ADMINISTRATIVE LAW-JUDICIAL REVIEW-FEDERAL EQUITY "POWERS

Authors

Abstract

Plaintiff's testator, a resident of New York, died there and at the time of his death owned certain oil paintings on temporary loan to an Art Museum in Pennsylvania, on which the State of Pennsylvania levied an inheritance tax. Plaintiff, executor under a will disposing of the pictures, filed a bill in the Federal District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania to enjoin the defendants, tax officials of Pennsylvania, from attempting to impose or collect the inheritance tax. The bill alleged diversity of citizenship and the requisite jurisdictional amount, and further that the imposition of the tax violated the Fourteenth Amendment, depriving plaintiff of his property without due process of law and denying him equal protection. It appeared that under state law plaintiff had an alternative method of reviewing the action of tax officials. He was permitted either to petition a designated administrative body for a refund or to appeal from the decision of the tax officials to a specified county court which was given power on appeal to determine all questions of valuation and liability of the appraised estate for the inheritance tax. Held, plaintiff having no adequate remedy at law, a resort to federal equity was proper. City Bank Farmers" Trust Co. v. Schnader, (U. S. 1934) 54 Sup. Ct. 259.

Recommended Citation

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW-JUDICIAL REVIEW-FEDERAL EQUITY "POWERS, 33 Mich. L. Rev. 118 (1934).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol33/iss1/8