Cudahy Bros. v. La Budde

92 F.2d 937, 20 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 353, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4747
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 30, 1937
DocketNos. 6165, 6166
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 92 F.2d 937 (Cudahy Bros. v. La Budde) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cudahy Bros. v. La Budde, 92 F.2d 937, 20 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 353, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4747 (7th Cir. 1937).

Opinion

LINDLEY, District Judge.

Appellee, in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Anniston Manufacturing Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 337, 57 U.S. 816, 81 L.Ed. 1143, which is fully determinative of all the issues involved in 6166, confesses error in that cause.

6165 is an appeal from a judgment in favor of plaintiff, present appellee, rendered on demurrer to the complaint filed in the District Court, the collector, defendant and appellant here, having elected to stand by its demurrer. The complaint sought and the court allowed a refund of processing taxes, imposed under section 9 (a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as amended (U.S.C.Supp. II, title 7, § 609 (a), 7 U.S.C.A. § 609(a), assessed and collected upon meat products processed by appellee and thereafter exported by it to foreign countries. These taxes were paid in late 1934 and 1935. The exportations were made prior to January 6, 1936. The [938]*938sole question involved is whether appellee has the right to maintain this suit, begun prior to the Supreme Court’s decision holding the Agricultural Adjustment Act invalid, in a form of action admitted by appellant to have been correct at the time suit was begun; or, otherwise stated, whether the later acts of Congress have nullified the remedy and in lieu thereof, prescribed as the sole remedy the procedure approved by the Supreme Court in Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, supra.

The suit was grounded upon section 17 (a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act as amended (U.S.C.Supp. II, title 7, § 617 (a), 7 U.S.C.A. § 617(a), which provides that upon exportation of any product processed from a commodity, with respect to which a tax “has been paid or is payable,” such “tax due and payable or due and paid shall be credited or refunded” to the consignor named in the bill of lading under which the product is exported or “to the shipper or to the person liable for the tax provided the consignor waives any claims thereto in favor of” such other person.

Subsequent to the decision in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477, 102 A.L.R. 914, holding the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional, Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1936, section 601(a) of which (7 U.S.C.A. § 641(a) provides, in part, that the provisions of sections 17 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act as amended be re-enacted “but only for the purpose of allowing refunds in accordance therewith in cases where * * * the exportation * * * took place prior to January 6, 1936.”

It will be observed that originally Congress, by section 17 (48 Stat. 40), with the obvious' intent of stimulating exportation and foreign trade and to relieve the country of an undesirable domestic surplus, placed exported goods ip an exempt class, against which no tax was intended to be assessed or collected. It went even further and provided that one exporting commodities might, upon giving bond -to the Secretary of the Treasury, process the commodity and export same without payment of any tax. That exported goods were exempt and that Congress intended by the exemption to encourage exportation is evidenced by the further provision of the section that any tax paid should be refunded to the consignor so exporting and ■to no other person, except at the direction of the consignor. This provision was similar to other so-called “drawback” statutes, one of which was before the Supreme Court in Asiatic Petroleum Co. v. Insular Collector, 297 U.S. 666, 56 S.Ct. 651, 80 L.Ed. 967, where the purpose of exemption was commented upon, and another in Campbell et al. v. United States, 107 U.S. 407, 2 S.Ct. 759, 763, 27 L.Ed. 592, where the court remarked that when Congress declared that upon exportation a “drawback” of the duty paid, should be allowed, there “resulted a contract that when exported the government would refund, repay, pay back, this amount as a drawback to the importer.” Thus, we observe, appellee sought to recover no taxes collected under an invalid statute but rather refund of taxes previously paid, upon proof that the commodity taxed had gone into exportation.

It is insisted by appellant, however, that the language of the act of 1936 forbids the institution of or maintenance of such suits and that Congress has by its legislation placed suits for drawback of taxes upon exportation in the same class as suits brought to recover taxes wrongfully collected under an invalid act. He relies, first, upon section 601(b) of the act (7 U.S.C.A. § 641(b), in part as follows: “Except for refunds under section 15(a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, [615(a) of this title] as reenacted herein, no refund under this section shall be made to the processor or other person who paid or was liable for the tax with respect to the articles on which the claim is based.” This language, it is insisted, constitutes a specific prohibition of such suits as the one before us. But it is to be observed that in subsection (a) of the same section, Congress expressly re-enacted section 17 allowing the drawback recovery, to the ex;tent necessary for “the purpose of allowing refunds in accordance therewith in cases where * * * the exportation * * * took place prior to January 6, 1936.” To our minds it could not have been the intent to provide specifically in subsection (a) for preservation of the remedy for drawback in case of exportation and then immediately following, by subsection (b), to provide that the remedy specifically recognized by subsectiqn (a) was abolished. Rather, we believe, reconciling the two sections, it was the intent, by subsection (b), to deal only with refunds governed by the new legislation, of taxes illegally collected under an invalid [939]*939statute. The words “refund under this section” must have been intended to refer to the new remedy created by title 7 of the Revenue Act of 1936 (section 902 et seq. [7 U.S.C.A. § 644 et seq.]), covering procedure for the recovery of taxes illegally collected. Any other interpretation nullifies entirely subsection (a), which reenacts section 17 for the purpose of allowing refunds in case of exportation.

House committee report No. 2475, 74th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 13, 14, in discussing the proposed act, said that it was the intent to preserve the' exemption from tax of articles exported prior to January 6, 1936, created by section 17(a). The senate committee, in report No. 2156, 74th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 36, 37, observed that the legislation would serve to remove doubt of the commissioner as to the propriety of his continuing to pay refunds under section 17(a) existing after the Agricultural Adjustment Act was held unconstitutional where goods were exported prior to January 6, 1936, the date of the decision.

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Bluebook (online)
92 F.2d 937, 20 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 353, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4747, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cudahy-bros-v-la-budde-ca7-1937.