State v. First Nat. Bank of Boston

• Decision Date: 17 March 1931
• Citation: 154 A. 103
• Parties: STATE by ROBINSON, Atty. Gen., v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF BOSTON.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

154 A. 103

STATE by ROBINSON, Atty. Gen.,

v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Cumberland.

March 17, 1931.

Report from Superior Court, Cumberland County.

Action by the State, by Clement F. Robinson, Attorney General, against the First National Bank of Boston, administrator of the estate of Edward H. Haskell, deceased. On report.

Judgment for the State.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and FARRINGTON, JJ., and PHILBROOK, A. R. J.

Clement F. Robinson, Atty. Gen., for plaintiff.

Franklin Fisher, of Lewiston, and Leonard A. Pierce, of Portland, for defendant.

FARRINGTON, J.

This case comes up on report on an agreed statement of facts. Edward H. Haskell, a resident of Massachusetts, died testate January 8, 1924. The largest part of the property of the deceased consisted of shares of stock in the Great Northern Paper Company, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the state of Maine. The will of the deceased was duly probated in the county of. Middlesex, Mass., and the abovementioned shares of stock were there subjected to an inheritance tax, of like character to the inheritance tax in Maine, and a tax thereon, amounting to $32, 190.53, was paid to the commonwealth of Massachusetts on legacies and distributive shares, in greater part made up from the proceeds of said stock. Ancillary administration having been taken out of the county of Androscoggin in this state, an inheritance tax of $62,350.41 was assessed by the probate court in that county on the property passing by the will of the deceased, and an appeal was taken by the executor from the assessment of this tax by the Androscoggin county probate court on the ground that the assessment was unconstitutional, and in violation of article 4, § 2, of the Constitution of the United States of America, and article 14 of the Amendments to the Constitution, and that the provisions of chapter 69, § 4, of the Revised Statutes of Maine (1916), were not applied in assessing said inheritance tax because Edward H. Haskell was not a resident of the state of Maine.

After this case was, on an appeal, argued in this court, and while there pending, the parties thereto made the following agreement:

"First: That the following decree be entered in the Probate Court of Androscoggin County—

"'State of Maine

"'Androscoggin, Probate Court

"'Amended Decree

"'Whereas, the executors of the will of the late Edward H. Haskell have appealed from the decree of this court assessing a gross inheritance tax of sixty two thousand three hundred and thirty dollars and forty one cents ($62,330.41) and,

"'Whereas said appeal was pending before the Law Court for decision and determination, and

"'Whereas, the State of Maine, represented by Clement F. Robinson, its Attorney General, and the executors represented by Franklin Fisher, have arrived at the following agreement, namely: that said executors be allowed a credit of thirty two thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and fifty three cents ($32, 190.53) being the amount of the inheritance taxes paid by these executors to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

"'It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the gross tax as computed by the court in its original decree determining said inheritance tax to be sixty two thousand three hundred and thirty dollars and forty one cents ($62,330.41) be and hereby is reduced by granting to the estate of Edward H. Haskell credit for inheritance tax paid to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts amounting to thirty two thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and fifty three cents ($32, 190.53) leaving a balance of inheritance taxes assessed by the State of Maine of thirty thousand, one hundred and thirty nine dollars and eighty eight cents ($30,139.88).

'"February 19th, 1930.

"'B. L. Berman, Judge.'

"Second: That the Attorney General under the statute would bring an action of Debt for the collection of the amount of tax decreed in the amended Decree of the Judge of the Probate Court of Androscoggin County.

"Third: That the executors of the will of Edward H. Haskell would avail themselves of any defense possible in said action of debt.

"Fourth: That an entry should be entered in the Law Court,—

"'Appeal Dismissed. Settled below.'"

In accordance with this agreement the decree as quoted above was duly entered on February 19, 1930, and from that decree there has been no appeal, and the decree has not been modified, reversed, annulled, or satisfied.

