Bergdoll v. Pollock

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

On the 22d of January, 1874, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, acting under the authority of sect. 2 of 'An Act for the reduction of officers and expenses of the internal revenue,' approved Dec. 24, 1872, 17 Stat. 402, Rev. Stat. 3182, assessed a tax of $1,350 on Bergdoll & Psotta, the plaintiffs, for 'one thousand three hundred and fifty barrels of beer sold and removed, & c., without proper stamps, to Oct. 1, 1873.' This assessment having been duly certified to the collector, the tax was paid upon compulsion and under protest. An appeal was then made to the commissioner, under the act of 1864, sect. 44, 13 Stat. 239, as amended in 1866, 14 Stat. 111, Rev. Stat., sect. 3226, to refund the amount paid, which being denied, this action was brought against Pollock, the collector, to recover back the money.

Upon the trial, the plaintiffs offered to prove by witnesses on the stand that, from the date at which the internal revenue act of 1866 went into effect, until the assessment complained of was made, 'no beer was sold or removed from their brewery for consumption or sale except in barrels or parts of barrels, which were all duly stamped with an internal revenue stamp,. . . as required by the act of Congress;' that they 'had made their monthly returns to the collector regularly until and including the month of December, 1873; that there was no understatement or undervaluation in either of said returns of the quantity of beer brewed, or of beer sold or removed from their brewery for consumption or sale, and that neither of the returns was false or fraudulent.' This testimony was excluded by the court, and exceptions taken. Judgment having been rendered against the plaintiffs, they sued out this writ of error.

The errors relied upon are: 1. That the assessment is insufficient in law, because too indefinite and uncertain; and, 2. That the testimony offered was improperly rejected.

Mr. William S. Price for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Smith, contra.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.