Throughout the history of the United States, and most other countries, there have been trade deals agreed upon which include some sort of tariff. A tariff is a tax affixed to imported goods and services, which is actually meant to restrict trade in order to make the price of those goods and services more expensive for consumers. In 1872 the U.S, government passed The Tariff Act which was supposed to get rid of the tariffs on “fruit-plants, tropical and semi-tropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation.” Unfortunately, the person who wrote the bill placed a comma in a place it did not belong which caused the bill to instead read “fruit, plants tropical and semi-tropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation,” which meant that no one importing fruits would have to pay any kind of tariff. The result of this mistake? Importers refused to pay tariffs even though the U.S. government still wanted them to, which led to multiple lawsuits, and the U.S Treasury eventually having to refund the importers a total of 2 million dollars (which is equivalent to 40 million in today’s currency).