RODGERS v. UNITED STATES.
No. 58
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 16, 1947.—Decided November 10, 1947.
332 U.S. 371
Stanley M. Silverberg argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Assistant Attorney General Sonnett, J. Stephen Doyle, Robert W. Ginnane and W. Carroll Hunter.
In the years 1940, 1941 and 1942 the petitioner produced on his farms and sold more cotton than the quota allotted him under authority of Part IV of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 as amended.
Since penalties under the Agricultural Adjustment Act are imposed under an Act of Congress, they bear interest only if and to the extent such interest is required by federal law. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O‘Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 714-716; Royal Indemnity Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 289, 295-297. There is no language in the Agricultural Adjustment Act or in any other act of Congress which specifically allows or forbids interest on penalties such as these prior to judgment.2 But the failure to mention interest in statutes which create obligations has not been interpreted by this Court as manifesting an unequivocal congressional purpose that the obligation shall not bear interest. Billings v. United States, 232 U. S. 261, 284-288. For in the absence of an unequivocal prohibition of interest on such obligations, this Court has fashioned rules which granted or denied interest on particular statutory obligations by an appraisal of the congressional purpose in imposing them and in the light of general principles deemed relevant by the Court. See, e. g., Royal Indemnity Co. v. United States, supra; Board of Comm‘rs v. United States, 308 U. S. 343.
As our prior cases show, a persuasive consideration in determining whether such obligations shall bear interest is the relative equities between the beneficiaries of the obligation and those upon whom it has been imposed. And this Court has generally weighed these relative equities in accordance with the historic judicial principle that one for whose financial advantage an obligation was assumed or imposed, and who has suffered actual money damages by another‘s breach of that obligation, should be fairly compensated for the loss thereby sustained. See,
The contention is hardly supportable that the Federal Government suffers money damages or loss, in the common law sense, to be compensated for by interest, when one convicted of a crime fails promptly to pay a money fine assessed against him. The underlying theory of that penalty is that it is a punishment or deterrent and not a revenue-raising device; unlike a tax, it does not rest on the basic necessity of the Government to collect a carefully estimated sum of money by a particular date in order to meet its anticipated expenditures. For the foregoing reasons this Court‘s holding that a criminal penalty does not bear interest, Pierce v. United States, 255 U. S. 398, 405-406, is consistent with its holding that the Government does suffer recoverable damages if a taxpayer fails to pay taxes when due and is therefore equitably entitled to interest. Billings v. United States, supra. Furthermore, denial of interest on criminal penalties might well be rested on judicial unwillingness to expand punishment fixed for a criminal act beyond that which the plain language of the statute authorizes.
Viewed in light of these principles, we think that the question of interest on the penalties provided in the Agricultural Adjustment Act on non-cooperators should be governed by the rule previously applied by this Court to criminal fines. Although Congress neither wholly prohibited nor made it a crime for a farmer to market cotton in excess of his quota, still it imposed sanctions upon non-cooperators analogous to those of the criminal law. The purpose of Congress in requiring payment of penalties into the Federal Treasury for marketing above the allotted amount was not to raise revenue for the Government‘s financial advantage but to deter farmers from planting and marketing more than their quotas. In fact, the whole
“As in the case of corn and wheat, it appears that the present rate of penalty [for cotton] is too low to result in the desired adjustment of the amount to be marketed during the marketing year.”4
And with reference to wheat and corn, the committee had reported:
“With the higher penalties, it is expected that growers generally will store the farm marketing excesses rather than pay the penalty and place the commodity on the market at the time when it is not needed.”5
In addition to these high penalties, the Act, as originally passed and as amended, wholly deprived non-cooperators like petitioner of substantial benefits authorized by the
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BURTON, dissenting.
