Court Opinion

ID: 9419598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:22.191245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.287469
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
dissenting.
I doubt that Congress intended to involve the award of refunds of processing taxes in the abstruse learning of “disappearing presumptions.” In my opinion the terms “prima facie evidence” and “presumption” may be taken *176to have been used interchangeably in the statute. I think no more was intended than to authorize a finding in accordance with the margin evidence, if no other were presented; and in case opposing evidence should be offered, to allow inference either way according to the weight of the proof, taking into account the margin evidence. Hence, in this aspect of the case, I would rest on the decision of the Processing Tax Board of Review, which on the record reasonably may be considered to have been reached in this manner.
I also think the statute forbids going outside the base periods prescribed for comparative data. To hold otherwise would nullify the base period provisions of the Act, which I think are valid. The cause of action here rests on a waiver of the sovereign immunity to suit which Congress may make upon such conditions as it chooses. Nichols v. United States, 7 Wall. 122; Luckenbach S. S. Co. v. United States, 272 U. S. 533, 536; Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382, 388. Allowing in the evidence concerning other periods, though not for the purpose of computing margins, accomplishes indirectly what the base period provisions were designed to prohibit.
Accordingly, I think the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals should be reversed, with directions to affirm the decision of the Processing Tax Board of Review.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in these views.