Following this, the Attorney General, under the statute, brought an action of debt for the collection of the tax against the executors of the estate of Edward H. Haskell, the writ being dated April 19, 1930, returnable at the May term, 1930, of the superior court in Cumberland county.

The writ, service of which was accepted by the attorneys for the defendant, was duly entered in court with general appearance on the part of the defendant through its attorneys.

Under the general issue the defendant also filed a brief statement as follows:

"The inheritance tax provided for by chapter 69 of the Revised Statutes of Maine and additions thereto and amendments thereof is an excise or duty upon the right or privilege of taking property by will or descent under the law of the State of Maine and is assessed on transfers from the dead to the living in those cases where it is by virtue of the laws of the State of Maine that the right or privilege of taking by will or descent at all exists.

"The transfer of the stock in the Great Northern Paper Company owned by Edward H. Haskell and transferred by his will is not so transferred as right or privilege of taking by will or descent by virtue of the laws of the State of Maine and it is not by virtue of the laws of this State that the right or privilege of such transfer to the Legatees at all exists. The assessment of an inheritance tax on the transfer of stock in the Great Northern Paper Company owned by Edward H. Haskell is wholly beyond the power of the State of Maine and an attempt to tax something not within the jurisdiction of the State of Maine contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth Article of the Articles in Addition to and in Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

"An assessment of an inheritance tax by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts amounting to thirty two thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and fifty three cents ($32, 190.53) was paid by the executors of Edward H. Haskell. As Edward H. Haskell was domiciled in Massachusetts, the situs of this stock in the Great Northern Paper Company for inheritance tax purposes was in Massachusetts. An inheritance tax on the transfer of the stock in the Great Northern Paper Company owned by Edward H. Haskell is beyond the jurisdiction of the State of Maine and constitutes double taxation of intangible property contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth article of the articles in addition to and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

"The benefit or privilege conferred by the State of Maine in assisting in the transfer of the stock in the Great Northern Paper Company owned by Edward H. Haskell is so small compared with the tax claimed by the State of Maine that it clearly results in such flagrant and palpable inequality between the burden imposed and the benefit received as to amount to the arbitrary taking of property without compensation,—to spoliation under the guise of exerting the taxing power contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth article of the articles in addition to and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America."

It was further agreed that substantially all of the Great Northern Paper Company's property, including its real estate and mills, are located within the borders of the state of Maine, and that, as appears of record in Androscoggin county probate court in these proceedings, all the property of the defendant testator with respect to which the decree sued on was based consisted of shares of stock in the Great Northern Paper Company.

On the facts and pleadings as given above, the case has come to this court for determination as to the liability of the defendant for the sum sued for, judgment to be entered for the plaintiff or defendant as this court may find proper.

It is the contention of the State that the decree of the probate court of Androscoggin county was final, no appeal or further direct proceedings having been taken in that court after entry of the decree, and that the question of unconstitutionality of the statute, or its administration by the probate court, could not be raised collaterally in the statutory action of debt to collect the tax, but only in a direct proceeding. The state in any event maintains that no constitutional rights have been invaded.

We do not feel that it is necessary to discuss the claim of the state that the judgment upon which the action of debt in the instant case was brought cannot be attacked collaterally, under the usual rule as to collateral attack, because of our strong conviction that the eases which are cited below as sustaining the right to tax were properly considered and decided on an entirely different basis from that on which consideration and decision were given to cases involving bonds, certificates of indebtedness, credits for cash on deposit, promissory notes, and advances to, and dividends due from, corporations created by the taxing state, which latter classes of cases have recently been ruled upon by the Supreme Court of the United States, as will be noted.

The contentions of the administrators of the estate are clearly and fully stated in the brief statement above quoted.

The Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Farmers Loan & Trust Co. v. Minnesota, 280 U. S. 204, 50 S. Ct. 98, 74 L. Ed. 371, has held that negotiable bonds and certificates of indebtedness issued by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis...