I SAY TOMATO

You say Tomahto . . . .

I am usually quite smug when a law-related category pops up on Jeopardy! I like it when I know some arcane Supreme Court case that none of the contestants could answer in Final Jeopardy, but today they were all crushed.

The Final Jeopardy category today was The United States Supreme Court—what was the subject of an 1893 case regarding botanicals? I instantly thought it must have been potatoes, automatically assuming some vitriol against the Irish, but then had a quick flash that the answer (question) was “What are tomatoes?” Curiosity drove me to find Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.. 304 (1893), a case which I missed in law school.

Astonishingly, it was the lovely tomato that was the subject of a lawsuit over—yes—tariffs! The New York importer paid duties on the West Indian tomatoes under protest, then filed suit to recoup the fees, asserting that the round red botanicals were fruit, not vegetables. The trial court—the famous Southern District of New York—ruled in favor of the defendant.

In affirming the judgment for the tax collector, SCOTUS held that even though tomatoes are botanically speaking fruits of the vine, common language miraculously turns them into vegetables, thereby subject to the tariffs. Tomatoes into vegetables, water into wine . . . . Legal alchemy!