
inception of their business association in New York until
decedent's death, he claimed Texas as his legal residence and gave
instructions that, in all formal documents, his permanent residence
be stated as Texas. His secretary testified to the same effect.
Neither was able to give any intimation of the real intention
behind decedent's declarations and actions except what may be
inferred from his evident desire and frequently announced purpose
to escape or minimize taxes.
Residence in fact, coupled with the purpose to make the place of
residence one's home, are the essential elements of domicile.
Mitchell v. United
States, 21 Wall. 350;
Pannill v. Roanoke
Times, 252 F. 910;
Beekman v. Beekman, 53 Fla. 858,
43 So. 923;
Babcock v. Slater, 212 Mass. 434, 99 N.E. 173;
Matter of Newcomb, 192 N.Y. 238, 84 N.E. 950; Beale,
Conflict of Laws, § 15.2. We conclude, as the Special Master found,
that Green ceased to have a place of residence in Texas after 1911.
About 1914, he gave up his nominal place of abode in the room which
he had rented in Terrell, Texas, and which in fact he had never
occupied. After that, he was never identified in fact with any
place of residence in Texas, and there was
Page 306 U. S. 425
nothing in his life to connect him with a Texas home other than
his frequent statements that his legal residence was in Texas.
While one's statements may supply evidence of the intention
requisite to establish domicile at a given place of residence, they
cannot supply the fact of residence there;
Matter of Newcomb,
supra, 250, 84 N.E. 950;
Matter of Trowbridge, 266
N.Y. 283, 292, 194 N.E. 756, and they are of slight weight when
they conflict with the fact.
Feehan v. Tax Comm'r, 237
Mass. 169, 171, 129 N.E. 292;
Dorrance's Estate, 309 Pa.
151, 163 A. 303. This is the more so where, as here, decedent's
declarations are shown to have been inspired by the desire to
establish a nominal residence for tax purposes different from his
actual residence in fact.
Thayer v. Boston, 124 Mass. 132;
Feehan v. Tax Comm'r, supra; Matter of Trowbridge, supra;
Beale,
supra, § 41C. In such circumstances, the actual
fact as to the place of residence and decedent's real attitude and
intention with respect to it as disclosed by his entire course of
conduct are the controlling factors in ascertaining his domicile.
Thayer v. Boston, supra. When one intends the facts to
which the law attaches consequences, he must abide the
consequences, whether intended or not.
National City Bank v.
Hotchkiss, 231 U. S. 50,
231 U. S. 56;
Dickinson v. Brookline, 181 Mass.195, 196, 63 N.E.
331.
Whatever floating intention Green may have had after 1911 to
return to Texas and to make his home there, it is plain that it
receded into the background after his mother's death, and had
completely vanished when he began to build up his extensive estate
at Round Hills in Massachusetts. When he had established himself
there, all the circumstances of his life indicated that his real
attitude and intention with respect to his residence there were to
make it his principal home or abiding place to the exclusion of
others. This is clearly indicated by the fact
Page 306 U. S. 426
that it was the place most associated with his family history,
by the scale on which he built, by his assembling there the
furnishings and objects closely associated with his earlier homes
and with his family life, and by centering there all the activities
related to his chief interests -- his mechanical and scientific
experiments, his development of radio and aviation, and his efforts
to preserve records and mementos of the whaling industry with which
his mother's family had been associated. He spent more time there
than at any other place, evidently curtailing his stays only to
avoid the possible danger of being subjected to Massachusetts
taxation. His conception of legal residence or domicile as a mental
state whereby he could obtain certain political advantages and
freedom from taxation does not weigh against this conclusion. He
could not elect to make his home in one place in point of interest
and attachment and for the general purposes of life, and in
another, where he in fact had no residence, for the purpose of
taxation.
Feehan v. Tax Comm'r, supra, 171, 129 N.E. 292;
Matter of Trowbridge, supra.
There is little to support the contention that Green ever
intended to make his permanent home in New York. The exigencies of
caring for his mother and her property and of managing her estate
after her death demanded his presence there. But, apart from these
demands, life there gave him no opportunity to gratify his special
tastes and interests. The nearest semblance to a home there, 5 West
90th Street, was abandoned when he removed its furnishings to Round
Hills. After that, New York saw little of him, and there was little
in his life to suggest that he treated it or in his own mind
regarded it as his real home or abiding place. Whatever his purpose
may have been before that time, after the occupancy of the Round
Hills residence, the physical facts of residence united with the
major interests of his life to fix upon that as his place
Page 306 U. S. 427
of domicile.
