88 ROBERTS, J., dissenting. the business of oil production, cannot escape the impact of the Act by a transparent claim of ignorance of the interstate character of the Texas oil industry. St. John v. Brown, 38 F. Supp. 385, 388; cf. Fleming v. Enterprise Box Co., 37 F. Supp. 331, 334-335, affirmed, 125 F. 2d 897. One final contention merits but slight consideration. Respondents were employed on the basis of an eight hour day and regularly worked seven days a week, receiving fixed wages ranging from $6.50 to $11 per day. There was no agreement providing for an hourly rate of pay or that the weekly salary included additional compensation for overtime hours. Petitioner urges that it complied with the overtime compensation requirements of the Act because respondents received wages in excess of the statutory minimum wage, including time and one-half of that minimum wage for all overtime hours, which wages respondents impliedly agreed included overtime compensation by accepting them. A similar argument was squarely rejected in Overnight Motor Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572. MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS: Affirmed. I dissent, as I did in Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, and for the same reason. But I think the present a more extravagant application of the statute than that there approved. We may assume that Congress, in drafting the Act, had in mind the practical, as distinguished from a theoretical, distinction between what is national and what is local,-between what, in fact, touches interstate commerce and what, in truth, is intrastate. The phrases on which respondents rely are these: An employee "who is engaged in [interstate] commerce or in the production of goods for [interstate] commerce," § 7 (a); and "Produced' means produced, manufactured, ROBERTS, J., dissenting. 317 U.S. mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in any State; and for the purposes of this Act an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed in producing, manufacturing, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on such goods, or in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof, in any State," § 3 (j). The opinion disavows any thought that the respondents may be classed as those who mine the oil which passes into commerce; but this seems to be a reservation intended not to preclude such a holding. The Court relies, rather, on the Act's inclusion of anyone employed "in any process or occupation necessary to the production" of goods for commerce. The reasoning seems to be as follows: The oil will pass into commerce if it is mined. But it cannot be mined An independent con unless somebody drills a well. tractor's men do part of the drilling. Their work is "necessary" to the mining and the transportation of the oil. So they fall within the Act. This is to ignore all practical distinction between what is parochial and what is national. It is but the application to the practical affairs of life of a philosophic and impractical test. It is but to repeat, in another form, the old story of the pebble thrown into the pool, and the theoretically infinite extent of the resulting waves, albeit too tiny to be seen or felt by the exercise of one's senses. The labor of the man who made the tools which drilled the well, that of the sawyer who cut the wood incidentally used, that of him who mined the iron of which the tools were made, are all just as necessary to the ultimate extraction of oil as the labor of respondents. Each is an antecedent of the consequent,-the production of the goods for commerce. Indeed, if respondents were not fed, they could not have drilled the well, and the oil would not have 88 Statement of the Case. gone into commerce. Is the cook's work "necessary" to the production of the oil, and within the Act? I think Congress could not and did not intend to exert its granted power over interstate commerce upon what in practice and common understanding is purely local activity, on the pretext that everything everybody does is a contributing cause to the existence of commerce between the States, and in that sense necessary to its existence. RIGGS, SPECIAL GUARDIAN, v. DEL DRAGO ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE SURROGATE'S COURT OF NEW YORK COUNTY, NEW YORK. No. 30. Argued October 20, 1942.-Decided November 9, 1942. 