value
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 362 U.S. 511 - Schaffer v. United States · 1960Most cited · 1,314 citing opinions
18 U.S.C. §2314
where the shipments have enough relationship so that they may properly be charged as a single offense, their value may be aggregated. The Act defines 'value' in terms of that aggregate.
How the Supreme Court has restated “value”
Each Supreme Court definition of “value,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “value”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “value” — 3,442 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1914–1960
- 1914·234 U.S. 216 - International Harvester Company of America v. Commonwealth of Kentucky[p6]· cited 519×ORIGINAL
Value is the effect in exchange of the relative social desire for compared objects expressed in terms of a common denominator. It is a fact, and generally is more or less easy to ascertain.
in exchange
the value of property at a given time depends upon the relative intensity of the social desire for it at that time, expressed in the money that it would bring in the market. Like all values, as the word is used by the law, it depends largely on more or less certain prophecies of the future, and the value is no less real at that time if later the prophecy turns out false than when it comes out true.
All of the economic benefits of a policy must be taken into consideration in determining its value for gift-tax purposes. To single out one and to disregard the others is in effect to substitute a different property interest for the one which was the subject of the gift.
gift tax, life insurance policy