Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The interest of the niece was not a contingent right to income as it should accrue in her lifetime; it was a vested life estate in a fund, changing in investment at the discretion of the trustee, but retaining its equitable identity. Objections like those that are made to treating a life estate as a present unity in the enjoyment of the life tenant might be made to the similar treatment of absolute ownership in fee. In actual life a fee can be enjoyed only minute by minute ”

“ The statute does not invite speculation in a new nonenclature, or attempt to reach profounder conceptions than those familiar to the law. When it speaks of interests absolutely vested in possession we presume that it uses familiar legal expressions in their familiar legal sense. ”

“ With the aid of mortuary tables, the rate of interest being assumed to be 4 per cent, the clear value of the legacies to the niece was fixed at $74,678.68, and an inheritance tax of $5,600.90 was assessed upon it, which was paid on August 16, 1900. Up to July 1, 1902, the date fixed by the statute, the petitioner had paid to the niece $17,027.59 income from the residue and had delivered to her the specific legacy valued at $500. The tax on these sums at the rate of taxation was $1,314.59, which, deducted from the whole tax paid, leaves $4,286.31, to recover which this suit is brought. ”