Hughes v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
38 F.2d 755 · 1930
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2002 · most notably Helvering v. Gowran (1937), Bixby v. Commissioner (1972)
26 federal appellate · 1 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Rector Etc of Holy Trinity Church v. United States · Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. · Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner · Takao Ozawa v. United States · Easterbrook v. Hebrew Ladies Orphan Society
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Considering the manifest intention of Congress to restrict the application of the section and the evident purpose of the law, it is our opinion that the section has no application to wage-earners, salaried or professional men. Wage-earners and salaried men may be out of work, and subject to no tax. But, employing no capital in their ‘trade or business regularly carried on,’ they suffer no net losses that should be carried over to other years. Collections may be poor for doctors and lawyers; but the sick must be treated in good times and bad; the services of lawyers are sought in bankruptcy and receiverships and litigation in hard times, as they are sought in other matters in times of prosperity. The capital of doctors and lawyers is limited to instruments and libraries, which are not for barter or sale, and the market value of which is not ordinarily reflected in income tax returns. There may exist large firms, with heavy overheads, which actually show a net loss for some years. But certainly ‘net losses’ of salaried or professional men were not of enough public concern to command the solicitude of Congress. The petitioner is therefore right, in considering his income from his profession, and the salaries he received from the banks, as ‘gains or profits not derived from such trade or business,’ under 204(a) (3). Such income was unrelated to his business of investment banking, and he was entitled to deduct this unrelated profit from his likewise unrelated losses, in arriving ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]e are here concerned only with the meaning of this phrase as used in this section. The same phrase, in other statutes, or in other sections, in a different context, and for a different purpose, may or may not be helpful.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.