United States v. O. E. Morrison and R. E. Morrison

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge.

Out of strikingly simple facts two questions emerge: First, whether the equitable vendor’s lien for the unpaid purchase price of Texas real estate is sufficiently specific and perfected to out-prime a Federal tax lien. And second, whether the District Court as a jurisdictional prerequisite in a suit to quiet title, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2410, from a Federal tax lien must inexorably order a foreclosure.

Morrison, the Vendor, May 13, 1955, sold property to Burk, the Purchaser (Taxpayer), for a total consideration of $18,500. Of this, $12,800 was a prior mortgage to a third…