Miles v. Graham

• Decision Date: 01 June 1925
• Docket Number: No. 53,53
• Parties: MILES v. GRAHAM
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

268 U.S. 501

45 S.Ct. 601

69 L.Ed. 1067

MILES

v GRAHAM.

No. 53.

Argued March 16, 1925.

Decided June 1, 1925.

Mr. James M. Beck, Sol. Gen., of Washington, D. C., and The Attorney General, for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Wm. L. Marbury and Wm. L. Rawls, both of Baltimore, Md., for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 502-504 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The defendant in error is a judge of the Court of Claims. He assumed the duties of that office September 1, 1919, when the statute (Act Feb. 25, 1919, c. 29, 40 Stat. 1156 1157) declared that judges of that court should be entitled to receive 'an annual salary of $7,500, payable monthly from the treasury.' He was required to pay to plaintiff in error, Collector of Internal Revenue, the income taxes for 1919 and 1920 prescribed by 'An act to provide revenue, and for other purposes,' approved February 24, 1919 [the Revenue Act of 1918] c. 18, 40 Stat. 1057. In computing these his judicial salary was treated as part of his 'gross income.'

'Sec. 213. That for the purposes of this title (except as otherwise provided in section 233) the term 'gross income'——

'(a) Includes gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service (including in the case of the President of the United States, the judges of the Supreme and inferior courts of the United States, and all other officers and employees, whether elected or appointed, of the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, the compensation received as such), of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever. * * *' Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 6336 1/8 ff.

After payment and the necessary preliminary steps, he instituted this proceeding to recover, upon the ground that the exactions on account of his salary were without authority of law. Judgment went for him in the trial court. It was there said:

'Unless he was taxable under the [Revenue] Act of 1918 [approved February 24, 1919] he was not taxable at all. If he is taxable under the statute, he is so by virtue of a clause which applies to all the federal judges, irrespective of the time they came upon the bench. That clause as written has been held invalid. * * * When the clause which has been declared invalid is out of the act, no other imposes the tax. What the court here is asked to do is to rewrite the pertinent portion of the statute in question so that it will read as did the provisions of the Acts of 1913 and 1916 relative to this general subject. But that would be for the court to do what Congress expressly decided not to do. With its eyes wide open to the possible consequences, it made up its mind to seek uniformity by imposing the tax upon all judges. Whether it would or would not have been willing to tax the minority, if the majority were immune, nobody knows, perhaps not even the members of that Congress itself, for upon that question they never were called upon to make up their minds.'

Plaintiff in error now insists that, although the challenged provision of the Act of February 24, 1919, has been adjudged invalid as to all judges who took office prior to that date, it is obligatory upon those thereafter appointed.

Section 1, art. 3, of the Constitution provides:

'The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.'

Evans v. Gore, 253 U. S. 245, 40 S. Ct. 550, 64 L. Ed. 887, 11 A. L. R. 519, arose out of the claim that Judge Evans was liable for the tax upon his salary as prescribed by the act now under consideration, although appointed before its enactment. We there gave much consideration to the purpose, history, and meaning of the above-quoted section of the Constitution and, among other things, said:

'These considerations make it very plain, as we think, that the primary purpose of the prohibition against diminution was not to benefit the...