Rich v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

• Citation: 250 F.2d 170
• Decision Date: 12 December 1957
• Docket Number: No. 16595.,16595.
• Parties: Albert G. RICH, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

250 F.2d 170 (1957)

Albert G. RICH, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent.

No. 16595.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

December 12, 1957.

Robert M. Taylor, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

Charles K. Rice, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ellis N. Slack, Lee A. Jackson, George F. Lynch, Attys., Nelson P. Rose, Chief Counsel, Rollin H. Transue, Sp. Atty., I. R. S., Washington, D. C., for respondent.

Before RIVES, TUTTLE and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

RIVES, Circuit Judge.

The sole question presented for review is whether the Tax Court properly dismissed the taxpayer's petition for redetermination of proposed deficiencies in federal income taxes¹ because not timely filed.²

We briefly summarize the facts as stated in the petition for review. The statutory notice of proposed deficiencies was mailed by the Commissioner on February 15, 1956 addressed to "Mr. Albert G. Rich, c/o Warden, Federal Penitentiary, Danbury, Connecticut." The taxpayer was then and still is a prisoner in that institution. On May 7, 1956, the Clerk of the Tax Court received a check for $10 from the taxpayer's attorney, Mr. Robert M. Taylor of Philadelphia, enclosed in a letter reading:

"I have indorsed my check for ten dollars payable to The Treasurer of the United States as filing fee of Mr. Albert G. Rich, formerly of Miami, Florida, who is or has mailed the Court his Petition against the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Mr. Rich is presently an inmate of the Federal Correctional Institute at Danbury, Connecticut and could not, conveniently mail you a check as his filing fee with his petition."

In the meantime taxpayer's attorney had prepared a petition which he mailed to the taxpayer with a letter of instructions. Pursuant to such instructions, the taxpayer, on May 3, 1956, signed and executed the petition and copies thereof and turned them over to the official in charge of the prison mail room, properly addressed and with the request that they be mailed to the Tax Court by registered mail, return receipt requested, and paid the official the necessary postage. On the same day he advised his attorney of his actions and requested the attorney to send the $10 filing fee to the Tax Court.

On June 1, 1956, the Clerk of the Tax Court advised the attorney that no petition had been filed with the Tax Court by or on behalf of the taxpayer. The attorney immediately inquired from the warden's office at the federal penitentiary. By letter dated June 4, 1956, the warden informed taxpayer's attorney that a check of the mail records of his office disclosed that the petition was placed in the institutional mail room on May 3, 1956, "and inadvertently held until today," and that on that date the petition had been placed in the mail. It was received by the Clerk of the Tax Court on the next day, and the Clerk advised taxpayer's attorney that the Court had received and filed an informal petition on May 7, 1956, and an amended petition on June 5, 1956. The Commissioner moved to dismiss, insisting that the attorney's letter could not be treated as any kind of petition and that the petition was untimely in that it was filed one hundred and eleven days after the mailing of the deficiency notice.

The Tax Court sustained without opinion the respondent's motion to dismiss, based upon the premise that timely filing of the petition for redetermination was jurisdictional.³

When the taxpayer delivered his petition to the officer in charge of the prison mail room, properly addressed to the Tax Court in Washington, D. C., with the request that it be sent by registered mail and paid the necessary postage, twelve days remained before the expiration of the ninety day period. His attorney's letter and check mailed two days later were received in the Tax Court eight days before the expiration of the statutory period. It clearly appears from the petition for review that, but for the negligence of one or more employees of the Government at the federal penitentiary, the mailing, registration and actual filing of the petition would have been well within the ninety day period. All of the equities are with the appellant.

