Pugh v. McCormick/Opinion of the Court

Reference will be made to the parties as they existed in the State court where the suit was commenced.

Martin, on the twelfth of April, 1863, by his promissory note of that date promised to pay, twelve months after date, to the order of the defendant, at the place mentioned in the note, seven thousand dollars with eight per cent. interest, and the note is indorsed by the defendant without date.

On the seventh of December of that year the defendant paid two thousand dollars, which is indorsed on the note, and on the seventeenth of May following he made another payment of three thousand dollars, for which a receipt was given by the plaintiff. Prior to that, however, to wit, on the sixteenth of October of the preceding year, the following waiver of protest was signed by the defendant, to wit: 'Notice of protest, demand, and protest waived, and all legal responsibilities assumed.'

When the note was executed no internal revenue stamps were affixed to it, and it remained without any such stamps until the seventh of October, 1869, when such stamps, to the amount of three dollars and fifty cents, were, at the request of the plaintiff, affixed to it and cancelled by the collector of internal revenue for the district, the interest being collected and the penalty remitted as more fully appears by the certificate of the collector set forth in the record.

Payment being refused, the plaintiff, as the holder and indorsee of the note in good faith and for value, on the twenty-fifth of March, 1868, instituted the present action of assumpsit to recover the balance due on the note. Service was made and the defendant appeared and pleaded that the plaintiff acquired the note directly from the maker of the same; that no consideration ever passed between the defendant and the plaintiff or between the defendant and the maker of the instrument in regard to the note, and the defendant also denied that he was ever legally bound by the instrument or that he ever at any the rendered himself liable to pay the amount. Neither party demanding a jury the cause was heard and determined by the court, and judgment was rendered for the plaintiff in conformity with the declaration.

Exceptions were filed by the defendant, and by the exceptions it appears that the defendant, when the plaintiff offered the note in evidence, objected to its admissibility upon three grounds: (1) Because the face of the instrument was not legally stamped with the internal revenue stamps, as required by law; (2) because the indorsement on the note was not legally stamped; (3) because the certificate waiving demand, notice, and protest was never stamped, and he insisted that the note for the want of such stamps could not be admitted in evidence. All three objections were overruled, and judgment having been rendered for the plaintiff the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court of the State, where the judgment was affirmed. Whereupon the defendant sued out a writ of error to the State court and removed the cause into this court for re-examination.

Two principal questions are presented by the assignment of errors: (1.) Whether the stamps affixed to the note were legally affixed. (2.) Whether the certificate waiving demand, notice, and protest was an instrument which the internal revenue laws required should be stamped. Evidently a satisfactory response to these questions cannot be given without a careful examination of the several provisions in the acts of Congress imposing such revenue duties, and the modifications of the same as enacted by Congress prior to the time when the note and the certificate of waiver were offered and admitted in evidence.

Promissory notes, except bank notes issued for circulation, where the note was given for a sum exceeding twenty dollars and not exceeding one hundred dollars, were by the act of the first of July, 1862, subjected to a stamp duty of five cents. Nine other gradations were prescribed in the same schedule by which the rate per cent. of the duty was somewhat diminished as the amount of the note was increased. Where the note exceeded five thousand dollars the amount of the stamp duty imposed by that schedule was one dollar and fifty cents, and one dollar in addition for every twenty-five hundred dollars or part of twenty-five hundred dollars in excess of five thousand dollars, which shows that the note given in evidence in this case was subject under that act to a stamp duty of three dollars and fifty cents.

Persons who made, signed, or issued, or caused to be made, signed, or issued any instrument, document, or paper of any kind, without the same being duly stamped, were declared by the ninety-fifth section to be subject to a penalty of fifty dollars, and the further provision in the same section was that such instrument, document, or paper should be deemed invalid and of no effect. Section one hundred also provided that if any person made, signed, or issued, or caused to be made, signed, or issued, or accepted or paid or caused to be accepted or paid, with design to evade the payment of any such stamp duty, any bill of exchange, draft, or order, or promissory note for the payment of money and liable to any such duty, he should, for every such bill, draft, order, or note forfeit the sum of two hundred dollars.

Instruments, documents, and papers made, signed, or issued without being duly stamped were, by the ninety-fifth section of that act, declared to be invalid and of no effect, but the twenty-fourth section of the act of the fourteenth of July in the same year provided that no instrument, document, or paper made, signed, or issued prior to the first day of January then next should be deemed invalid or of no effect because it was made, signed, or issued without being duly stamped. Provision, however, was made in the same section that no such instrument, document, or paper should be admitted or used as evidence in any court until it was duly stamped nor until the holder proved to the satisfaction of the court that he had paid five dollars to the collector for the use of the United States.

