The case involved an Italian immigrant who was convicted in 1938 of concealing distilled spirits to defraud the United States of taxes and of conspiring to violate internal revenue laws, along with prior liquor-related convictions. He was ordered deported under the Immigration Act of 1917 on the ground that he had been sentenced more than once for crimes involving moral turpitude. The court affirmed the deportation order, holding that the post-Prohibition convictions demonstrated a specific intent to evade taxes in a business context, which constitutes moral turpitude comparable to fraud against individuals. A dissent argued that the offenses did not meet the moral turpitude standard under the statute as interpreted in prior precedent.
The case involved a wealthy taxpayer who sought to deduct over $70,000 in annual office and staff expenses for managing his stock and bond investments as ordinary and necessary business expenses under section 23(a) of the Revenue Act of 1932. The Board of Tax Appeals disallowed the deduction for the securities-related portion of the expenses, and the court affirmed that ruling. The court reasoned that the statute limits deductions to expenses incurred in carrying on a trade or business, and under the common meaning of those words, simply conserving or overseeing one's personal investments does not qualify as a trade or business. Expenses allocable to real estate management were conceded as deductible and were not at issue.
The case involved a lawyer who served as attorney for several New York villages and sought recovery of federal income taxes paid on his compensation for those services under the Public Salary Tax Act of 1939, which provided limited immunity from tax for compensation received by officers or employees of states or their subdivisions in years before 1938. The district court dismissed the suit on the merits, and the court of appeals affirmed. The court held that the plaintiff was not an officer or employee of the villages, noting that he took no oath of office, had no duties prescribed by law, used his own office and assistant, represented multiple villages while maintaining a general practice, and performed services akin to those of a private retainer. This conclusion aligned with prior case law interpreting similar tax exemption provisions.
The case concerned whether Long Island Drug Co. could deduct profit-sharing payments to its four officers as reasonable compensation under the Revenue Acts of 1928 and 1932, after the Commissioner disallowed those amounts (while allowing fixed salaries) and the Board of Tax Appeals upheld the disallowance. The company had amended its bylaws in 1931 to pay the officers set salaries totaling $51,000 plus 12.5% of profits each, but paid no dividends; it presented evidence of business volume and expert opinions on reasonableness. The court affirmed the Board's decision, holding that the company bore the burden of proving the total compensation was reasonable and that its evidence was insufficient to carry that burden, making the Board's finding equivalent to a determination that the profit-based amounts were unreasonably high.
This case involved a passenger suing the driver of a car for injuries from a collision on a rural Vermont road under the state's Guest-Occupant statute, which requires proof of gross or willful negligence for liability. The court examined whether the driver's actions—driving on the wrong side of a sharp curve at 15 miles per hour without honking—constituted gross negligence. After reviewing the facts and Vermont precedents defining gross negligence as involving high culpability or utter forgetfulness of duty, the court concluded the conduct was merely ordinary carelessness not rising to that level. Therefore, the appellate court reversed the judgment in favor of the plaintiff and dismissed the complaint.
The case involved a passenger, Sarah Baron, who was injured on the defendant's steamship Normandie and sought damages for her injuries along with her husband for loss of services. The district court dismissed the complaint because the plaintiffs failed to provide written notice of the claim within fifteen days after the voyage as required by the steamship ticket contract. The court of appeals affirmed, reasoning that the ticket clearly incorporated the notice provision into the contract of passage, making it binding regardless of whether the passengers read it, and that neither the purser's statements nor a later letter satisfied the requirement. The court noted that a subsequent statute limiting such notice periods did not apply retroactively to this case.