The ninety day period begins when the notice of deficiency is mailed. Section 6213, quoted in footnote (2), supra. We have nevertheless held, and soundly so, we think, that a delay in delivery to the taxpayer caused by improper address of the deficiency notice "should be credited to petitioner so as to give the Tax Court jurisdiction over its petition." Arlington Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 5 Cir., 1950, 183 F.2d 448, 451. The holding of the Seventh Circuit in Dilks v. Blair, 1927, 23 F.2d 831, is to like effect. The Eighth Circuit in Arkansas Motor Coaches v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 1952, 198 F.2d 189, 192, further held that the Government could not take advantage of a delay in filing due to the negligence either of the employees of the Post Office or of employees in the Internal Revenue Department:

"The government, through its Collector of Internal Revenue, is seeking to collect taxes due. The government, through the Post Office Department, is engaged in transporting mail for a consideration. The petitioner here has done everything in its power that could reasonably be done and is entirely without fault. The fault and negligence was manifestly that of government employees — whether employees in the mail service or employees in the Internal Revenue Department would seem to be immaterial. They were government employees and we think the government should not be permitted to take advantage of the negligence or fault of its own employees to defeat this taxpayer in its efforts to have its day in court. The government in carrying the mail is not acting in its sovereign capacity and to hold in the circumstances here disclosed that the government should not be permitted to interpose as a defense the negligence of its own employees would not frustrate the purpose of the law nor thwart public policy." 198 F.2d at page 192.

Circuit Judge Johnsen, concurring in part, questioned the soundness of that holding:

"I do not believe that the Post Office Department can be regarded as part of the constituted machinery for making resort to the Tax Court. Neither the statutes, 26 U.S.C.A. Internal Revenue Code, §§ 272(a) (1), 732, nor the rules of the Tax Court purport to constitute a use of the mails as any part of the official channel for filing a petition for redetermination in that court. In this situation, I am unable to view a litigant\'s use of the mails for this purpose as being any different in its nature or consequence than would be his use of express service, freight service, messenger service, personal transporting, or any other means, in the transmittal of his petition to the Tax Court for filing.

"Besides this, the doctrine that a taxpayer is entitled to be relieved of any risk to his day in court from fault or negligence on the part of employees of the Post Office Department, where he has chosen to use the mails to make filing of a petition in the Tax Court, is to me fraught with implications, which I am unable here to take the time to attempt to project. To give only one readily occurring example — if delay in the filing of a petition for redetermination, occasioned by fault or negligence of the Post Office Department in the handling of such a petition in the mails, cannot affect the jurisdiction of the Tax Court, then logically litigants against the Government in other courts — the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the District Court, etc. — would seem necessarily to be entitled to the same kind of jurisdictional protection in those courts." 198 F.2d at page 193.

Following that decision, Congress enacted Section 7502 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 which has been quoted in footnote (2), supra. The language of that section is clear, explicit, and strictly limited. It applies only if there is a postmark date or a date of registration falling within the prescribed period. The restrictive terms of the section are emphasized by its legislative history, as shown in the report of the House Committee on Ways and Means to accompany H.R. 8300:

"§ 7502. Timely mailing treated as timely filing

"This new section applies in the case where documents (other than returns) are mailed to the proper office within the time prescribed by the internal-revenue laws, as indicated by the postmark on the envelope, and are received by that office after such time has expired. In such case, the document is deemed timely filed.

"Since it is possible to predate postmarks where mailing machines or other devices are used, subsection (b) provides that a postmark not made by the United States post office shall be deemed the date of delivery only to the extent permitted by regulations. If the document is sent by registered mail rather than ordinary mail, the registration before the due date is prima facie evidence that the document was delivered to the proper officer, and the date of registration is deemed the date of mailing.

"This section does not apply to the filing of a document in any court other than the Tax Court." 3 U.S. Code Cong. & Adm. News, 83rd Cong. 2nd Session, 1954, p. 4583.

The report of the Senate Finance Committee is to the same effect. 3 U.S. Code Cong. & Adm. News, supra at page 5266. The plain and unambiguous meaning of the text of the section cannot be extended by its title or heading: "Timely mailing treated as timely filing." Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 1947, 331 U.S. 519, 528, 529, 67 S.Ct. 1387, 91 L.Ed. 1646; United States v. Minker, 1956, 350 U.S. 179, 185, 76 S.Ct. 281, 100 L. Ed. 185.

The law seems to be well settled that, in the absence of specific statutory provisions, imprisonment of a person who might otherwise become a petitioner or plaintiff will not toll in his favor a statute of limitations. 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 241; 34 Am.Jur., Limitation of Actions...