Exemption from such declared invalidity and nullity was further extended to such instruments, documents, and papers made, signed, or issued prior to the first day of June, 1863, by the sixteenth section of the act of the third of March, passed in the same year, but the same section also provided that no such instrument, document, or paper, or any copy thereof, should be admitted or used as evidence in any court until the required stamps were affixed, together with the initials of the person affixing the stamps and the date when the same were so affixed.

All laws in force in relation to stamp duties when the act of the thirtieth of June, 1864, was passed were by that act continued in force until the first day of August of that year, and the same act adopted a new schedule of stamp duties, which took effect from and after that day. By that schedule persons making, signing, or issuing promissory notes not exceeding one hundred dollars were required to stamp the same with a five-cent stamp, and to add another of the same amount for every additional hundred dollars or fractional part of one hundred dollars.

Neither deeds, instruments, documents, or papers, nor any copy thereof, not stamped, as required by previous laws, could be recorded or admitted or used as evidence under that act until the same was stamped as therein required, but the act provided that no instrument, document, or paper, made, signed, or issued prior to the passage of that act, without being stamped, should be deemed invalid or of no effect for that cause if the stamp or stamps required should be subsequently affixed, and the act gave authority to the person desiring to use or to record any such deed, instrument, document, writing, or paper as evidence to affix the stamp or stamps thereon required in the presence of the court, register, or recorder.

But persons making, signing, or issuing any instrument, document, or paper of any kind, or who caused the same to be made, signed, or issued, or who accepted or paid, or caused to be accepted or paid, any bill of exchange, draft, order, or promissory note without the same being stamped, were by that act subjected to a forfeiture of two hundred dollars, and the further provision was that such instrument, document, or paper, bill, draft, order, or note, should be deemed invalid and of no effect.

Stamps were also required by the act of the thirty-first of March, 1865, where bills of exchange and promissory notes were negotiated as well as where they were accepted and paid, but the forfeiture created by the preceding act for the intentional evasion of the requirements was reduced to fifty dollars instead of two hundred dollars, as provided in the prior law.

Provision was also made that persons desirous of affixing stamps to instruments, not stamped as required by prior laws, might appear before the collector of the proper district and affix the same upon paying the price of the proper stamp and the penalty of fifty dollars, with interest on the stamp duty if it exceeded the amount of the penalty. Such acts being done, that is, the proper stamp being affixed, the penalty paid, and a note of those acts and the date thereof made in the margin of the instrument, the section provides that the instrument 'shall thereupon be deemed and held to be as valid to all intents and purposes as if stamped when made or issued.'

Fifty dollars forfeiture for making, signing, or issuing such an instrument, or for causing the same to be made, signed, or issued, or for accepting, negotiating, or paying, or causing to be accepted, negotiated, or paid, any bill of exchange, draft, or order or promissory note, without the same being duly stamped, was also imposed by the act of the 13th of July, 1866, in cases where the act was done with intent to evade the provisions of that act, but the collector was empowered by that act to remit the penalty and to cause the instrument to be duly stamped in all cases where it appeared to his satisfaction that the omission to affix the stamp happened by reason of accident, mistake, inadvertence, or urgent necessity, and without any wilful design to defraud the revenue, or to evade or delay the payment of the duty. Twelve calendar months from the first day of August then next were allowed to the delinquent party by that act to avail himself of that provision, and the section specifically points out the acts to be done by the party and the collector to render the instrument as valid as if it had been stamped at the time it was made, signed, or issued.

Original instruments, or a certified or duly proved copy thereof, duly stamped so as to entitle the same to be recorded, may under that act be presented to the clerk, register, or recorder, or other officer having charge of the original record, and such officer may, upon the payment of the lawful fee, make a new record thereof, and note upon the original record the fact that the error or omission in the stamping of the original instrument has been corrected pursuant to law, and the provision is that the original instrument, or such certified copy thereof, or the record thereof, may in that event be used in all courts and places, in the same manner and with like effect as if the instrument had been originally stamped.

Errors or omissions of the kind which occurred or happened before the first day of August, 1866, might be remedied under that act at any time within twelve calendar months from that date, and subsequent errors and omissions of the kind might also be remedied in the same way at any time within twelve calendar months from the time the instrument, document, or paper was made, signed, or issued without being stamped as required by law, but it is quite clear that the case before the court does not fall within that proviso, as the application to the collector was not made in season to bring the case within either of those regulations.

