Stephano Bros. ex rel. Great American Insurance v. United States

The plaintiff, a manufacturer of cigarettes, on January 17, 1946, removed from its factory at Philadelphia for consumption or sale 1,060 cases of Marvel brand cigarettes. It had affixed to the packages of cigarettes the appropriate federal internal revenue stamps for which stamps it had paid $37,100. The cigarettes were delivered to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company consigned to the plaintiff at St. Louis. On January 18 the freight car containing the cigarettes was derailed and burned, and all the cigarettes were destroyed except four cases. The stamps affixed to the packages in the…