Gilbert v. David, 235 U.
S. 561,
235 U. S. 570.
In point of fact and purpose, it became his "preeminent
headquarters," which is the essence of technical domicile.
Williamson v. Osenton, 232 U. S. 619,
232 U. S.
625.
The retention of his apartment at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel
in New York, upon temporary lease, and his occupation of it during
the later years of his life for short stays when passing through
New York on his way to and from Florida, are without weight to turn
the scales against the preponderating evidence that his real home
was in Massachusetts. From 1921 on, the New York apartment
furnished none of the physical aspects of a home, and evidence is
wanting that the deceased ever regarded or treated it as such.
Proof is wanting also that the domicile established in
Massachusetts was abandoned in favor of the Florida house which he
built there in 1927. Florida argues the superior attractiveness and
merits of that state for purposes of a home over the more austere
environment of Round Hills, but there is little in the record to
suggest that such an appeal was persuasive to decedent, or that
Round Hills had ceased to be what it became when he established
himself there -- first in his interest and attachment. In such
circumstances, Florida carries the burden of showing that the
earlier domicile was abandoned in favor of a later one.
Mitchell v. United States, supra, 88 U. S. 352;
Anderson v. Watt, 138 U. S. 694,
138 U. S. 706;
Matter of Newcomb, supra, 250; Beale,
supra, §
41A. That burden is not sustained by showing a period of winter
residence there in obedience to the demands of health, in the
absence there of the activities associated with decedent's chief
interests and of the objects of those interests and of intimate
family association, with which he had surrounded himself at Round
Hills.
The report of the Special Master is confirmed. The substance of
the Special Master's recommendation for a
Page 306 U. S. 428
decree will be adopted, and the parties may submit a proposed
form of decree.
So ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
The allegations are that, on July 28, 1936, decedent's wife was
appointed temporary administratrix of decedent's estate in Texas on
an allegation that Green had died intestate and was domiciled at
death in Texas; that, on August 1, 1936, a proceeding was begun by
decedent's sister in the Surrogate's Court of Essex County, New
York, for the probate of decedent's will and for her confirmation
as the executrix named in the will, in which proceeding she alleged
that decedent, a nonresident of New York, had died there, leaving
personal property located in the state, and in which proceeding a
temporary administrator was appointed and decedent's wife and the
New York Tax Commissioner entered their appearances; that, on
August 31, 1936, decedent's wife commenced an action in the United
States District Court for northern Texas against decedent's sister
to determine the rights of the former in the estate of decedent by
reason of an alleged antenuptial agreement which purported to
exclude the wife from any interest in decedent's property; that, on
October 21, 1936, on application of the Massachusetts Commissioner
of Corporations and Taxation, a special administrator of the estate
of decedent was appointed by a Massachusetts probate court to take
possession of and conserve decedent's property in that
commonwealth, and that, on January 4, 1937, the County Judges'
Court of Dade County, Florida, appointed decedent's widow
administratrix of the estate of her husband located in Florida.
[
Footnote 2]
The Special Master has found as follows: the net estate, after
payment of debts and administration expenses other than death
taxes, will amount to $36,137,335, and the tangible property
taxable in the state of its situs is as follows:
Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 2,220.00
Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . 222,276.00
New York. . . . . . . . . . . . 1,583,221.00
Massachusetts . . . . . . . . . 2,498,707.00
Decedent's intangibles at the time of his death had a value of
$35,831,303. The paper evidences of decedent's intangibles were
located outside of the states of Texas, Florida, and
Massachusetts.
"The aggregate value of the shares of stock in and obligations
of corporations and associations organized or having a principal
place of business in Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida,
respectively, and of the obligations of persons residing in said
States and of the obligations of said States and political
subdivisions thereof, together with the value of the real estate
and tangible property in Texas, Massachusetts and Florida,
respectively, is less than the amount of the tax claimed by each of
said States, and the amount of such tax claimed by Texas,
Massachusetts, and Florida, respectively, greatly exceeds the value
of the property subject to the jurisdiction of their respective
Courts and from which the tax might be collected in any proceeding
in said Courts."
The Special Master found that the death taxes due to the United
States, and due to each state, if its contentions be sustained, are
as follows:
United States . . . . . . . . . $17,520,987
Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,685,057
Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,663,857
New York. . . . . . . . . . . . 5,910,301
Massachusetts . . . . . . . . . 4,947,008
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . $37,727,213
This exceeds the total net estate by the sum of $1,589,877. In
addition, the New York asserts a claim for unpaid personal income
taxes of $920,827.
