Norris

This action is brought to recover the principal sum of $15,-874.12, alleged to have been paid under protest to the defendant collector as-an estate tax owing to the government. The tax was paid by Lucy Banning Ross, as executrix of the estate of Mary Hollister Banning, deceased. An additional charge amounting to $2,408.69, as interest, was collected on the same account' and the prayer of the complaint includes a demand for the repayment of that sum also. The real interest affected was that of Mary Banning Norris.

The tax charges were made on account of an alleged one-half interest held by the deceased at the time of her death in certain real property. The title to this property at the date of the death of Mrs. Banning was held by plaintiff Mary Banning Norris, a daughter of the deceased, who had received a conveyance of the same from her mother in October, 1897. In that year and month Mrs. Banning, by a grant deed, reciting the consideration to be for “love and affection and the sum of $10,” made conveyance of a lot of land comprising approximately 2,800 acres to her daughter Mary, who on the 16th day of November, 1897, was married to Wilt W. Norris Norris died in 1904.

Early in…