United States v. Morris Whitridge
| Decision Date | 27 February 1905 |
| Docket Number | No. 413,413 |
| Citation | 197 U.S. 135,25 S.Ct. 406,49 L.Ed. 696 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES, Petitioner , v. MORRIS WHITRIDGE and Richard J. White, Trading as Whitridge, White, & Company |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Assistant Attorney General McReynolds and Solicitor General Hoyt for petitioner.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 135-138 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Albert Comstock, William R. Sears, Aldis B. Browne, Howard T. Walden, and Page, McCutcheon, & Knight for respondents.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 138-140 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
,Whitridge, White, & Co., the respondents, on June 18, 1900, imported from India certain gunnies, invoiced in rupees. The invoice contained a certificate from the American consui, dated April 19, 1900, that the exchange value of the rupee at that date was 32 cents, estimated in United States gold dollars. For the purpose of ascertaining the ad valorem duties under the act of July 24, 1897 (30 Stat. at L. 151, chap. 11, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1663), schedule J., clause 341, in July, 1900, the collector of the port of Baltimore estimated the value of the merchandise at the date of the consular certificate by converting the invoice value into dollars, taking the rupees at 32 cents. The importers entered protest and the collector reliquidated the entry, taking the rupee at 20.7 cents. The Secretary of the Treasury, on June 6, 1901, wrote that satisfactory evidence had been produced to him that the value of the rupee was 32 cents at the date of the consul's certificate, and directed a reliquidation at that rate. The collector of the port reliquidated accordingly on June 12, 1901. The importers (respondents) protested, and the matter was submitted to the board of general appraisers in New York. Act of June 10, 1890 (26 Stat. at L. 137, chap. 407, § 14, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1931). The board found that the exchange value of the rupee at the date of certification was 32 cents, but that the metal value was 20.7 cents, as estimated by the Director of the Mint and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury for the quarter year beginning April 1, 1900, and ruled that the latter rate should have been taken, and directed a reliquidation on that footing. The collector appealed to the circuit court and then to the circuit court of appeals, both of which sustained the board of appraisers. 129 Fed. 33. The United States then obtained a writ of certiorari from this court. The question is whether the Secretary of the Treasury had power to order reliquidation at the rate of 32 cents.
There is, to be sure, a preliminary question as to the conclusiveness of the Secretary's action under the statute. Technically it does not appear that his decision was not based on a finding as to the metal value of the rupee; that is to say, as to the value on April 19, 1900, in fractions of a gold dollar, of the silver contained in the coin. If the decision were based on such a finding we may assume that it would not be open to review. United States v. Klingenberg, 153 U. S. 93, 38 L. ed. 647, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 790. But the greater part, at least, of the argument was made on a different assumption, which, in view of our conclusion, we shall adopt. We do so the more readily because, upon the public and well-known facts, it is not to be supposed that the imagined finding as to the value of silver was made, and the policy of the Treasury Department to adopt the exchange value of rupees was well-known and publicly declared. It would not be consistent with the honor of the government to take the exchange value and then to cover itself from correction, if it was wrong, by suggesting that it had gone upon a different ground, when that ground could not have been taken by any one knowing the prices of the time. There is another argument for the conclusiveness of the Secretary's action which is so closely connected with the merits that we shall not separate it from our general discussion of the act.
The power of the Secretary depends on the construction of the act of August 27, 1894 (28 Stat. at L. 509, 552, chap. 349, § 25, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 2375).
It is argued for the respondents that the Secretary must derive his power from the proviso, if from anything, that the value dealt with in this section is the same thing throughout, and being declared to be that of the pure metal of the coin in the body of the section, must be the same in the proviso, and that therefore the Secretary is not authorized to order a reliquidation unless it appears to him that the pure metal in the invoice coin was worth 10 per cent more or less in American gold than the value proclaimed. This argument is thought to derive some support from the history of legislation and from the history of the times, which latter is thought to show that fluctuations of silver bullion, what Congress was likely to have had in whatCongress was likely to have had in mind. It is suggested further that the government reading makes the proviso revolutionize the body of the section and the practice of a hundred years.
On the other side we start with the consideration that, to an ad valorem tax, it must be an object to ascertain the true value of the thing taxed at the time as of which it is taxed, and that the invoice price is referred to only to that end. The history of the statutes shows a series of continually closer approximations to it, and to our mind helps the contention of the government, not that of the other side. The statutes began by fixing the rates for specified coins absolutely. Then in 1873, they provided in the language of the first part of § 25, quoted above, for an annual estimate by the...
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