154 | SCOTUS | Apr 18, 1910
NOLLMAN & CO.
v.
WENTWORTH LUNCH COMPANY.
Supreme Court of United States.
*592 Mr. Maurice P. Davidson for appellants and petitioners.
Mr. Reno R. Billington for appellee and respondent.
Mr. William C. Rosenberg, by permission of the court, filed a brief as amicus curiae.
Per Curiam.
Judgment affirmed on the authority of Toxaway Hotel Company v. Smathers & Co., decided February 21, 1910 (216 U.S. 439" court="SCOTUS" date_filed="1910-02-21" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/toxaway-hotel-co-v-smathers--co-97189?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="97189">216 U.S. 439).[1]
NOTES
[1] The pertinent part of the headnote in this case is as follows:
A corporation engaged principally in running hotels is not a corporation engaged principally in trading or mercantile pursuits within the meaning of § 4, subs. b, of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898.
Where Congress has not expressly declared a word to have a particular meaning, it will be presumed to have used the word in its well-understood public and judicial meaning, and cases based on a declaration made by Parliament that the word has a certain meaning are not in point in determining the intent of Congress in using the word.
An occupation that is not trading is not a mercantile pursuit.
A corporation not otherwise amenable to the Bankruptcy Act does not become so because it incidentally engages in mercantile pursuit; and so held as to a hotel company which, in addition to inn-keeping in which it was principally engaged, conducted a small store as an incident to its hotel business.