Opinion of Nix V Hedden

[lfromnj]

Do you agree with the court's decision to let tomatoes be taxed by calling them a vegetable instead of the botanical definition of a fruit?

[brucejoel99]

When one looks to original intent, it could be argued that the legislators who drafted & ultimately passed the bill would've likely viewed tomatoes as vegetables for the purposes of taxation, but the Court was wrong in deciding that way because they simply couldn't know whether Congress actually knew if the tomato was indeed a fruit. Instead of assuming the ignorance of Congress, the Court should've deferred to the technical definition & allowed Congress to amend the law as they saw fit. That is, after all, the role of Congress.