Decker Estate (No. 1)

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Horace Stern,

We are here concerned with a controversy over priorities in the distribution of a fund in the possession of an ancillary administrator of a decedent’s insolvent estate. The contesting parties are, on the one hand, two creditors who claim the fund as the proceeds of collateral security for moneys due them, and, on the other, the executors of the estate and the widow of the decedent who are championing a demand of the federal government for preferential payment of unpaid income and estate taxes.

The decedent, Josef Ben Decker, a resident of Maryland, died April…