Spokane County v. United States, 164

• Decision Date: 08 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 164,164
• Citation: 49 S.Ct. 321,279 U.S. 80,73 L.Ed. 621
• Parties: SPOKANE COUNTY et al. v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

279 U.S. 80

49 S.Ct. 321

73 L.Ed. 621

SPOKANE COUNTY et al.

v UNITED STATES.

No. 164.

Argued Feb. 20, 21, 1929.

Decided April 8, 1929.

Messrs. Charles W. Greenough and A. O. Colburn, both of Spokane, Wash., for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 80-85 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question of the priority of payment of debts due to the United States over those due to a state or its agencies against the same found for state taxes, under section 3466 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (31 USCA § 191).

In August, 1922, a receiver for the Culton-Moylan-Reilly Auto Company, an insolvent corporation, was appointed by the superior court of Spokane county, Washington. Under the order of the court the receiver sold the personal property of the corporation and reduced the same to cash, which he held for distribution. On March 1, 1921, and March 1, 1922, Spokane and Whitman counties, of the state of Washington, had assessed against the personal property of the company the total amounts of $6,195.38 and $410.36 respectively, but the taxes were not paid and the proceeds of the subsequent sale of assets by the receiver were deposited in court. On September 23, 1924, Spokane county assessed the money in the hands of the receiver for the years 1923 and 1924, and levied taxes thereupon in the total amount of $1,390.10. On December 20, 1926, Spokane county made a further assessment and levy on the moneys in the hands of the receiver for the years 1925 and 1926 in the total amount of $1,229.52.

The United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue, on February 28, 1923, and May 2, 1923, assessed federal income taxes and penalties for the years 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920 in the total amount of $70,268.58. But none of these taxes or penalties were paid.

The funds in the hands of the receiver are insufficient to pay in full the claims of the United States, and Spokane and Whitman counties. By proper pleadings, issues were made presenting the question of the comparative priorities in distribution of the fund in his hands. The superior court held that the two counties were entitled to priority not only as to the county taxes levied against the corporation but for the county taxes for 1923-1926 assessed on the money in the receiver's hands. On an appeal to the Supreme Court of Washington, the judgment was reversed and priority awarded to the United States. Exchange Nat. Bank of Spokane v. U. S., 147 Wash. 176, 265 P. 722.

Section 3466 of the Revised Statutes provides in part that 'whenever any person indebted to the United States is insolvent, or whenever the estate of any deceased debtor, in the hands of the executors or administrators, is insufficient to pay all the debts due from the deceased, the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied.'

The Constitution (article 1, § 8) provides that Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry this and its other powers into execution. Article 6 of the Constitution declares that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land.

The constitutional validity of the priority of claims of the United States against insolvent debtors, declared in section 3466, was established by this court very early in the history of the government. United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, 2 L. Ed. 304. But it was not established, as between debts owing to the states and debts owing to the United States, until after a critical controversy between those who looked to the maintenance of the supremacy of the national government and those who were anxious to sustain undiminished the power of the states.

Section 3466, R. S., was section 5 of an act entitled 'An act to provide more effectually for the settlement of accounts between the United States, and receivers of public money,' enacted in 1797 (chapter 20, 1 Stat. 515). It was amended by an act of 1799 (section 65, c. 22, 1 Stat. 676).

The language has been varied very little since these original enactments. The whole act of 1797 come up for consideration in United States v. Fisher. There seems to have been a division among the judges. Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the court, which upheld the priority of the United States as against the claims of the states, and held that the act extended not only to revenue officers and persons accountable for public money, but to debtors generally. The Chief Justice said (page 396):

'If the act has attempted to give the United States a preference in the case before the court, it remains to inquire whether the Constitution obstructs its operation. * * *

'The government is to pay the debt of the Union, and must be authorized to use the means which appear to itself most eligible to effect that object. It has consequently a right to make remittances by bills or otherwise and to take those precautions which will render the transaction safe.

'This claim of priority on the part of the United States will, it has been said, interfere with the right of the state sovereignties respecting the dignity of debts, and will defeat the measures they have a right to adopt to secure themselves against delinquencies on the part of their own revenue officers.

'But this is an objection to the Constitution itself. The mischief suggested, so far as it can really happen, is the necessary consequence of the supremacy of the laws of the United States on all subjects to which the legislative power of Congress extends.'

This case was decided in 1805. Later that year the question arose in a Pennsylvania state court. United States v. Nicholls, 4 Yeates, 251. Nicholls was indebted to the United States, and on June 9, 1798, executed a mortgage to the United States supervisor of the revenue for the use of the United States. There was a levy upon the lands of Nicholls, and they were sold for $14,530. The money was deposited in the hands of the prothonotary of the court, subject to the court's order. Nicholls made an assignment for the benefit of his creditors, and a commission of bankruptcy issued against him. The Attorney General relied on this same fifth section of the act of 1797, and the issue arose whether, in the distribution of that fund, the laws of Pennsylvania giving a preference to that state in the payment should prevail over the federal act of 1797. Mr. Justice Yeates, speaking for the court, said (page 259):

'Congress have the concurrent right of passing laws to protect the interest of the Union, as to debts due to the government of the United States arising from the public revenue; but in so doing, they cannot detract from the uncontrollable power of individual states to raise their own revenue, nor infringe on, or derogate from the sovereignty of any independent state. * * * The rights of the general government to priority of payment, and the rights of individual states, are contemplated as subsisting at the same time, and as perfectly compatible with each other. This only can be effected by giving preference to each existing lien, according to its due priority in point of time. I know of no other mode whereby the several conflicting claims can with justice be protected and secured.'

The colleagues of Judge Yeates concurred with him, but one of them expressed regret that the opinion in the Fisher Case, supra, delivered previously, had not been furnished for comparison. The decisions in the Fisher and the Nicholls Cases created much popular excitement, and, united with other issues of a similar character as between the supporters of the federal government and the state governments, led to much concern over the open defiance of the decision of this court, until the issues were disposed of in the case of United States v. Judge Peters, 5 Cranch, 115, 3 L. Ed. 53. See the account of the litigation in Charles Warren's Supreme Court in United States History, vol. 1, 372, 538 et seq. Four years after the decision in the Nicholls Case, a review of that case was sought in this court on a writ of error. When it came to be heard after nine years more of inaction, it was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, on the ground that the record did not disclose the insolvency of the debtor, so as to make section 3466 applicable, and thus was eliminated the federal question. 4 Wheat. 311, 4 L. Ed. 578.

No question of the construction of section 3466 seems to have come before this court again until, in Field v. United States, 9 Pet. 182, 9 L. Ed. 94, it was sought to make certain trustees liable from their own funds, because they had made disbursements out of a bankrupt's estate, as to which the United States was entitled to priority. It was objected that the distribution had been made under order of the parish court in an action in which the United States was not a party. This court held that the United States was not bound to become a party and said, at page 201:

'The local laws of the state could not, and did not, bind them (the United States) in their rights. They could not create a priority in favor of other creditors, in cases of insolvency, which should supersede that of the United States.'

The power of the Congress of the United States in giving preference to the debts of the government of the United States over those of the separate states is very clearly brought out in Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 19 L. Ed. 101, which may well be referred to here, because there are some expressions in that opinion which, taken away from their context, have been used to give an erroneous view.

After discussing the taxing powers of the national and state governments, the court, speaking by Chief Justice Chase, said of the state power of taxation (at page 77):

'It is indeed a concurrent power, and in the case of a tax on the same subject by both governments, the claim of the United States, as the supreme...