# Pabst v. Department of Taxation

> Wisconsin Supreme Court · March 5, 1963 · 19 Wis. 2d 313

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9692203

## Case

- **Full name:** Pabst and Another, Trustees, Appellants, v. Department of Taxation, Respondent
- **Court:** Wisconsin Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 5, 1963
- **Citations:** 19 Wis. 2d 313; 120 N.W.2d 77
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Dieterich
- **Judges:** Currie, Dieterich
- **Cited by:** 55 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/9692203

## Opinion text

Dieterich, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result reached in the majority opinion, but I cannot agree with conclusions drawn in the discussion of semantics contained therein.
The opinion conveys the impression that this case is almost identical on its facts to the last previous appeal to this court involving trusts created by Ida C. Pabst, and that the only explanation for the difference in this court’s holdings in the two appeals is that we have now determined that the word “administer” means to conduct rather than to manage, direct, or superintend.
If this is the distinction between the holdings in the two cases, it is a meaningless one. Referring again to Webster’s New International Dictionary (3d ed., unabridged), one finds various synonyms for the word “conduct” including manage, control, and direct. In other words, to say that when a person administered a trust is the same as saying that one conducted a trust, is a roundabout way of saying that a person managed, controlled, and directed that trust. *330 The only distinction between this case and the Pabst Case contained in 15 Wis. (2d) 195, 112 N. W. (2d) 161 , is that they are different on their facts. The facts in the first case would not support an inference that the trusts there involved were managed in the state of Wisconsin; the facts on this appeal will support such inference.
It is a fundamental principle of law that each case stands on its own facts. The application of this principle in the judicial process will naturally lead to what appear to be contradictory results by an appellate court unless care is taken to distinguish the facts of each and every case before applying the law.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9692203. Public record. Not legal advice.