Court Opinion

ID: 9445937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:41:30.973368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:27.466283
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
That we are unanimous in our belief that this is a harsh and unfortunate result causes me to heed especially the admonition to express disagreement with diffidence.
But my difference is fundamental and needs no process of analogy or other trappings of legal reasoning for its justification. My view simply is this: Congress could have intended no such result as this.
Saying that, I have expressed in a sort of shorthand, the proposition that properly construed, this Act, conceived out of a purpose to liberalize, should not be interpreted to compel a result so beyond any Congressional expectation.
At the outset, I am not troubled by the literal wording of the Act. For *176divining the Congressional purpose is more than a technique of .etymology. In the process it is not even accurate to say that the statute must necessarily be construed by giving to words their ordinary meaning. For it is much more profound: the words are the vehicle to express an intent, and if that intent, otherwise discernible, would be thwarted by the natural, literal meaning of the words, literalism must be rejected.1
So we inquire: What was it Congress was trying to do ?
I think one thing it was trying to do was to eradicate a judge-made rule which was unrealistic, if not unbecoming to a Government whose own facility (postal system) was thusly so disparaged. In several cases 2 under the prior law, courts held in substance that late arrival of an appeal timely posted did not excuse the delay because the citizen took a risk in using the mails, just as he would had he sent it by pony express, freight, steamboat, pirogue, or dirigible.
Congress, I believe, meant to end that. If we need search for reasons, they are *177abundant. Prudent businessmen regularly use the mails; our postal system, while human and not free from errors, is nonetheless a remarkably efficient organization; and, probably most important, in the millions of transactions inherent in the American income tax system, the Government requires the use of the mails for its own actions and its own convenience would be best advanced by encouraging, not discouraging, its use.
Once Congress set out on this simple path, there arose immediately the mechanical problem of the time the act should be deemed effective. Since it was, I think, inspired to abandon the outmoded theory that the risk was on the one who chose to use the mails so that time was the time of delivery, Congress logically had to specify the time as that of mailing.
This then led to another mechanical problem: how to establish it? What more natural thing was there for Congress to do than specify as the time of mailing that reflected by the postmark? But to accept that thesis is not to assume that to Congress the vital thing was the postmark itself. The vital thing was the timely mailing, and for that, the usual and normal way of establishing time of mailing would be by the postmark.
This means, I think, that the overriding Congressional purpose which we should, with at least some generosity, try to effectuate was that if timely mailed, it was timely filed. As a corollary we then readily find the law and its machinery sufficiently flexible to permit proof of timely filing to be made by other conclusive ways where, for one reason or another, the postmark is not3 available.
I am willing to condition the exception to those cases in which timely mailing can be conclusively established. I find no insurmountable problems in that concept, either in what is conclusive, or the hazard that there may be some opportunity for perjury. Our system of revenue, to the certain knowledge of Congress, rests upon a remarkable demonstration of a national inherent honesty. Building so complex a structure as it has on this foundation, I would not be surprised to think that Congress, in this limited area, had confidence in its own electorate, especially since it had erected this vast administrative machinery of the Revenue Service, Tax Court, and Federal Judiciary to guard it.
On any such reading of the statute, petitioner would have his day in court. For the record shows conclusively that he did all that he could, and that so far as he was concerned, he has timely “mailed” it when, as an inmate, he deposited it with the agents of the United States Government responsible for his mail.
I therefore respectfully dissent.

. “There is, of course, no more persuasive evidence of the purpose of a statute than the words by which the legislature undertook to give expression to its wishes. Often these words are sufficient in and of themselves to determine the purpose of the legislation.' In such cases we 18 When that meaning has led to absurd or futile results, however, this Court has looked beyond the words to the purpose of the act.19 Frequently, however, even when the plain meaning did not produce absurd results but merely an unreasonable one ‘plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole20 this Court has followed that purpose, rather than the literal words.21 * * *

“18. Taft v. Commissioner, 304 U.S. 351, 359, 58 S.Ct. 891, 82 L.Ed. 1393; Helvering v. City Bank Farmers Trust Co., 296 U.S. 85, 89, 56 S.Ct. 70, 80 L.Ed. 62; Wilbur v. United States, 284 U. S. 231, 237, 52 S.Ct. 113, 76 L.Ed. 261; Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55, 60, 51 S.Ct. 49, 75 L.Ed. 156; United States v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 278 U.S. 269, 278, 49 S.Ct. 133, 73 L.Ed. 322; Van Camp & Sons v. American Can Co., 278 U.S. 245, 253, 49 S.Ct. 112, 73 L.Ed. 311; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 490, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. International Coal Min. Co., 230 U.S. 184, 199, 33 S.Ct. 893, 57 L.Ed. 1446.

“19. Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 305 U.S. 315, 332, 59 S.Ct. 191, 199, 83 L.Ed. 195; Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 446, 53 S.Ct. 210, 414, 77 L.Ed. 413; United States v. Ryan, 284 U.S. 167, 176, 52 S.Ct. 65, 68, 76 L.Ed. 224.

“20. Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 194, 43 S.Ct. 65, 67, 67 L.Ed. 199.

“21. Helvering v. Morgan’s, Inc., 293 U.S. 121, 126, 55 S.Ct. 60, 66, 79 L.Ed. 232; Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U.S. 1, 14, 25 S.Ct. 158, 49 L.Ed. 363; State of Ohio ex rel. Popovici v. Agler, 280 U.S. 379, 50 S.Ct. 154, 74 L.Ed. 489; Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355, 52 S.Ct. 397, 76 L.Ed. 795; Williams v. United States, 289 U.S. 533, 53 S.Ct. 751, 77 L.Ed. 1372; Maurer v. Hamilton, supra, 309 U.S. 598, at pages 612, 615, 60 S.Ct. 726, at pages 733, 735, 84 L.Ed. 969.” United States v. American Trucking Ass’ns, 310 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 1064, 84 L.Ed. 1345, 1350.

. “We * * * agree * * * that a failure to file the petition within the specified 90-day period, caused by matters over which the taxpayer has no control, such as delay in the mail service en route from the taxpayer to the Tax Court, Di Prospero v. Commissioner, [9 Cir., 176 F.2d 76] * * *, failure of airplane mail service * * * because of adverse weather conditions, Stebbins’ Estate v. Helvering, [74 App.D.C. 21, 121 F.2d 892] * * *, or because of other equitable considerations, Edward Barron Estate Co. v. Commissioner, 9 Cir., 93 F.2d 751, 753, does not prevent the rule from being applicable.” Central Paper Co. v. Commissioner, 6 Cir., 199 F.2d 902, 904.
“It seems that the petitioners [taxpayer] made no allowance for a failure of mail to move strictly according to schedule.” Poynor v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 81 F.2d 521, 522. Cf. United States v. Lombardo, 241 U.S. 73, 36 S.Ct. 508, 510, 60 L.Ed. 897, in which it was said:
“If depositing in the postoffice of the statement prescribed be required by the statute, it, of course, would satisfy the statute, but to what instant of time would it be referred and at what risk the time or delays of transportation?”

. Following a path, word by word, in the quest of literalism leads to possibilities more harsh and ridiculous than this one. And this is not speculative fantasy. In Madison v. Commissioner, 28 T.C. -, the Tax Court has recently held that where the envelope was mailed and delivered but no postmark was on the packet, the statute had not been satisfied. Can anyone seriously believe that Congress ever thought it was enacting that result? What will the situation be if the post mark is smudged beyond deciphering or a patently wrong stamp is used by a negligent postal clerk?