The sums due to the Government are fixed obligations with fixed times of payment. They are debts incidental to the lawful conduct of business and not penalties imposed for violations of law. Accordingly, the debtor should pay and the Government should collect interest on them, as on other debts to the Government, to compensate for delays in their payment. The Agricultural Adjustment Act expressly fixed the amount and time for payment of the sums in question although it did not expressly mention the accrual or denial of interest on delayed payments. However, the federal rule is well-established that, without express statutory reference to the subject of interest, interest is due to the Government on unpaid statutory debts after they have become due in fixed amounts at fixed times, such as those for customs duties and taxes.
“Thus, as to the necessity for a statute it was long ago here decided in view of the true conception of interest, that a statute was not necessary to compel its payment where in accordance with the principles of equity and justice in the enforcement of an obligation, interest should be allowed.” Billings v. United States, 232 U. S. 261, 286.1
This statement was made by Chief Justice White, speaking for the Court, in a case upholding the collection of interest on a tax payable to the United States, under a statute that contained no reference to the accrual of interest.
The requirement that interest be paid to the Government upon the debts due to it under the Agricultural Adjustment Act not only is “in accordance with the principles of equity and justice” called for by the general rule just stated but the accrual of interest in favor of the Government under that Act also is thoroughly consistent with, and helpful to, the accomplishment of its purpose of price and crop control. The disallowance of such interest is equally inconsistent with, and a limitation upon, the accomplishment of that purpose.
The defaulted payments on which interest is claimed here became due because of the petitioner‘s sales of cotton in excess of his statutory quota and such payments are referred to in the Act as “penalties.” However, the context shows that, instead of being criminal penalties imposed for violations of the law, they are “marketing penalties” consisting of governmental charges added to the presale expenses of the seller, especially to help keep prices and sales in line with the economic program of the Government. Satisfaction of these charges is made a condition of the seller‘s legal right to sell his excess cotton at a particular time. They are the very opposite of penalties imposed for making illegal sales. They are lawful, “ordinary and necessary” business expenses incidental to his sales. They are deductible from his taxable income, whereas criminal penalties are not deductible from taxable income.2 These “marketing penalties” are also unlike
The payments are imposed in part for revenue purposes although especially as a means of inducing cotton owners to control their sales of cotton in interstate and foreign commerce in accordance with the economic policies of the Government. During its consideration of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Congress declined to adopt a proposal to treat such sales as in violation of law4 and
For these reasons, the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming that of the District Court allowing interest from the date of default, should have been affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE joins in this dissent.
Notes
“Any farmer who, while farm marketing quotas are in effect, markets cotton in excess of the farm marketing quota for the marketing year for the farm on which such cotton was produced, shall be subject to the following penalties with respect to the excess so marketed: 2 cents per pound if marketed during the first marketing year when farm marketing quotas are in effect; and 3 cents per pound if marketed during any subsequent year, except that the penalty shall be 2 cents per pound if cotton of the crop subject to penalty in the first year is marketed subject to penalty in any subsequent year.”
The 1941 amendment required computation of the penalty on the following basis:
“That notwithstanding the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the Act)—
“(9) The marketing penalty for cotton and rice produced in the calendar year in which any marketing year begins (if beginning with or after the 1941-1942 marketing year) shall be at a rate equal to 50 per centum of the basic rate of the loan for cooperators for such marketing year under section 302 of the Act and this resolution.”
“From this review it results that the doctrine as to non-liability to pay interest for taxes which have become due which prevails in the state courts is absolutely in conflict with the doctrine applied to the same subject in this court and cannot now be made the rule without repudiating settled principles which have been here applied for many years in various aspects and without in effect disregarding the sanction either expressly or impliedly given by Congress to such rules. . . . Under this condition we can see no ground for departing from the rule which the cases enforced, . . . .” Billings v. United States, supra, at pp. 287-288.
Payments in the nature of penalties for the violation of federal or state statutes in the ordinary use of that term are not deductible. Commissioner v. Longhorn Portland Cement Co., 148 F. 2d 276; Burroughs Bldg. Material Co. v. Commissioner, 47 F. 2d 178; Great Northern R. Co. v. Commissioner, 40 F. 2d 372.