Crosby v. United States

• Decision Date: 24 March 1969
• Docket Number: No. S 68 C 10.,S 68 C 10.
• Citation: 298 F. Supp. 172
• Parties: Iva CROSBY, O. E. Critchlow, and William C. Critchlow, Executor of the Estate of Clarence A. Critchlow, Deceased, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

298 F. Supp. 172

Iva CROSBY, O. E. Critchlow, and William C. Critchlow, Executor of the Estate of Clarence A. Critchlow, Deceased, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.

No. S 68 C 10.

United States District Court E. D. Missouri, Southeastern Division.

March 24, 1969.

Blanton, Blanton & Rice, Sikeston, Mo., for plaintiffs.

James E. Reeves, U. S. Atty., E. H. Kajan, Tax Division, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

MEREDITH, District Judge.

This is a suit under 26 U.S.C. § 7422 for the recovery of estate taxes paid to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue as a result of an allegedly erroneous or illegal assessment. This Court has jurisdiction under the provisions of 28 U. S.C. § 1346. The cause was submitted on the stipulated facts, which are incorporated herein by reference, and briefs submitted by both parties. Particular facts will be set forth here only in the interest of clarity.

The estate in question is that of William C. Critchlow. William C. Critchlow and Alice E. Critchlow, his wife, owned as tenants by the entirety, four parcels of real estate located in New Madrid County, Missouri. They also owned as joint tenants certain real estate located in Phillips County, Colorado. William and Alice Critchlow executed a joint will on June 15, 1947, and executed a joint codicil thereto on September 1, 1949. Alice E. Critchlow died on August 13, 1950. The joint will was not probated, and a petition for refusal of administration of her estate for insufficiency of assets was granted by the Probate Court of Scott County, Missouri. William C. Critchlow, in 1956, executed deeds conveying the real estate to his various children as inter vivos gifts and retaining a life estate in himself. This was contrary to the provisions of the joint will and codicil executed by William and Alice before her death. William C. Critchlow died in 1962, and the joint will and codicil was probated.

The District Director of the Internal Revenue determined that 100% of the value of the above real estate should be included in the decedent's gross estate. The plaintiffs contend that only 50% of the value of the real estate should be included in the gross estate of William C. Critchlow. It is contended that the joint and mutual will of William and Alice destroyed the right of survivorship in the property held by them as tenants by the entirety, and that by the terms of the will one-half of the real estate passed upon the death of the wife. The plaintiffs contend that the wife left a life estate in one-half of the lands to the husband, with a remainder in that half of the lands vesting in the children upon her death.

Estates by the entireties are peculiar creatures of the common law. An estate by the entirety has no moieties. The husband and wife, by reason of their legal unity by marriage, take the whole estate as one person. Each spouse holds the entirety, and upon death of one the entire estate belongs to the other, not by virtue of survivorship, but by virtue of the title that vested under the original limitation. 4 Thompson, Real Property, § 1803. A tenancy by the entirety differs from a "joint tenancy where the survivor succeeds to the whole estate by right of the survivorship; in an estate by entireties the whole estate continues in the survivor. The estate remains the same as it was in the first place, except that there is only one tenant of the whole estate whereas before the death there were two." Ashbaugh v. Ashbaugh, 273 Mo. 353, 201 S.W. 72 (1918).

To destroy the tenancy by the entirety and create an estate in which one-half of the land passed under the will upon the death of the wife, as urged by the plaintiffs, would require that the estate be converted into a tenancy in common with each spouse disposing of his or her share of the property by the will. Each would then leave a life estate in one-half of the land to the surviving spouse with a remainder in their children.

This Court...