Nickel v. Cole Same v. State of Nevada, s. 268

• Decision Date: 25 April 1921
• Docket Number: 269,Nos. 268,s. 268
• Citation: 256 U.S. 222,41 S.Ct. 467,65 L.Ed. 900
• Parties: NICKEL et al. v. COLE, State Controller. SAME v. STATE OF NEVADA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

256 U.S. 222

41 S.Ct. 467

65 L.Ed. 900

NICKEL et al.

v COLE, State Controller.

SAME

v. STATE OF NEVADA.

Nos. 268, 269.

Argued March 24, 1921.

Decided April 25, 1921.

Messrs. Edward F. Treadwell, of San Francisco, Cal., and Azro E. Cheney, of Reno, Nev., for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Leonard B. Fowler, of Carson City, Nev., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

The first of these suits was brought by the Controller of Nevada to collect a transfer tax alleged to be due under a statute of Nevada approved on March 26, 1913, to take effect thirty days from that date. Nevada Stats. of 1913, c. 266, p. 411. The second suit was brought to quiet title to the shares of stock in respect of which the tax was assessed—to establish that there was no lien upon or claim against them for the tax. The two cases were heard together in the state courts and here upon the same facts. The Supreme Court of Nevada held that the tax was due and decided in favor of the State. The parties on the other side had set up and claimed immunity under the Constitution of the United States, especially the Fourteenth Amendment, and brought the cases here by writ of error. By way of caution they also filed a petition for certiorari which has not yet been passed upon by this Court.

The facts are these: Henry Miller, a resident of California, was the owner of 119,875.75 shares of the stock of Miller & Lux, Incorporated, a Nevada corporation. Miller & Lux, Incorporated, owned the stock of the Pacific Live Stock Company, a California corporation, and the latter owned real estate and personal property in Nevada appraised at $1,431,236.86. On April 17, 1913, after the above mentioned statute had been passed but before it went into operation, Miller in California made a will, and at the same time a deed of trust conveying his stock to the plaintiffs in error, in trust for himself for life and after his death upon limitations similar to those in his will—any payment under the will to be in satisfaction of the provisions both in the will and in the deed. The deed contained no power of revocation. The stock was endorsed and delivered to the trustees and thereafter was retained by them. Miller died on October 14, 1916. The statute imposes a tax upon the transfer of all property which shall pass in trust or otherwise by will or by statutes of inheritance or by deed or gift made without valuable and adequate consideration in contemplation of the death of the grantor or donor, or to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after such death.

The plaintiffs in error admit that if the statute had been in operation at the time of the transfer the tax would have been due, so that it is not necessary to go into further particulars about the act. But they say that the interest of the remaindermen after the death of Miller vested upon the execution of the deed and that therefore the statute did not apply to them, and could not do so consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

We shall not discuss the postulate of the argument for the plaintiffs in error—the notion that a tax upon transfers imposed by a statute passed after the transfers had taken place would be void. In this case the statute was passed...