Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Adelaide D. J. Burgwin

HASTIE, Circuit Judge.

The taxpayer, Adelaide Burgwin, is the life beneficiary of a testamentary trust of personalty, including corporate stock. In 1952 she filed a suit in a Pennsylvania state court to obtain the allocation and distribution to her of a part of certain stock which had been acquired by the trust in exchange for other stock as a result of a tax-free corporate reorganization. In 1954, upon the unsuccessful termination of that suit, taxpayer paid attorneys’ fees and other expenses of the litigation. As a cash-basis tax-' payer, she claimed this expense item as a deduction in her…