Opinion of MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER.
The authority which the Constitution has committed to this Court
over "Controversies between two or more States," serves important
ends in the working of our federalism. But there are practical
limits to the efficacy of the adjudicatory process in the
adjustment of interstate controversies. The limitations of
litigation -- its episodic character, its necessarily restricted
scope of inquiry, its confined regard for considerations of policy,
its dependence on the contingencies of a particular record, and
other circumscribing factors -- often denature and even mutilate
the actualities of a problem, and thereby render the litigious
process unsuited for its solution. Considerations such as these
have from time to time led this Court, or some of its most
distinguished members, either to deprecate resort to this Court by
states for settlement of their controversies (
see New York v.
New Jersey, 256 U. S. 296,
256 U. S. 313)
or to oppose assumption of jurisdiction (
see Mr Chief
Justice Taney in
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling
Bridge Co., 13 How. 518,
54 U. S. 579,
54 U. S. 592;
in connection with the Act of August 31, 1852, 10 Stat. 112, and
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling
Bridge Co., 18 How. 421; Mr. Justice Brandeis in
Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U.
S. 553,
262 U. S.
605). [
Footnote 2/1]
The presupposition of jurisdiction in this case is the common
law doctrine of a single domiciliary status. That,
Page 306 U. S. 429
for purposes of legal rights and liabilities, a person must have
one domicile, and can have only one, is an historic rule of the
common law, and justified by much good sense. Nevertheless, it
often represents a fiction. Certainly, in many situations, the
determination of a man's domicile is by no means the establishment
of an event or a fact that exists in nature. Even assuming that
there is general agreement as to the elements which in combination
constitute domicile, a slight shift of emphasis in applying the
formula produces contradictory results. But, on the whole, the
doctrine of domicile has adequately served as a practical working
rule in the simpler societies out of which it arose. More
particularly, its difficulties of application were circumscribed
when wealth predominantly consisted of realty and tangibles, and
when restricted modes of transportation and communication
conditioned fixity of residence. In view of the enormous extent to
which intangibles now constitute wealth, and the increasing
mobility of men, particularly men of substance, the necessity of a
single headquarters for all legal purposes, particularly for
purposes of taxation, tends to be a less and less useful fiction.
In the setting of modern circumstances, the inflexible doctrine of
domicile -- one man, one home -- is in danger of becoming a social
anachronism. Recent applications and modifications of this rule to
satisfy the vague contours of the due process clause have hardly
mitigated its inadequacies for our day.
E.g., Frick v.
Pennsylvania, 268 U. S. 473;
Blodgett v. Silberman, 277 U. S. 1;
Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Minnesota, 280 U.
S. 204;
First National Bank v. Maine,
284 U. S. 312.
The facts in this case doubtless present a bizarre story. But,
in Green's peregrinations from state to state, in the multiplicity
of his residences, and in the conflicting appeals which various
states made upon his interests from
Page 306 U. S. 430
time to time, the case is hardly unique, nor are analogues to it
unlikely to appear in the future. As a result, this Court is asked
to determine the conflicting claims of different states of the
Union to a share of the estate of individuals who, as a matter of
hard fact, at different periods and contemporaneously invoked and
enjoyed such benefits as the existence of state governments confer.
It is asked to do so by applying an old doctrine of limited
validity to modern circumstances whereby, through the elusive
search for an often nonexistent fact called domicile, only one
state, to the exclusion of all others, would be allowed to levy a
tax. The inherent difficulties of this problem have been widely
recognized. [
Footnote 2/2] The old
formulas are simply inadequate to the new situation. On the other
hand, it is not for this Court in these cases of multiple
residences to evolve new taxing policies based on more equitable
considerations than the "all or nothing" consequence of the old
domiciliary rule.
I am not unaware of the dilemma presented by such a situation as
the
Dorrance litigation. [
Footnote 2/3] The circumstances attending the Green
estate do not preclude like possibilities. But, merely because no
other means than litigation have as yet been evolved to adjust the
conflicting
Page 306 U. S. 431
claims of several states in a single estate is not sufficient
reason for utilizing as a basis of our jurisdiction oversimplified
formulas of the past that have largely lost their relevance in the
contemporary context.
The controlling assumption in taking jurisdiction in this case
is that the ascertainment of a single domicile for Green is merely
the determination of a fact. The auxiliary assumption is the
existence of solid danger that the highest courts of four states
will ascertain this fact in four different ways. Texas has no
standing here except on the basis that three state courts will
despoil her of her rights by leaving no assets in the estate out of
which to satisfy her claim. But the fact that the political
officers of four states make claims to an estate so as to safeguard
any possible interest is hardly a substantial reason for assuming
that their judiciaries will sanction the claims.
