People v. Snyder

• Decision Date: 06 October 1933
• Docket Number: No. 21883.,21883.
• Citation: 187 N.E. 158,353 Ill. 184
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SNYDER et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

353 Ill. 184

187 N.E. 158

PEOPLE

v.SNYDER et al.

No. 21883.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 16, 1933.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 6, 1933.

Proceeding by the People against Noble E. Snyder and others. From an adverse judgment, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Cook County Court; Charles T. Allen, Judge.

Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen. (Joseph Rolnick, of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

Wetten, Pegler & Dale, of Chicago (Greydon L. Walker, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.

DUNCAN, Justice.

This is an appeal by the people from an order of the county court of Cook county approving and affirming an order of the county judge of that county fixing and assessing inheritance taxes in the estate of Douglas W. Hutchinson, deceased.

Douglas W. Hutchinson, a resident of Cook county, died April 10, 1930, leaving a will dated February 11, 1930, which was duly admitted to probate in the probate court of that county. By the residuary clause of the will one-tenth of the testator's residuary estate was devised and bequeathed to Noble E. Snyder, who was not related to the testator other than by marriage. Snyder's wife, Helen Snyder, a daughter of the testator, died about a year before the testator's death. The residuary estate of the testator was appraised at $897,644.20. The portion thereof which passed to Snyder was appraised at $89,766.42. By his order the county judge fixed the tax on the property which passed to Snyder at $1,790.66. This amount of tax was computed by first allowing a deduction of $20,000 from the appraised value and taking 2 per cent. of $50,000 and 4 per cent. of $19,766.42, the balance. The amount of tax was computed and fixed on a finding that Snyder was the ‘husband of the daughter’ of the testator within the meaning of those words as used in section 1 of the Inheritance Tax Act (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1931, c. 120, § 375). The Attorney General contends that, since Snyder's wife died before the testator, Synder was not the husband of a daughter of the testator at the time the testator died, and that the amount of tax should have been computed by allowing a deduction of only $100 from the appraised value of the property passing to Snyder and taking 10 per cent. of $20,000, 12 per cent. of $30,000, and 16 per cent. of $39,666.42, the remainder.

Section 1 of the Inheritance Tax Act provides that, ‘when the beneficial interests to any property or income therefrom shall pass to or for the use of any father, mother, lineal ancestor of decedent, husband, wife, child, brother or sister, wife or widow of the son or the husband of the daughter,’ the rate of tax shall be 2 per cent. on any amount up to and including the sum of $50,000 in excess of the exemption and 4 per cent. on the next $100,000, or any part thereof. That section further provides that any gift, legacy, or interest ‘passing to a father, mother, lineal ancestor of decedent, husband, wife, child, wife or widow of the son or the husband of the daughter’ which may be valued at a less sum than $20,000, shall not be subject to any such duty or taxes, and the tax shall be levied in such cases only upon the excess of $20,000 received by each person. If Noble E. Snyder at the death of the testator was the ‘husband of the daughter’ of the testator within the meaning of those words as used in the act, then the amount of the tax was properly and correctly computed and fixed by the county court, but, if Snyder was not the ‘husband of the daughter’ of the testator within the meaning of those words as used in the act, the tax should have been computed and fixed in accordance with the contention of the Attorney General.

The Inheritance Tax Act in question was enacted in 1909, and the words in question in section 1 of the act which are above quoted are the same words that were used in section 1 of the Inheritance Tax Act of 1895. Laws of 1895, p. 301. The words are substantially the same as those used in the New York statute of 1885 (Laws N. Y. 1885, c. 483) relating to inheritance taxes, and were taken from that act and incorporated in our act of 1895, from which they were taken and incorporated in our present statute. This court has often referred to the fact that our Inheritance Tax Law was taken from the New York law, and in construing our statute has said that it is to be presumed that the act was adopted with the construction given it by the courts of that state. People v. Griffith, 245 Ill. 532, 92 N. E. 313;People v. Union Trust Co., 255 Ill. 168, 99 N. E. 377, L. R. A. 1915D, 450, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 514;People v. Carpenter, 264 Ill. 400, 106 N. E. 302;People v. Kellogg, 268 Ill. 489, 109 N. E. 304;People v. Northern Trust Co., 289 Ill. 475, 124 N. E. 662, 7 A. L. R. 709. In 1887 the surrogate of Kings county, N. Y., in a decision under the statute of that state, decided that the words ‘husband of a daughter’ included the surviving husband of a deceased daughter. In re Woolsey (Sur.) 19 Abb. N. C. 232. And in 1895 the surrogate's court of Madison county, N. Y., held that those words included the surviving husband of a deceased daughter, although he had remarried. In re Ray's Estate, 13 Misc. 480, 35 N. Y. S. 481. This construction of those words was adopted by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in Clay v. Edwards, 84 N. J. Law, 221, 86 A. 548, 549, decided in 1913, in construing the words of the statute of that state, which had been adopted from the New York act. In that case the court said: ‘Although the decisions referred to are not the pronouncements of the highest court of the state, the fact that surrogates deal largely and exclusively with matter relating to the estates of deceased persons qualifies them with expert knowledge of the subject, and coupled with the further facts that no appeal was taken from either decision, and that the construction placed on the words ‘husband of a daughter,’ as contained in the act of 1885, by the surrogates, to the effect that they include the surviving husband of a deceased daughter, and that the circumstances that the husband has remarried does not deprive him of his right to exemption under the act, yet nevertheless the Legislature of the state of New York, in view of all this, in enacting the tax law of 1909, made no change in that regard, but left the phrase ‘husband of a daughter’ undisturbed. The words ‘husband of a daughter’ having been thus...