1. Section 124 of the New York Decedent Estate Law, requiring that, unless otherwise directed by the decedent's will, the burden of any federal estate tax paid by the executor or administrator be apportioned among the beneficiaries of the estate, is not in conflict with the federal estate tax law (Internal Revenue Code, § 800 et seq.), and does not contravene the supremacy clause of the Federal Constitution. Pp. 97, 102. The intent of Congress was that the federal estate tax should be paid out of the estate as a whole, and that the distribution of the remaining estate and the ultimate impact of the federal tax should be determined under the state law. The provisions of the Revenue Act of 1916 and subsequent Acts, their legislative history and administrative interpretation support this conclusion; and §§ 826 (b), 826 (c), and 826 (d) of the Internal Revenue Code do not require a different result. 2. Nor does the fact that the ultimate incidence of the federal estate tax is thus governed by state law violate the constitutional requirement of geographical uniformity in federal taxation. P. 102. 287 N. Y. 61, 38 N. E. 2d 131, reversed. CERTIORARI, 315 U. S. 795, to review a decision of the Court of Appeals of New York, holding unconstitutional Section 124 of the New York Decedent Estate Law. The Surrogate's Court entered its order upon the remittitur of the Court of Appeals. Opinion of the Court. 317 U.S. Mr. John W. Davis, with whom Mr. Otis T. Bradley was on the brief, for petitioner. Mr. Henry Cohen, with whom Mr. Ludwig M. Wilson was on the brief, for Giovanni del Drago et al.; Mr. Anthony J. Caputo submitted for Byron Clark, Jr., Executor; and Mr. Harold W. Hastings submitted for Harold W. Hastings, Special Guardian,-respondents. Briefs of amici curiae were filed by Solicitor General Fahy, Assistant Attorney General Clark, and Messrs. Sewall Key, Arnold Raum, and Valentine Brookes on behalf of the United States; by Messrs. John J. Bennett, Jr., Attorney General of the State of New York, and Henry Epstein, Solicitor General, on behalf of that State (with the States of Florida, Vermont, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Michigan, by their respective Attorneys General, joining in the brief); by Messrs. Harrison Tweed and Weston Vernon, Jr.; and by Mr. George Gray Zabriskie on behalf of Arnold Wood, Jr.,-all in support of petitioner. Mr. Bethuel M. Webster filed a brief on behalf of Mary Ann Blumenthal, as amicus curiae, urging affirmance. MR. JUSTICE MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court. The question for decision is whether § 124 of the New York Decedent Estate Law,' which provides in effect that, except as otherwise directed by the decedent's will, the burden of any federal death taxes paid by the executor or administrator shall be spread proportionately among the distributees or beneficiaries of the estate, is unconstitutional because in conflict with the federal estate tax law, Internal Revenue Code, § 800 et seq. 1 Chapter 709, Laws of 1930. 95 Opinion of the Court. Testatrix, a resident of New York, died on October 8, 1937, leaving a will dated March 27, 1934, which, after certain gifts of personal effects and small sums of cash, bequeathed $300,000 outright to respondent Giovanni del Drago, and created a trust of $200,000 for the benefit of respondent Marcel del Drago during his life, with remainder over upon his death. The residue of testatrix's estate was left in trust for the benefit of Giovanni during his life, with remainder over upon his death. The will contained no reference to the payment of estate or inheritance taxes. The executors paid approximately $230,000 on account of the federal estate tax, and then asked the Surrogate, in a petition for the settlement of their account, to determine whether that payment should be equitably apportioned among all the persons beneficially interested in the estate, pursuant to § 124 of the Decedent Estate Law. Giovanni and Marcel del Drago answered, raising objections to the constitutionality of § 124. Petitioner, who was appointed special guardian to represent the interests of the infant remaindermen under the residuary trust, urged that the tax be apportioned. The Surrogate overruled the constitutional objections, and directed apportionment. The New York Court of Appeals, by a divided court, reversed, holding § 124 repugnant to the federal estate tax law-particularly to § 826 (b) of the Internal Revenue Code-and in violation of the supremacy (Art. VI, cl. 2) and the uniformity (Art. I, § 8, cl. 1) clauses of the Constitution. The importance of the question moved us to grant certiorari. We are of opinion that Congress intended that the federal estate tax should be paid out of the estate as a whole, 2 175 Misc. (N. Y.) 489, 23 N. Y. S. 2d 943. 3287 N. Y. 61, 38 N. E. 2d 131. 503873-43-14 |