It is not to be assumed that the state courts will make findings
dictated solely by fiscal advantages to their states. The contrary
assumption must be made -- and the assumption rests on adjudicated
experience --
e.g., Matter of Trowbridge, 266 N.Y. 283,
194 N.E. 756. To the extent that there is danger that, out of the
same events, four state courts will spell four different domiciles,
it is inherent in the search for a domiciliary status. The result
is arrived at not through ascertainment of an external fact, but by
attributions made as a matter of law to satisfy the supposed
abstract legal requirement of a single domicile no matter what the
actualities of human behavior may be. Even a small change of
portions in the admixture of factors which, in combination, yield
the legal concept of domicile may place the domicile in one state
rather than another, and thereby give estate duties to this state
rather than that. But the state treasuries are not alone under
powerful motives to exploit the doctrine of domicile. The tax
systems of different states have varying degrees of attraction for
those in control of an estate, and it is to
Page 306 U. S. 432
their natural interest to seek a single inclusive disposition of
the elusive issue of domicile by having the original jurisdiction
of this Court invoked.
It is hardly an answer that this Court can protect itself
against feigned controversies. The difficulty is that, in these
modern multiple residence situations, the issue of domicile is too
often an inherently feigned issue. Two state courts can very
legitimately find two different domiciles, in that two equally
competent tribunals utilizing the same outward facts in the alembic
of the same common law concept of domicile may easily distil
contradictory conclusions. Merely to avoid such a conflict is not
enough to give jurisdiction. [
Footnote
2/4] The variant that this case presents is the allegation
that, if the claims of all four states prevail, the estate would be
more than eaten up, and Texas would lose her potential right. This
added requirement -- the absorption of the entire estate by having
numerous states stake out claims -- is too readily supplied.
To extend the neat procedural device of interpleader to such a
situation is another illustration of transferring a remedy from one
legal environment to circumstances qualitatively different. To
settle the interests of different claimants to a single
res where these interests turn on narrow and relatively
few facts and where conflicting claims cannot have equal validity
in experience is one thing; it is a wholly different thing to bring
into court
Page 306 U. S. 433
in a single suit all states which even remotely might assert
domiciliary claims against a decedent and where one state court
might with as much reason as another find domicile within its
state. Certainly when the claim of the moving state is so obviously
without basis as this Court has now found in the case of Texas, the
linchpin of jurisdiction is gone, and the other states should be
remitted to appropriate remedies outside this Court. Such a
disposition would be a real safeguard against the construction of a
suit to give this Court jurisdiction over matters which, as such,
this Court has already held, are not within our province. [
Footnote 2/5] To find that the decedent
could not, on self-serving grounds, elect to make his home in Texas
"where he in fact had no residence," and yet to retain the bill and
dispose of it on its merits, amounts, in effect, to a declaration
of rights on behalf of the estate which could not be adjudicated
otherwise than through the screen of a controversy between
states.
In this case, we do not even have substantial translation into
effective legal action of the assertions by the four states of
their domiciliary claims. To be sure, the Master has found, as
summarized in the Court's opinion, "that each of the four states in
good faith asserts that the decedent was domiciled within it at his
death." This is a natural attitude of prudence on the part of law
officers of states in the case of decedents who had scattered their
lives, as well as their holdings. But to give this Court the
extraordinary jurisdiction which is invoked, there ought to be more
than these caveats. There should be manifestation of that hard
determination to press a state's claim which is implied in setting
the tax collecting machinery of a state in motion. Allegation,
affirmative proof, and finding of such attempts by the various
states are lacking. And New York denies without contradiction
Page 306 U. S. 434
that its procedure for tax levy and collection has been set in
operation. [
Footnote 2/6] These
circumstances are therefore not comparable to the issues in a
conventional interpleader suit brought to forestall conflicting
actions. Initiation of litigation is, of course, not a prerequisite
to an ordinary interpleader. This only serves to emphasize the
inappropriateness of utilizing a remedy invented to settle private
controversies of limited scope to the resolution of conflicting
governmental interests.
