In re Collateral Inheritance Tax

• Decision Date: 11 March 1896
• Citation: 88 Me. 587,34 A. 530
• Parties: In re COLLATERAL INHERITANCE TAX. Appeal of LAMBARD.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

34 A. 530

88 Me. 587

In re COLLATERAL INHERITANCE TAX. Appeal of LAMBARD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 11, 1896.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Kennebec county.

Appeal by Orville D. Lainbard from a decree of the probate court of Kennebec county declaring an estate subject to the collateral inheritance tax. On appeal to the supreme court sitting as the supreme probate court the decree was reversed. The state excepts. Exceptions overruled.

Lemuel Titeomb, for appellant.

George W. Heselton, Co. Atty., for the State.

WHITEHOUSE, J. The only question presented by the exceptions in this case is whether the act of the legislature which took effect on its approval, the 9th day of February, 1893, entitled "An act to tax collateral inheritances" (chapter 146, Pub. Laws 1893), applies to property collaterally devised by a testator who died before the act took effect, but whose will was not filed in the probate court until after the act took effect.

Julia E. Johnson died in Paris, France, on the 25th day of October, 1892, leaving a will by which certain real estate in Augusta, Me., was devised to the appellant. This will was filed in the probate court for Kennebec county on the 5th day of June, and admitted to probate on the fourth Monday of June, 1893.

On appeal from the probate court below, the presiding justice in this court ruled that the act of the legislature above specified was not intended to have, and does not have, a retroactive effect, so as to apply to any property which passed by the will of a testator who died prior to the 9th day of February, 1893, and that the property devised to the appellant by the will of Julia E. Johnson is not subject to a tax under the act in question.

The case comes to the law court on exceptions taken to this ruling by the county attorney, that official being expressly charged in the act with the duty of "representing the interests of the state in such proceedings."

It is the opinion of the court that this ruling was correct.

It is said, indeed, in behalf of the state, that there is no constitutional inhibition against the taxation of estates undistributed, even if the act is passed subsequently to the death of the testator; and the authority of Carpenter v. Com., 17 How. 462, is cited in support of this proposition. In that case it was said by the court that, while it is in some sense true that the rights of a donee under a will are vested at the death of the testator, nevertheless the rights of such a donee "are subordinate to the conditions, formalities, and administrative control prescribed by the state in the interest of its public order, and are only irrevocably established upon its abdication of this control at the period of distribution; and if, during this period of administration and control by its tribunals and their appointees, the state thinks fit to impose a tax upon the property, there is no obstacle in the constitution and laws of the United States to prevent it."

But whether the act would have been obnoxious to any constitutional objection if it had been the purpose of the legislature, unequivocally expressed in the act, to bring within the scope of its provisions all estates for the settlement of which proceedings had not been commenced in the probate court February 9, 1893, the court is not here required to determine. The facts of this case do not necessarily present an inquiry into the constitutional limitations of the act, but a question involving the intention of the legislature respecting its operation upon the estates of those who died prior to the date of the approval.

It is undoubtedly a well-settled general rule that acts of the legislature will not be so construed as to have a retrospective operation unless the legislature has explicitly declared its intention that they should have that effect, or such intention clearly appears by necessary implication from the terms employed, considered in relation to the subject-matter, the present state of the law, the object sought to be accomplished, and the effect upon existing rights and obligations. Moon v. Durden, 2 Exch. 22; Reg. v. Guardians, 2 Q. B. Div. 269; Gardiner v. Lucas, 3 App. Cas. 582. Indeed, this rule against retroactive laws is not only of very early origin in the English law, but was recognized as a part of the Roman law. "Leges et constitutiones futuris certumest dare formam negotiis, non ad facta præterita revocari, nisi nominatim et de prseterito tempore et adhuc pendentibus negotiis cau-tuni sit." Codex, lib. 1, tit. 14, 7. It is also declared to be the settled doctrine of the...