Case ID: us-ct-cl_9/html/0500-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Loring, J., Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ALVORD’S CASE. Elijah S. Alvord v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      A mail-eontracior, haring performed certain additional service in carrying the Cal-iforniamail, (the usual route having been brolcen,) presents his claim therefor to the Postmaster-General. The Postmaster-General informs him that if the claim be pressed, a certain other service, then having sevei'dl months to run, will be discontinued, the Postmaster-General having the right to discontinue it at any time. Subsequent to this reply, and while the service is still being rendered, the contractor presents documents to prove the justice of his claim for the California mail, and otherwise presses his demand by personal interviews with the Second • Assistant Postmaster-General, mill whom all of tits business relating to the claim was previously transacted. That officer does not inform the Poshmaster-General that the claim is thus pressed. The contractor continues to perform the existing mail service and to reap the benefit of it.
    
    Estoppel arises where the Postmaster-General replies to a claim for certain extra mail-service that if it he i>ressecl he will discontinue a mail-service then being performed by the same contractor, it having several months to run, and the Postmaster-General having the right to discontinue it at • aDy time, and the contractor neglecting to inform the Postmaster-General that his claim will be pressed, and continuing to receive the benefits of the existing service; and this though he in the meanwhile presents documents to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General (with whom the business has previously been transacted) to prove the justice of his claim.
    
      The Reporters’ statement of the case:
    
    This case was formerly tried and a judgment rendered against the claimant, (8 0. 01s. P., p. 364.) Subsequently a new trial was granted, (ante, p. 133.) In addition to the facts found on the former trial the court make the following finding :
    Immediately after the claimant’s servicesfor carrying the California mail, as set forth in the second finding, had terminated, he presented his account therefor to the Postmaster-General, and requested that it be liquidated and paid, but the Postmaster-General refused to allow or pay the same, and directed' the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to reply “that when he made the arrangement to give him the $14,000 per annum additional for improved service between Columbus and Fort Kear-ney, it was in view of bis conveying the overland mails over', that route, and through Iowa, free of additional expense, should circumstances make it necessary temporarily so to send them. And that if the claim for additional compensation for such service is to be pressed, he would feel compelled at once to annul that arrangement.” The Second Assistant Postmaster-General reduced such instructions to writing, in the form of a letter from himself to the claimant, and caused it to be mailed to the claimant at his residence in Indianapolis, Indiana. Subsequent to the mailing of such letter, and while the additional mail-service at $14,000 per annum was still being rendered, the claimant presented documents to prove the justice of his claim for conveying the California mail, and otherwise pressed his demand by personal interviews with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, with whom all of the business relating to this claim had previously been transacted. He did not otherwise notify the Postmaster-General that his claim for the California mail-service would be pressed. The Second Assistant Postmaster-General did not inform the Postmaster-General that the claimant thus pressed his demand for the California mail-service. The claimant continued to run a daily mail between Omaha and Fort Kearney, and to receive the consideration at. the rate of $14,000 per annum, from the 12th of February, 1882, when the Postmaster-General’s decision was made, up to the termination of the original contract on the 30th June, 1862.
    
      Mr. Thomas Wilson for the claimant.
    
      Mr. J. K. McCammon (with whom was the Assistant Attorney-General) for the defendants.
   Loring, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

When this case was heard before, it was considered that the claimant was barred of his claim because after'the Postmaster-General had decided that the extra mail-service would be discontinued if the petitioner persisted in his claim, he had acceded to that by performing the extra service and receiving the money for it without protest. A rehearing was granted to the petitioner to permit him to show such protest, and he has submitted evidence for the purpose. But we think it fails to prove it, and that it shows his attempts to induce the postmaster to change his decision, while the petitioner was all the time acting on it in performing the extra service and receiving the compensation for it, which he knew would not have been paid him if his claim had not been abandoned and understood to have been.

The petition is dismissed.

Nott, J.,

dissenting:

On the former trial the evidence indicated a complete and absolute acquiescence on the part of the contractor in the decision of the Postmaster-General, from which acquiescence we were bound to infer that he was in good conscience estopped from again pressing his claim. The benefit received by the contractor from his silence, we then pointed put, was exceedingly trivial as compared with the magnitude of the claim which he apparently consented to relinquish. It now appears that after the notice was given by the Postmaster-General the claimant did, in fact, continue to press his claim. Coupled with the other facts of the case, I think that he did not intend to keep silence, or to be considered as keeping silence, and that he was neither morally nor legally bound to give any formal notification to the Postmaster-General, or to do anything more than that which he did do, namely, to continue pressing his claim for this California mail-service. It is one of those cases where the law does not allow an estoppel to be implied, where the burden of proof rests exclusively upon the party who relies upon the estoppel, and where the estoppel springs entirely out of moral obligations and not out of legal formalities. For these reasons I think the claimant should recover. 
      
      See 8 C. Cls. R., p. 364, and ante. p. 133.