Had legislation stopped there the ruling admitting the note in evidence would certainly be erroneous, but the act of the fourteenth of July, 1870, amends the preceding act by striking out the words sixty-six, in the third proviso, and inserting in lieu thereof the words seventy-one, whereby the collector of the proper district is still empowered to remit penalties of the kind occurring or happening under the circumstances described in the third proviso of the prior act.

Since the passage of that act it is conceded that the collector may remit the forfeiture therein imposed if it occurred 'by reason of accident, mistake, inadvertence, or urgent necessity, and without any wilful design to defraud the United States of the stamp or to evade or delay the payment thereof,' but it is insisted that the new provision does not operate retrospectively, that it does not empower the collector to remit the penalty for any such omission if it occurred prior to the passage of the act, but the court here is of a different opinion for several reasons.

Special attention is called in the first place to the peculiar phraseology of the new provision, which is that section one hundred and fifty-eight of the act of the thirtieth of June, 1864, as amended by the ninth section of the act of the thirteenth of July, 1866, be and is hereby amended as therein provided. Three amendments are then made in the last-named act, as follows: (1.) By striking out the words fifty dollars in the second proviso and inserting in lieu thereof the following: Double the amount of the tax remaining unpaid, but in no case less than five dollars. (2.) By striking out the words sixty-six in the third proviso and inserting in lieu thereof the words seventy-one. (3.) By striking out the words sixty-seven in the last proviso and inserting in lien thereof the words seventy-two.

Section one hundred and fifty-eight of the act first named provided that the forfeiture, where the omission to affix the stamp was with the intent to evade the duty, should be two hundred dollars, but the succeeding act passed the next year reduced the forfeiture to fifty dollars.

Such an omission subjected the party to a penalty of fifty dollars also under the act of the thirteenth of July, 1866, but the penalty under the present act cannot exceed a sum which is double the amount of the tax unless that sum is less than five dollars.

Legislation in respect to the amount of the forfeiture in the earlier acts of Congress upon the subject would have been unnecessary if it had not been intended to extend the jurisdiction of the collector or some other officer to delinquencies of the kind which arose under the acts of Congress therein mentioned. All agree that the collector might, within the period of time designated in those acts, remit such forfeitures or penalties for past delinquencies if the application, as before explained, was seasonably made, and the court is unanimously of the opinion that the better construction of the act under consideration is that Congress intended to give such delinquent party a further opportunity to remedy such errors and omissions on the terms and conditions prescribed in the new provision.

Extended argument in support of the conclusion does not seem to be necessary, as the reasons to support it are apparent from its statement. Grant all that and still it may be suggested that the ruling in this case was made before the present act was passed, and it must be admitted that the suggestion is correct, but the new act shows to a demonstration that the ruling in question has become immaterial, having ceased to be prejudicial to the defendant, as the collector now possesses the power to do what he then did, that is, to affix the stamps to the note, remit the penalty, and make the proper memorandum of his doings; and it is so clear that the plaintiff would have a right to require those acts to be done if a new trial were ordered that the court is unhesitatingly of the opinion that the judgment ought not to be reversed for that cause, as the proper stamps were affixed to the instrument and the amount of the required duty was deposited in the treasury before the note was used as evidence.

Where the case is brought here by a writ of error to a State court for re-examination the court is not inclined to reverse the judgment unless there is some substantial error to the prejudice of the complaining party, and especially not where it appears that the error has become immaterial and that the same party will be entitled to judgment if a new trial is granted. Payment of the stamp duty was made to the collector at the time he affixed the stamps to the note, and inasmuch as the government makes no complaint, and the whole transaction is characterized by good faith, the court is of the opinion that the judgment of the State court may be sustained.

II. Objection is also made that the note was not admissible as evidence because the indorsement was not stamped, but the court is of the opinion that the objection is without merit, as a stamp is not required to such a writing.

III. Whenever a party in a suit upon a bill of exchange or promissory note is required to prove demand and notice or protest, he may comply with those conditions by proving that the opposite party waived the requirement.

Proof to that effect was offered in this case, which consisted of the usual memorandum signed by the party and written on the back of the note, and the statement in the bill of exceptions is that the defendant, when the note was offered, objected to the admissibility of that writing, but the court admitted it and the defendant excepted.

Satisfactory proof of waiver in such a case is in all respects equivalent in law to a compliance with the requirement.

Such a waiver need not be in writing, as an oral declaration to that effect would be equally effectual, and it does not appear that any one of the internal revenue acts contains any requirement if it is in writing that it should be stamped, nor is any authority referred to as a support to the objection taken to the ruling of the court. On the contrary, the Supreme Court of California has decided the other way and this court is of the same opinion.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.