Bouse, for Use of State, v. Hull

• Decision Date: 15 January 1935
• Docket Number: 54.
• Citation: 176 A. 645,168 Md. 1
• Parties: BOUSE, REGISTER OF WILLS, FOR USE OF STATE, v. HULL ET AL.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

176 A. 645

168 Md. 1

BOUSE, REGISTER OF WILLS, FOR USE OF STATE, v. HULL ET AL.

No. 54.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 15, 1935

Appeal from Superior Court of Baltimore City; Albert S. J. Owens Judge.

Action by John H. Bouse, Register of Wills of Baltimore City, for the Use of the State, against Thomas Burling Hull and another, executors of the will of Anne W. Janney.Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, OFFUTT, and SLOAN, JJ.

Willis R. Jones, Deputy Atty. Gen. (Wm. Preston Lane, Jr., Atty Gen., on the brief), for appellant.

John C Paterson, of Baltimore (Thomas Burling Hull, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

OFFUTT Judge.

Anne W Janney, a resident of Baltimore city, died on January 30, 1933, leaving a last will which was probated in the orphans' court of that city on February 7, 1933.In that will she left to the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends $5,000; to the American Friends' Service Committee $5000; and to the Corporation Trustees of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends $2,000.Each of those legatees by a formal and effective written renunciation filed in the orphans' court renounced the legacy thus made to it.As a result of the renunciations, the legacies fell into the residuum of the estate and passed to direct descendants of the testatrix, under the residuary clause in the will.

Notwithstanding those renunciations, John H. Bouse, the register of wills of Baltimore city, acting for and on behalf of the state of Maryland, claimed that the estate and the executors of the will were "liable to the payment" of the state collateral inheritance tax on those legacies.The executors denied that they were subject to any such liability, and on June 5, 1934, the register of wills commenced this action in the superior court of Baltimore city to recover the tax so claimed.

It was tried as a "Special Case Stated" before the court sitting as a jury, who, at the conclusion of the trial, found a verdict for the defendant, upon which the judgment from which this appeal was taken was entered.

The only question presented by the appeal is whether the legacies described above are subject to the collateral inheritance tax imposed by CodeSupp. 1929, art. 81, § 105, notwithstanding the fact that each of the three legatees effectively renounced the legacy left to it.

So much of the statute as is material to that question reads as follows: "All estates, real, personal and mixed, * * * passing from any person who may die seised and possessed thereof, being in this State, either by will or under the intestate laws of this State, or any part of such estate or estates, money or securities, or interest therein, transferred by deed, grant, bargain, gift or sale, made or intended to take effect in possession after the death of the grantor, bargainor, devisor or donor, to any person or persons, or bodies corporate, in trust or otherwise, other than to or for the use of the father, mother, husband, wife, children and lineal descendants of the grantor, bargainor or testator, donor or intestate shall be subject to a tax of five per centum in every hundred dollars of the clear value of such estate."

The appellant contends that the effect of the will was to "pass" the legacies to the several legatees, and that the several renunciations respectively made by them operated as a "reconveyance of the legacies to the direct descendants of the decedent."The appellee asserts the converse of that theory.

By the terms of the statute, the tax is imposed on an estate which in fact passes to a person other than one falling within the classes excepted from its operation.The determination of the question is controlled, therefore, by the meaning to be given to the word "passing."If a legacy passes upon the mere probate of a valid will in which it is made, obviously it is subject to the tax; if it does not so pass, it is not subject to the tax.

It is settled law that a devisee may renounce a devise.Ordinarily, where the devise is beneficial to him, it will be presumed that he accepted it, Chilcoat v. Reid,154 Md. 385, 140 A. 100, but the presumption is a rebuttable one, and, where it is sufficiently shown that the devisee effectively renounced the legacy, the presumption is completely destroyed.In such a case, the devise remains in the body of the estate, and its subsequent devolution is controlled by the terms of the will or the law of descent and distribution as the case may be.Woerner on Am. Law of Administration, pp. 1479, 1495;Wolfe's Estate, 89 A.D. 349, 85 N.Y.S. 949, affirmedId., 179 N.Y. 599, 72 N.E. 1152.The principle thus stated with respect to devises applies with at least equal force to legacies.Id.

But, while it is not disputed that a devisee or legatee under a will may renounce the legacy or devise, it is contended that his renunciation does not prevent the gift from becoming consummate upon the death of the testator, and that, since that is true, it "passes" within the meaning of the statute to the beneficiary, and at once becomes subject to the tax.

Such a construction of the statute is not only strained and artificial, but is consistent neither with common sense nor the apparent intent of the Legislature.

The first and most important rule of statutory construction, and one to which all other rules and considerations must yield, is that which imposes the obligation of ascertaining and giving effect to the legislative intent.In searching for that intent, the words employed in the statute are to be given their "plain, ordinary and natural import,"Levering v. Park Comm'rs,134 Md. 54, 106 A. 176, 4 A. L. R. 374;Overton v. Harrington,126 Md. 35, 94 A. 325;Purnell v. Shriver,125 Md. 271, 93 A. 518, unless a different meaning is clearly indicated by the context and purpose of the statute.The natural and ordinary meaning of the verb "pass" as used in the statute is equivalent to, and synonymous with "transfer,"Bank of Commerce, etc., v. McLemore, 162 Tenn. 137, 35 S.W.2d 31, 32, and, under the principle invoked in Levering v. Park Comm'rs, supra, the tax created is only imposed in cases where the estate has actually been transferred or has passed.But, if the beneficiary is at liberty to accept or reject the gift, it never is transferred to him and never does pass to him under the will, if he refuses to accept it.To hold otherwise would be to say that, while he may refuse to accept, whether he accepts it or not, the title to the gift vests in him by the concurrent operation of the will and the law, at the death of the testator.If that were true, it is clear that the right of such a beneficiary to renounce the gift might depend upon the rights of others, as for instance creditors, rather than upon his own will or purpose, but no case has been called to our attention in which that has been held.On the contrary, the weight of authority supports the rule that, where a legatee or devisee renounces a devise or legacy made to him in a will, without having previously done anything inconsistent with such renunciation, the gift is not completed, and does not therefore pass to the legatee or devisee, Albany Hospital v. Albany Guardian Society,214 N.Y. 435, 108 N.E. 812, Ann. Cas. 1916D, 1196, 1199, and that he takes no interest in the property devised or bequeathed which is subject to be seised or taken in satisfaction of claims against him.

In Bradford v. Calhoun,120 Tenn. 53, 109 S.W. 502, 504, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 598, it is said: "It is optionary with the devisee to accept the devise, however beneficial it may be to him; and when he elects to renounce, before any act on his part indicating an acceptance, his renunciation shall relate back, and will be held to have been made at the time of the gift, and will displace any levy of creditors that may in the meantime have been made."

Some early English and some American cases reviewed in Welch v. Sackett,12 Wis. 243, announced the difficult doctrine that property may be granted or otherwise transferred, not only without the consent or even the knowledge of the transferee, but against his will.The invention of that doctrine, it is said in the case last cited, is attributable to Justice Ventris, who stated it as a minority view in Thompson v. Leach, 2 Vent. 198 about 1690.But the more logical, and what has come to be widely accepted as the sounder, view, is that stated in Townson v. Tickell, 3 B. & Ald. 37, that "an estate cannot be forced on a man.A devise, however,...