Boston Sand and Gravel Co. v. United States, 278 U.S. 41 (1928)
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U.S. Supreme Court BOSTON SAND & GRAVEL CO. v. UNITED STATES,
[Page 278 U.S. 41, 55]
court was bound to look to the language employed and construe it in its natural and obvious sense, even though that was to give the words of the act an effect probably never contemplated by those who obtained the act and very probably not intended by the Legislature which enacted it. The King v. The Commissioners, 5 A. & E. 804, 816. See, also, United States v. Lexington Mill Co., , 34 S. Ct. 337, L. R. A. 1915B, 774; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 485, 37 S. Ct. 192, L. R. A. 1917F, 502, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 1168; Russell Co. v. United States, 261 U.S. 514, 519, 43 S. Ct. 428.
The enforcement of the statute according to its plain terms results in no absurdity or injustice, for, as this court recently said, in holding the United States liable for damages including interest in a collision case where the government had come into court to assert a claim on its own behalf: 'The absence of legal liability in a case where but for its sovereignty it would be liable does not destroy the justice of the claim against it.' United States v. The Thekla, 266 U.S. 328, 340, 45 S. Ct. 112, 113 (69 L. Ed. 313).
To refuse interest in this case, in my opinion, is completely to change the clear meaning of the words employed by Congress by invoking the aid of extrinsic circumstances to import into the statute an ambiguity which otherwise does not exist and thereby to set at naught the prior decisions of this court and long-established canons of statutory construction.
Mr. Justice BUTLER, Jr. Justice SANFORD, and Mr. Justice STONE concur in this opinion.
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