Case ID: us-ct-cl_17/html/0442-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Matthews", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(14 C. Cls. R., 481; 105 U. S. R., 577.)
    The Swift Courtney & Beecher Company. appellants, v. The United States, appellees.
    
      On the claimants’ Appeal.
    
    
      An act of Congress allowing a commission of 10 per cent, on stamps to persons furnishing their oym dies. The Treasury Department makes this commission payable in stamps. Accordingly, instead of selling $100 in stamps for $90 cash, the department sells $110 in stamps for $100 cash. The practice is continued for a great length of time, and is acquiesced m by Congress and by purchasers generally. During this time the claimants, manufacturers of friction-matches, pmchase such stamps. They now claim that the commission allowed by statute should have been calculated in cash and not in stamps, and site to recover the difference.
    
    The court "below decides that where the Secretary of the Treasury has construed a statute which provides that manufacturers furnishing their own dies for stamps shall he allowed a commission of 10 per cent, to mean that the commission shall be payable in stamps and not in cash, and a great amount of money has been collected under this construction, and purchasers generally have acquiesced in it, and Congress, while revising and re-enacting the statute, have made no change in the Treasury practice, the court will not reverse the practice by a new construction of the statute.
    The judgment of the court below is reversed on the ground that the established practice cannot contravene the plain meaning of the statute, and that it does not appear that the claimant waived its right to a commission on stamps purchased.
   Mr. Justice Matthews

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, April 17, 1882.