JC Pitman & Sons, Inc. v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 May 1963
• Docket Number: No. 302-59.,302-59.
• Citation: 161 Ct. Cl. 701,317 F.2d 366
• Parties: J. C. PITMAN & SONS, INC. v. The UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

161 Ct. Cl. 701, 317 F.2d 366 (1963)

J. C. PITMAN & SONS, INC. v. The UNITED STATES.

No. 302-59.

United States Court of Claims.

May 10, 1963.

Charles H. Burton, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff; Stanley M. Brown and G. Marshall Abbey, Manchester, N. H., on the brief.

Mitchell Samuelson, Washington, D. C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. Louis F. Oberdorfer, for defendant; Edward S. Smith, Lyle M. Turner and Earl L. Huntington, Washington, D. C., on the brief.

Before JONES, Chief Judge, and WHITAKER, LARAMORE, DURFEE and DAVIS, Judges.

JONES, Chief Judge.

This is a suit for the recovery of taxes in the amount of $14,632.04¹ paid by plaintiff, J. C. Pitman & Sons, Inc., on behalf of another corporation.

Plaintiff is a New Hampshire corporation engaged in the manufacture and sale of restaurant equipment. It is the successor company to a Massachusetts corporation of the same name. In 1945, John C. Pitman, plaintiff's majority stockholder, acquired the exclusive right to purchase all products manufactured by plaintiff for a specified period. He subsequently formed the J. C. Pitman & Sons Sales Corporation and transferred to it the exclusive sales franchise. Although that corporation bore almost the same name as plaintiff, it was not in a parent-subsidiary relationship with that corporation. However, the stockholders, officers, and directors of the two corporations were the same, among whom was C. Carroll Cunningham, general counsel and trustee of voting trusts of all the stock in both companies.

Among Cunningham's diverse powers and responsibilities was the duty to attend to tax matters affecting either or both of the companies. It was for that reason that he undertook the responsibility for attending to a tax deficiency notice mailed to the sales corporation from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue on June 25, 1951, relating to taxes assessed against that company for the years 1945, 1946, and 1947. Certain deficiencies had also been assessed against the plaintiff corporation for roughly the same period.

For reasons best known to Mr. Cunningham, but apparently to protect his own interests, he informed the directors of plaintiff company that to the extent that the sales corporation did not have sufficient funds to defray its tax deficiencies, it would be necessary for plaintiff to pay them. He further informed the directors that this arrangement was binding upon them as a result of an agreement which he had reached with the Internal Revenue Service relating to the tax liabilities of both corporations. There is no substantial evidence, however, that any such understanding had in fact been reached.

Since the sales corporation had ceased to do business in 1950 (but with formal liquidation postponed pending the settlement of tax questions), it did not have the funds available with which to discharge these obligations. Thus plaintiff, responding to Mr. Cunningham's representation, paid the amounts which it now seeks to recover, and advised the Internal Revenue Service that such payments were for the benefit of the sales corporation.

Plaintiff contends that it discharged the tax liabilities of the sales corporation under the mistake of fact that an agreement had been made with the Internal Revenue Service that legally obligated plaintiff to make payment. This mistake, plaintiff says, was induced by the fraud of its attorneys. Plaintiff avers that the disputed sums were accepted by agents of the Government with knowledge of the circumstances under which they were paid. In making these allegations plaintiff is founding its case on the provisions of Title 28 United States Code, giving this court jurisdiction to render judgment on any claim arising from an "implied contract with the United States."²

Defendant, on the other hand, argues that the petition alleges a contract implied in law, over which this court has no jurisdiction; but should it appear that the court does have jurisdiction in the instant case, then plaintiff's petition must be denied because any payment made by plaintiff was voluntary in so far as the United States is concerned.

The defendant also takes the position that this action is barred because it is essentially one for the refund of taxes within the meaning of section 7422(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and because the petition was not filed in a timely fashion.³

It is manifest that if this case is a suit for a tax refund it is barred by plaintiff's failure to file a timely claim for refund. Plaintiff therefore grounds its entire case on the claim of an implied contract. The plaintiff's brief and a considerable portion of defendant's brief are devoted to this issue. In these circumstances we have no choice but to discuss it, since the other issue is practically conceded.

As we understand defendant's position, it is that if plaintiff is not acting as a volunteer in paying these taxes (and plaintiff claims that it is not) then plaintiff must of necessity be a taxpayer who must seek his relief by claiming a refund under section 7422(a). This very question of whether plaintiff was a volunteer lies at the heart of this case regardless of whether the action is given a label of "tax refund" or "contract." Since plaintiff has chosen the ground on which to proceed, we will consider the case in terms of the allegations; thus, the question is whether the petition, fairly construed, sets forth that kind of a contract for which this court will grant relief, and, if so, whether the record before us justifies such relief in this case.

At the outset, we are faced with a technical dichotomy between contracts implied in fact and contracts implied in law. It has been said that this court has no jurisdiction to render judgment in the latter.⁴ Under the traditional conception, a contract implied in fact is a real contract in the usual sense, although there may have been no actual worded "agreement." It is drawn out by the trier of fact when the circumstances warrant him to conclude (particularly from the conduct of the parties) that there exists the legal equivalent of mutual consent. In other words, a contract implied in fact is a promise implied by the law. By way of contrast, a contract implied in law is an obligation imposed by the law. As stated by Lord Mansfield:

"If the defendant be under an obligation, from the ties of natural justice, to refund; the law implies a debt, and gives this action founded in the equity of the plaintiff\'s case, as it were upon a contract." Moses v. Macferlan, 2 Burr. 1005, 97 Eng. Rep. 676 (K.B. 1760).

The "ties of natural justice" of which he spoke do not, however, impose an obligation for the protection of a mere volunteer.⁵ As Lord Mansfield saw it, a contract implied in law is neither contract nor tort, but a third category entirely different in nature.

In the instant case it would be quite simple to be enticed, by certain language dredged from the record, into relegating the case into one category of implied contract or the other, depending upon whether the language were suggested by plaintiff or defendant. To do so, however, would be to permit ourselves to jump to the conclusion while being drawn away from the clear facts of the case. Clearing away the verbiage, it is apparent that the success of plaintiff's claim rests on its ability to bring the case within the scope of one of two groups of cases in which this court has granted relief upon an implied contract.

Typical of the first group⁶ relied upon by plaintiff is United States v. State Nat. Bank, 96 U.S. 30, 24 L.Ed. 647 (1877). In that case the cashier of a United States Subtreasury in Boston engaged in a fraud upon the plaintiff to conceal the fact that he had embezzled a large amount of Federal money. The Supreme Court held that where the money of an innocent person is received by the United States by means of a fraud to which its agent was a party, such money cannot be held against the claim of the wronged party. The fraud of the agent was the essential element because it was that fraud which constituted such duress upon the money of the plaintiff as to render his payments involuntary. A second type of case in which this court has taken jurisdiction is illustrated by Kirkendall v. United States, 31 F.Supp. 766, 90 Ct.Cl. 606 (1940),⁷ where the Government illegally seized the plaintiff's money and applied it to the tax liability of another. In that instance...