US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. An appeal to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue from an assessment is only a condition precedent to an action for the recovery of taxes paid, and not a condition precedent to any other action where such action is permissible.

2. A collector of taxes of the United States cannot revise or refuse to enforce an assessment regularly made by the assessor of his district in the exercise of the latter's jurisdiction. The duties of a collector in the enforcement of a tax assessed are purely ministerial. The assessment, duly certified to him, is his authority to proceed, and constitutes his protection.

3. If an officer or tribunal possess jurisdiction over the subject matter upon which judgment is passed, with power to issue an order or process for the enforcement of such judgment, and the order or process issued thereon to a ministerial officer is regular on its face, showing no departure from the law or defect of jurisdiction over the person or property affected, then and in such cases the order or process will give full and entire protection to the ministerial officer in its regular enforcement against any prosecution which the party aggrieved thereby may institute against him, although serious errors may have been committed by the officer or tribunal in reaching the conclusion or judgment upon which the order or process is issued.

4. The replication of de injuria, interposed to a special plea, justifying the seizure and conviction of property sued for by one as collector of internal revenue under an assessment against the plaintiff, duly made by the assessor of the district and certified to him, puts in issue the material averments of that plea. It throws upon the defendant the burden of proving so much of the plea as constitutes a defense to the action. chanrobles.com-red

Page 81 U. S. 614

5. When to a declaration two special pleas are interposed, each setting up substantially the same defense, and by the replication to one issue is joined on the merits, and by the replication to the other an immaterial issue is formed, and upon the trial all the issues are found for the plaintiff, it is a matter of discretion in the court whether to arrest the judgment for the verdict on the immaterial issue and award a repleader, with which this Court will not interfere.

6. The effect of the replication de iujuria considered upon the authorities. However regarded, its sufficiency to put the material averments of the plea in issue cannot be raised after verdict.

The 19th section of the act of July 13th, 1886, [Footnote 1] enacts:

"That no suit shall be maintained in any court for the recovery of any tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected, until appeal shall have been duly made to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, according to the provisions of law in that regard, and the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury established in pursuance thereof, and a decision of said commissioner be had thereon."

With this statutory provision in force, Hohnbach sued Erskine, a collector of internal revenue, in an action of trespass for the seizure by him, the said collector, and conversion to his use of certain personal property of the alleged value of $10,000 belonging to him, the plaintiff.

The declaration was in the usual form in such cases, and alleged that the seizure and conversion were made in May, 1869, at Milwaukee, in the State of Wisconsin. To this the defendant pleaded the general issue and two special pleas in which he justified the acts complained of on the ground that they were done by him as collector of internal revenue of the First Collection District of Wisconsin in the enforcement of an assessment chargeable against the plaintiff, duly made by the assessor of the district, and certified to him, with an order directing its collection. Both pleas set up the same defense of justification as collector of internal revenue, chanrobles.com-red

Page 81 U. S. 615

differing only in the particularity with which the facts of assessment and distraint and sale of the property were detailed.

To the first special plea the plaintiff replied de injuria sua propria absque tali causa -- that the defendant committed the several trespasses mentioned in the declaration of his own wrong, and without the cause alleged by him, and upon this replication issue was joined.

To the second special plea the plaintiff replied that the tax assessed, which was upon tobacco sold and materials used in its manufacture, was never chargeable to him, inasmuch as he did not manufacture and sell, or remove, within the period mentioned in the assessment, the tobacco described, or any part thereof, and that he had paid all the taxes chargeable against him upon the tobacco manufactured by him, and sold or removed for consumption or use during that period. To this replication the defendant rejoined that the plaintiff had not paid the sum assessed against him, as stated in the plea, for the tobacco thus manufactured by him and sold or removed for consumption. The conclusion was to the country, and the plaintiff joined in the issue.

On the trial which followed the jury found the several issues in favor of the plaintiff, and assessed his damages accordingly.

The defendant then moved in arrest of judgment on several grounds. They amounted, however, substantially to this -- that the second special plea set forth a good defense to the action, inasmuch as it showed that the seizure and conversion complained of were made by the defendant as collector of internal revenue in the enforcement of a tax regularly and legally assessed against the plaintiff; and that the replication did not answer this plea because it did not allege that the plaintiff had taken an appeal from the assessment to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, without which the action was not maintainable. The motion was denied, and judgment was entered upon the verdict for the plaintiff. To review this judgment, the defendant brought the case here on writ of error. chanrobles.com-red

Page 81 U. S. 616