Philip Morris & Co. ex rel. Great American Insurance v. United States

The plaintiff sues to recover $59,514, the value of internal revenue tobacco tax stamps affixed to packages of cigarettes which stamps and cigarettes were wholly destroyed by fire when the freight car in which they were being transported was wrecked. The substantive problem whether, in such circumstances, a manufacturer of cigarettes has a legal right to obtain from the Government a refund of the cost of the stamps was considered by this court and decided in the affirmative in the case of Stephano Brothers v. United States, 116 C. Cls. 503. The Government has vigorously asserted in this case…