Jurisdictional doubts inevitably lose force once leave has been
given to file a bill, a master has been appointed, long hearings
have been held, and a weighty report has been submitted. And so,
were this the last, as well as the first, assumption of
jurisdiction by this Court of a controversy like the present, even
serious doubts about it might well go unexpressed. But, if
experience is any guide, the present decision will give momentum to
kindred litigation and reliance upon it beyond the scope of the
special facts of this case. To be sure, the Court's opinion
endeavors to circumscribe carefully the bounds of jurisdiction now
exercised. But legal doctrines have, in an odd kind of way, the
faculty of self-generating extension. Therefore, in pricking out
the lines of future development of what is new doctrine, the
importance of these issues may make it not inappropriate to
indicate difficulties which I have not been able to overcome,
and
Page 306 U. S. 435
potential abuses to which the doctrine is not unlikely to give
rise.
I am authorized to say that MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in these
views and in the conclusion that the bill should be dismissed.
[
Footnote 2/1]
The spirit in which interstate litigation should be approached
has been thus expressed by Mr. Chief Justice Fuller in
Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1,
176 U. S. 15:
"But it is apparent that the jurisdiction is of so delicate and
grave a character that it was not contemplated that it would be
exercised save when the necessity was absolute, and the matter, in
itself, properly justiciable."
[
Footnote 2/2]
Interstate Commission on Conflicting Taxation, Conflicting
Taxation (1935) 88
et seq.; compare League of Nations
Documents, E.F.S. 16 A. 16.1921; E.F.S. 73 F. 19. 1923; C. 368. M.
115.1925. II; C. 216. M. 85.1927. II; C. 345. M. 102.1928. II; C.
562. M. 178.1928. II; C. 345. M. 134, 1929. II; C. 585. M.
263.1930. II; C. 791. M. 385.1931. IIA; C. 618. M. 291.1933. IIA;
C. 118. M. 57.1936. IIA.
[
Footnote 2/3]
In re Dorrance's Estate, 309 Pa. 151, 163 A. 303,
cert. denied sub nom., Dorrance v. Pennsylvania, 287 U.S.
660, 288 U.S. 617;
New Jersey v. Pennsylvania, 287 U.S.
580;
In re Dorrance, 113 N.J.Eq. 266, 166 A. 177, 115
N.J.Eq. 268, 170 A. 601, 116 N.J.Eq. 204, 172 A. 503,
aff'd sub
nom. Dorrance v. Thayer-Martin, 176 A. 902, 13 N.J.Misc. 168,
aff'd, 116 N.J.L. 362, 184 A. 743,
cert. denied,
298 U.S. 678;
Hill v. Martin, 296 U.
S. 393.
[
Footnote 2/4]
The principle is thus formulated in the present case:
"That two or more states may each constitutionally assess death
taxes on a decedent's intangibles upon a judicial determination
that the decedent was domiciled within it in proceedings binding
upon the representatives of the estate, but to which the other
states are not parties, is an established principle of our federal
jurisprudence."
Ante, p.
306 U. S. 410.
The decision of the Court therefore binds the states upon an issue
of state law which this Court could not consider upon appeal from
the state courts, and on which this Court would be bound to follow
state law in all other proceedings instituted in the federal
courts.
[
Footnote 2/5]
See 306
U.S. 398fn2/4|>note 4,
supra.
[
Footnote 2/6]
"As yet, no one of the States has assessed and levied any death
tax against the estate, and, if the matter were left to the
ordinary procedure for the assessment of such taxes in the various
States, it is highly improbable that determinations would be made
in all of the States that Green was domiciled therein. In New York
State, the only administrative official who has authority to
determine whether or not the estate tax is assessable on the theory
that Green was a resident of the State is the Surrogate of one of
the counties, and thus far no Surrogate has acted in this
respect."
Brief for the New York, p. 2.
|
306
U.S. 398decree|
On May 15, 1939, the following decree was entered in the
above-entitled case:
DECREE
This cause came on to be heard on the pleadings, evidence, and
the exceptions filed by the parties to the Report of the Special
Master, and was argued by counsel.
The Court having dismissed Mabel Harlow Green as a party
defendant to the suit on January 17, 1938 (302 U.S. 662), pursuant
to the stipulation filed by the parties, it is now here ordered,
adjudged, and decreed as follows:
1. The Report of the Special Master is confirmed.
2. The domicile of Edward Howland Robinson Green at the time of
his death, June 8, 1936, was in fact and in law within the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and not within the State of Texas,
the State of Florida, or the State of New York.
3. The cause will be retained upon the docket for such further
action as may be necessary and proper and the parties or any of
them may at any time hereafter apply for relief as they may be
advised.
And it is further ordered that the costs in this case, including
the compensation and expenses of the Special Master shall be paid
one-fifth each by the State of Texas, State of Florida, State of
New York, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Hetty Sylvia Ann
Howland Green Wilks.