Opinion of the Court. 348 U.S. treating the order of trial as an interlocutory injunction, we answered: "Many interlocutory orders are equally important, and may determine the outcome of the litigation, but they are not for that reason converted into injunctions." 337 U. S., at 258. The Morgantown case controls here.10 Whether the District Court was right or wrong in its ruling that the contract provision did not require arbitration proceedings, it was simply a ruling in the only suit pending, actual or fictional. It was a mere order and not an injunction as that word is understood through the Enelow and the Ettelson cases as a stay through equitable principles of a common-law action. This present case is to be distinguished from the Shanferoke case, supra, note 5, in the same way. There in a common-law action a motion for an interlocutory injunction on an equitable defense was refused. The order was appealable under Judicial Code $ 129. This Court said: "For the reasons stated in Enelow v. New York Life Ins. Co., decided this day, ante, p. 379, an order granting or denying a stay based on an equitable defense or cross-bill interposed in an action at law under § 274b, is appealable under § 129." 293 U. S., at 452. The reliance on the analogy of equity power to enjoin proceedings in other courts has elements of fiction in this day of one form of action The incongruity of taking jurisdiction from a stay in a law type and denying jurisdiction in an equity type proceeding springs from the persistence of outmoded procedural differentiations. Some simplification would follow from an assumption or denial of jurisdiction in both. The distinction has been 10 Cf. Moore's Commentary on the U. S. Judicial Code, 492. applied for years, however, and we conclude that it is better judicial practice to follow the precedents which limit appealability of interlocutory orders, leaving Congress to make such amendments as it may find proper. It is difficult to generalize as to whether interlocutory appeals are or are not advantageous to an efficient administration of justice. A compromise has been worked out by Congress through § 1292. But that compromise does not authorize appeals to simplify litigation. This ruling was a step in controlling the litigation before the trial court, not the refusal of an interlocutory injunction. Affirmed. Mr. Justice BURTON concurs in the judgment of the Court. MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs, dissenting. I think the District Court's order denying a stay is appealable because it is (1) "final" within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1291 and (2) a refusal to grant an interlocutory injunction within the meaning of § 1292. As the Court admits, a collateral issue may be so severable and unrelated to central trial issues that a judgment on the collateral issue is considered "final" and appealable under § 1291, even though other important issues are left undecided. Given this common sense meaning § 1291 authorizes the present appeal. For certainly decision of whether a judicial rather than an arbitration tribunal shall hear and determine this accounting controversy is logically and practically severable from the factual and legal issues crucial to determination of the merits of the controversy. And this Court has held that § 1292 makes all stay orders appealable that have the substantial effect of interlocutory injunction orders. Ettelson v. Metropoli 318107 O-55 18 BLACK, J., dissenting. 348 U.S. tan Ins. Co., 317 U. S. 188. The refusal to stay here had that effect. Indeed, the Court seems to admit that this order refusing a stay would be appealable had it been entered by another judge not presiding in this particular case. I agree with the Court that this jurisdictional "incongruity... springs from the persistence of outmoded procedural differentiations" that have "elements of fiction" in this modern day. I do not agree that the Court's obeisance to these incongruous fictions is required by congressional enactments. The Court relies on a purpose of Congress to avoid a waste of time and money incident to repeated "piecemeal" appeals in the same suit. But, as pointed out, Congress, in §§ 1291 and 1292, has left the way open for the appeal of many judgments finally deciding collateral and severable issues separately adjudicated in a case. Any rigid rule to the contrary would itself guarantee useless delays and expenses. For two trials, one unnecessary, may take longer and cost more than two appeals where one would do. Take this case for example. It must now go back for a court accounting trial which could be time-consuming and expensive to litigants and to the Government. And should petitioner lose on the merits it could undoubtedly appeal. On that review the first question for the appellate court would be whether the order denying arbitration, which the Court now refuses to consider, was right or wrong. If found wrong, the trial court's judgment on the merits would have to be vacated and the case again sent back for determination on the merits-this time by arbitration. In that event the trial the Court now orders will have been wholly futile-not even the litigant who now appears to be successful will have gained anything from it, unless perchance he stands to profit from delay. There is some difficulty, at least, in laying this wasteful procedure at the door of Congress. Opinion of the Court. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE v. ESTATE OF STERNBERGER, CHASE NATIONAL BANK OF NEW YORK, EXECUTOR. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. No. 24. Argued October 19-20, 1954.-Decided January 10, 1955. In determining a net estate for federal estate tax purposes, a deduction may not be made under § 812 (d) of the Internal Revenue Code on account of a charitable bequest that is to take effect only if decedent's childless 27-year-old daughter dies without descendants surviving her and her mother. Humes v. United States, 276 U. S. 487. Pp. 187-200. (a) Section 81.44 of Treasury Regulations 105 does not authorize the deduction here claimed, and § 81.46 prohibits it. Pp. 190–199. (b) There is no statutory authority for the deduction from a gross estate of any percentage of a conditional bequest to charity where there is no assurance that charity will receive the bequest or some determinable part of it. P. 199. 207 F. 2d 600, reversed. Melva M. Graney argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Sobeloff, Assistant Attorney General Holland, Ellis N. Slack and Robert N. Anderson. Edward S. Greenbaum argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Maurice C. Greenbaum and Charles E. Heming. MR. JUSTICE BURTON delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue here is whether, in determining a net estate for federal estate tax purposes, a deduction may be made on account of a charitable bequest that is to take effect Opinion of the Court. 348 U.S. only if decedent's childless 27-year-old daughter dies without descendants surviving her and her mother. For the reasons hereafter stated, we hold that it may not. Louis Sternberger died testate June 25, 1947. His federal estate tax return discloses a gross estate of $2,406,541.71 and, for the additional estate tax, a net estate of $2,064,346.55. It includes assets owned by him at his death and others held by the Chase National Bank, respondent herein, under a revocable trust created by him. As the revocable trust makes provisions for charity that are, for our purposes, identical with those in the will, this opinion applies to both dispositions. The will places the residuary estate in trust during the joint lives of decedent's wife and daughter and for the life of the survivor of them. Upon the death of such survivor, the principal of the trust fund is payable to the then living descendants of the daughter. However, if there are no such descendants, one-half of the residue goes to certain collateral relatives of decedent and the other half to certain charitable corporations. If none of the designated relatives are living, the entire residue goes to the charitable corporations.1 At decedent's death, his wife and daughter survived him. His wife was then 62 and his daughter 27. The latter married in 1942, was divorced in 1944, had not remarried and had not had a child. In the estate tax return, decedent's executor, respondent herein, deducted $179,154.19 from the gross estate as the present value of the conditional bequest to charity of one-half of the residue. Respondent claimed no deduction for the more remote charitable bequest of the other half of the residue. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed the deduction and determined a tax 1 These provisions appear more fully in Estate of Sternberger v. Commissioner, 18 T. C. 836, 837-838. |