David H. Utley, of the Estate of Isabelle R. Utley, Deceased v. United States

This action is brought to recover an amount of federal estate tax which it is claimed was improperly assessed and collected from an estate being administered in Los Angeles, California. The portion of the estate involved consists of a vested remainder in the corpus of a trust created by the decedent’s mother. The issue is as to the taxable value of that remainder.

The estate is that of Isabelle Rice Utley. Her mother, M. Belle Rice, died in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1924. Mrs. Rice left a will executed in 1916, which, after certain specific bequests, devised all the residue of her property in trust for the purpose of paying from the net income of the trust stated monthly sums for life to certain individual beneficiaries. The will then provided that upon the death of all such income beneficiaries, the trustee shall cause to be erected “a suitable and appropriate memorial, arch or entrance way” to a park in Salt Lake City, to serve as a memorial to the settlor’s late husband. It provided: “The cost thereof * * * shall not exceed Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000).” The will further provided that the trustee shall “cause to-be erected on the campus or grounds of the University of Utah…