United States v. Rindskopf
| Decision Date | 01 October 1881 |
| Citation | 26 L.Ed. 1131,105 U.S. 418 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. RINDSKOPF |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
This is an action against Lewis Rindskopf, the principal, and Raphael Reichmann and Elias Rindskopf, sureties, on a distiller's bond for $7,000, executed March 23, 1875. The principal was then engaged in the business of a distiller within the first collection district of Wisconsin. The condition of the bond provided, among other things, that he should 'company with all the provisions of law in relation to the duties and business of distillers.' The complaint alleges as a breach of these conditions the non-payment of the tax due on 3,640 gallons of spirits distilled by him at his distillery between the 25th of April and the 1st of May, 1875, amounting to $3,276. It also alleges that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue assessed the tax against him on the special list for October of that year; and that the assessment was returned to the collector of the district, who demanded payment of the tax, which was refused.
The answer contained a general denial, and also set up as a special defence that on the 1st of November, 1875, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made an assessment upon the distiller to the amount of $7,117.70, for spirits alleged to have been manufactured at his distillery in the month of April, 1875, and removed therefrom without payment of the tax thereon, and with intent to defraud the government; that this assessment was returned to the collector of the district, who demanded payment of the tax; that afterwards, in May, 1876, the plaintiffs brought a suit in equity to enforce its collection; that the distiller was served with process and answered the complaint, averring that the assessment was illegal and void; that that suit was still pending; and that the assessment mentioned in the complaint here was upon the same spirits for which the above assessment of $7,117 was made.
A supplemental and amended answer repeated these allegations, and added that the equity case was heard in April, 1879, when the assessment was adjudged to be illegal, and the bill dismissed. The answer pleads the decree entered in bar of the present action.
The case was tried at the January Term of the court in 1880. There is no statement of the evidence or of its purport in the record, except as appears in the charge given to the jury. The bill of exceptions states that the plaintiffs offered evidence tending to maintain the issues on their part, 'as is generally stated in the charge of the court hereinafter contained;' and that the defendants offered evidence tending to maintain the issues on their part, 'as is in like manner stated in the charge of the court.' Then follows the charge at length, at the end of which particular parts of it are indicated to which exceptions were taken, and among others the following: 'To all that portion of said charge which defines and sets forth the legal force and effect of an assessment, and the means whereby it may be attacked and overcome; to all of that portion of said charge which touches the entirety of the assessment and affirms that the plaintiffs must recover the exact amount of the assess- ment or nothing.' That portion of the charge to which reference is thus made is found in different passages, which are as follows: After speaking of the power of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to make an assessment, the court said:——
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United States v. Rexach
...the ultimate burden, a proposition the court was understandably not concerned with rejecting. Its lengthy citation of United States v. Rindskopf, 105 U.S. 418 (1881), does not seem to us dispositive of the issue because the suit there was in part against third parties, sureties on a distill......
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Howard v. United States
...12 Wheat. 64, 69, 70, 25 U.S. 69, 70, 6 L. Ed. 552; Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. 410, 37 U.S. 410, 9 L.Ed. 1137; United States v. Rindskopf, 105 U.S. 418, 26 L. Ed. 1131; Wickwire v. Reinecke, 275 U. S. 101, 105, 48 S.Ct. 43, 72 L.Ed. 25 Wigmore on Evidence, 2d Ed., § 2493. See also Sections ......
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...Some basis for such a request is indicated by Clinkenbeard v. United States, 1874, 21 Wall. 65, 22 L.Ed. 477 and United States v. Rindskopf, 1882, 105 U.S. 418, 26 L.Ed. 1131, neither of which was called to our attention in Pipola. Any modification of Pipola in the sense suggested would onl......
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