# Rhodes v. Commissioner > United States Board of Tax Appeals · January 12, 1940 · 41 B.T.A. 62 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4497973 ## Case - **Full name:** HUGH D. RHODES AND J. JACKSON RHODES, ADMINISTRATORS, CUM TESTAMENTO ANNEXO, DE BONIS NON OF THE ESTATE OF MAMIE D. RHODES, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE - **Court:** United States Board of Tax Appeals - **Decided:** January 12, 1940 - **Citations:** 41 B.T.A. 62; 1940 BTA LEXIS 1239 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Sternhagen - **Judges:** Oppee, Black, Tttt, Agree, Sternhagen - **Cited by:** 5 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4497973 ## Opinion text SteRNHagen, dissenting: I do not think that this Board is universally bound by a decree of a state court without regard for the circumstances in which it is rendered. The record in this proceeding does not prove that there was a substantial controversy in which the mother or her estate was unsuccessful in establishing that when she died she owned the International shares and in which the children established against opposition that she had but a life estate. On the contrary it proves that the state court decree was the sanction of a mutually satisfactory agreement in which no one — the administrator ad litem, the creditors, the heirs and legatees, or anyone else — was adversely interested. Whether that was an arrangement deliberately aimed at the Federal Government’s tax interest in the decedent’s estate, it is not possible to say; but that still leaves it less than an adversary proceeding resulting in a judicial decree immune to Federal question. Generally I think my brother Opper has correctly analyzed the state court proceedings and shown the fallacy of recognizing the decree as binding here. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4497973. Public record. Not legal advice.