In re Strunk's Estate

• Decision Date: 24 March 1952
• Docket Number: 7902
• Citation: 87 A.2d 485,369 Pa. 478
• Parties: In re STRUNK'S ESTATE. Appeal of BERKS COUNTY TRUST CO. Appeal of IREY (three cases).
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

87 A.2d 485

369 Pa. 478

In re STRUNK'S ESTATE. Appeal of BERKS COUNTY TRUST CO. Appeal of IREY (three cases).

No. 7902

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

March 24, 1952

Argued January 9, 1952

Appeals, Nos. 51 to 55, inclusive, Jan. T., 1952, from decree of Orphans' Court of Berks County in Estate File No 21330, in Estate of Milton R. Strunk, deceased. Drcree affirmed.

Appeal by remaindermen from inheritance tax appraisement.

Appeal dismissed and final decree entered, opinion by MARX, P.J Remaindermen appealed.

Decree affirmed; costs to be paid by appellants.

George B. Balmer, with him Aaron A. Brumbach and Snyder, Balmer & Kershner, for appellants.

Francis J. Gafford, Deputy Attorney General, with him Frederick J. Bertolet and Robert E Woodside, Attorney General, for appellee.

Before DREW, C.J., STERN, STEARNE, BELL, CHIDSEY and MUSMANNO, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE HORACE STERN

The testator, in 1935, bequeathed an interest in remainder to children of his adopted child. Was the legacy subject to Pennsylvania transfer inheritance tax at the rate of two per cent or at the rate of ten per cent? From the decision of the court below that the Commonwealth was entitled to the ten per cent tax the legatees appeal.

Our first inheritance tax statute, that of April 7, 1826, P.L. 227, provided that all estates passing by will or under the intestate laws "other than to or for the use of father, mother, husband, wife, children, and lineal descendants born in lawful wedlock", should be subject to a tax at the rate of 2 1/2 per cent on the clear value of such estates. The transfer inheritance tax act presently in force, namely, that of June 20, 1919, P.L. 521, article 1, section 2, provides that "All taxes imposed by this act shall be at the rate of two per centum upon the clear value of the property subject to such tax passing to or for the use of father, mother, husband, wife, children, lineal descendants born in lawful wedlock, legally adopted children, children of a former husband or wife, or the wife or widow of the son, of a person dying seized or possessed thereof,. ..; and at the rate of five per centum [amended by the Act of May 4, 1921, P.L. 341 to the rate of ten per centum] upon the clear value of the property subject to such tax passing to or for the use of any other person or persons, bodies corporate or politic;...."

Appellants insist that they come within the term "lineal descendants born in lawful wedlock". This contention must be rejected when viewed in the light either of the ordinary meaning of the term "lineal descendants" or the interpretation consistently given to it by previous decisions of our appellate courts.

Standard dictionaries define "descendant" as "one who is descended, as issue, lineally from another, however remotely"; ^[1] "one who descends, as offspring, however remotely;" ^[2] "one who 'descends' or is descended from an ancestor; issue, offspring (in any degree near or remote)." ^[3] The word "lineal" is defined as "of the nature of an ancestral line or lineage"; ^[1] "in the line of succession through lineage;" ^[2] while "lineage" is defined as "ancestral line of consanquinity; pedigree;" ^[1] "lineal descent from an ancestor; ancestry, pedigree." ^[3] It is obvious that all these definitions involve the inherent concept of offspring in the line of generation, that is, descendants who proceed in direct line by birth from the ancestor. Therefore a stranger in blood is not a lineal descendant.

While appellants must, of course, concede that the term "lineal descendants" as employed in the earlier acts of assembly must have been understood and intended by the legislature as bearing this generally accepted meaning, they contend that because a subsequent succession of statutes gradually raised the status of adopted children for inheritance purposes to that of natural children the term should be construed, as of the time of decedent's death, to include the children of his adopted child. They point to the fact that even in our first adoption statute, the Act of May 4, 1855, P.L. 430, section 7, it was provided that an adopted child should have all the rights of a child and heir of the adopting parent; that the same provision was contained in the adoption Act of April 4, 1925, P.L. 127, section 4; that in the Act of May 28, 1915, P.L. 580, it was provided that the "said adopting parent and said child shall, respectively, inherit and take by devolution from and through each other personal estate as next of kin, and real estate as heirs in fee simple, or otherwise, under the intestate laws of this Commonwealth, as fully as if the person adopted had been born a lawful child of the adopting parent"; and that the Intestate Act of June 7, 1917, P.L. 429, section 16 (a), contained this same provision and added thereto a clause (b) that "The person adopted shall, for all purposes of inheritance and taking by devolution, be a member of the family of the adopting parent or parents." However, while these statutes progressively enlarged the rights of adopted children to inherit from and through their adopting parent, they could not, of course, actually make such children children of his blood and therefore his "lineal descendants." What they accomplished was to establish a certain relation between the adopted child, the adopting parent, and their respective relatives, for specified purposes, but nowhere therein is there any suggestion of an intention to affect the Commonwealth in regard to its tax legislation. As the Commonwealth properly contends, adoption creates an artificial relation between the adopting parent and the adopted child conferring certain rights and imposing certain duties upon each, but in respect to the Commonwealth's tax laws it is without effect in the absence of express provision to the contrary.

In Commonwealth v. Nancrede, 32 Pa. 389, it was held that the Act of May 4, 1855 P.L. 430, section 7 giving to an adopted child all the rights of a child to inherit from the adopting parent, did not exempt it from the payment of the collateral inheritance tax. Chief Justice LOWRIE there said: "... we cannot suppose that our law of adoption was intended to change in any respect the law relating to collateral inheritance taxes. It is properly devised or descending to children and lineal descendants that is exempt from the tax.... Giving an adopted son a right to inherit does not make him a son in fact. And he is so regarded in law, only to give the right to inherit, and not to change the collateral inheritance tax law. As against that law, he has no higher merit than collateral blood relations of the deceased, and is not at all to be regarded as a son in fact." In The Commonwealth's Appeal, Avery's Estate, 34 Pa. 204, 206, the Nancrede case was cited with approval; referring to it and other authorities, the court said: "The artificial relation thus created was undoubtedly good as to all but the Commonwealth, but she did not choose to recognize it as equivalent to the natural relation when it conflicted with her claim to revenue. The cases point to the duty of looking to the real relations of the parties in ascertaining who may be subject to the payment of this kind of tax." To the same effect is the case of Schafter v. Eneu, 54 Pa. 304, 306, where it was said: "Adopted children are not children of the person by whom they have been adopted, and the Act of Assembly does not attempt the impossibility of making them such.... The right to inherit from the adopting parent is made complete, but the identity of the child is not changed. One adopted has the rights of a child without being a child." Other decisions of this and the Superior Court have followed in the same vein: Tharp v. Commonwealth, 58 Pa. 500; Commonwealth v. Ferguson, 137 Pa. 595, 601, 20 A. 870, 871, ("That a legacy given to an adopted child who stands in the place of an heir would be subject to this tax, is too plain for argument. The reason is that he is...