Case ID: us-ct-cl_62/html/0755-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice BhaNdeis", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ISELIN v. UNITED STATES
    [59 C. Cls. 654; 270 U. S. 245]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was reversed, the Supreme Court deciding:
    1. Paragraph 3 of section 800 (a) of revenue act of 1918, laying taxes on theater and opera tickets sold at news stands, hotels, etc., for more than the “ established price ” at the ticket office of the theater or opera house, helé inapplicable to sale by a stockholder of box tickets, issued as an incident of his investment in an opera-house company, which were not sold at the box office and for which there was no established price.
    2. A statute imposing taxes with particularity, and in plain, unambiguous language, can not be enlarged by construction to cover other cases omitted through presumable inadvertence of the legislature.
    3. An administrative practice which enlarges the scope of an unambiguous statute, and which is neither uniform, general, nor long continued, can not be given legal force or effect, nor be accepted as a reason why subsequent reenactment of the statute without change should be taken as a legislative interpretation of its original meaning as justifying such practice.
   Mr. Justice BhaNdeis

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court March 1, 1926.