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63 Ct. Cl. 613

Mitchell v. United States

United States Court of Claims

Decided June 6, 1927

United States Court of Claims · decided 1927-06-06

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1927-06-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1959

1 state decisions

101927193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*618MEMORANDUM BY

CHIEF JUSTICE CAMPBELL

¶2The considerations upon which the court bases its judgment are as follows:

¶3The question for decision is whether, under the undisputed facts, the executors of the will, in the ascertainment of the value of the neb estate, may deduct from the value of the gross estate a bequest to trustees for charitable purposes where such bequest is upon a contingency that may never happen.

¶4(1) The revenue act of 1918, 40 Stat. 1098, sec. 403, authorizing deductions from the gross estate of the amount of all bequests or gifts to a trustee, exclusively for religious or charitable purposes, contemplates bequests or gifts intended to take effect (1). upon-the testator’s death, or (2) upon the happening of an event that will certainly occur.

¶5(2) If the contingency, upon which the bequest is to go to the charitable purpose, be such that the bequest or gift may never become effective in possession or enjoyment the statute does not authorize a deduction of the amount, or its ascertained value, from the gross estate.

¶6(3) In the instant case any right to the supposed charitable bequest is liable to be defeated if and when the niece, made the principal beneficiary under the residuary clause of the will, attains forty years of age. In other words, the supposed bequest to charity may never ripen into possession or enjoyment. It is, therefore, too remote, contingent, and uncertain to be taken into account in determining the value of the net estate for the purposes of the estate tax under the revenue act of 1918.

Moss, Judge; Hay, Judge; and Booth, Judge, concur.Graham, Judge, took no part in the decision of this case.
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