Western Specialty Co. v. United States

The plaintiff, Western Specialty Company (Western) seeks by an action for declaratory relief to establish its right to certain funds claimed by the appellant, United States of America, to be subject to federal tax liens.

The controversy arises out of a series of transactions relating to two phases of a construction project. In February and March, 1959, Kearny Villa Construction Company *807 (Kearny), the prime contractor, entered into contracts with Copper Products Plumbing Company (Copper) for the installation of plumbing in the project. The two contracts totaled $241,800. Copper purchased its supplies from Western. On March 14, 1959, Copper assigned to Western $122,434 of the money due or to become due from Kearny. Kearny acknowledged the assignment, paying the amount of the assignment in installments by joint checks to Copper and Western. At this time Western had supplied materials worth $9,697 to the Kearny project and Copper was indebted to Western for approximately $120,000 in materials on other projects. Western completed the supply of materials totalling $72,932 to Copper for the Kearny project on October 29, 1959. The projects were completed in January 1960.

In October…