The Bench · 1893 · The US Supreme Court

Nix v. Hedden (1893): is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

What is a tomato?

The case

Told from where the person who decided stood. In the game each line is written into a drawing as you tap.

1. A tax law puts a duty on imported vegetables and lets fruit in free.
2. The Nix family import tomatoes. The customs man taxes them as vegetables. They sue to get the money back.
3. Their case: any botanist will tell you a tomato is the fruit of a plant. In court, dictionaries are read aloud.
4. The other side: nobody eats a tomato for dessert. It is served with dinner, like a potato. You are the court.

The two calls

• A fruit.Science says so. No tax. The law now means what a botanist means, whatever its authors had in mind.
• A vegetable.That is what people call it. Taxed. The law now means what a grocer means, whatever science says.

Make the call in the game →Free. No account. Two minutes.

What happened

A vegetable. All the judges agreed: a law speaks the language of ordinary people.

The court said that in the common speech of buyers and sellers a tomato is a vegetable: served at dinner, not as dessert.

Botany was not overruled. It was not asked.

Source: Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (Supreme Court of the United States, 1893).

How to read this

History is not an answer key. This page says what was done and what came of it. Whether it was right is the question the case leaves with you.

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