Case ID: us-ct-cl_19/html/0712-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Matthews", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE SWIFT COURTNEY AND BEECHER COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (18 C. Cls. R., 42; 11 U. S. R., 22.)
    
      On the claimant’s Appeal.
    
    The claimants, from 1870 to 1878, manufacture matches, furnishing their own dies, and giving bonds for the payment of stamps furnished them. Each order is for $3,000 worth. The Commissioner returns stamps, allowing a commission of ten per cent on the amownt of money, i. e., stamps of the face value of $3,300. The stamps are acknowledged in each case as in full satisfaction of the order. During the time of these purchases sixteen hundred such-orders are given, fulfilled, and thus receipted for, without protest or objection, and paid for within sixty days of delivery. Accounts current are made by the Commissioner monthly, and forwarded to the accounting officers, in which the commissions are computed on the amoun t of money involved in the transaction, and frequent settlements are stated by the accounting officers. Soon after the law is passed some parties object to that method' of computation, but no objections are made by the claimants until near the lime of bringing- this action, a period of nine years. The claimants bring this action to recover the difference between allowances made to them computed as ten per cent, commission on the money involved in the transaction, and ten per cent, on the face value of the stamps. The case was once decided, upon demurrer, for the claimants, by the Supreme Court (105 U. S. R., 691), but upon a different state of facts from those now proved. .
    
      Tbe court below decides— -
    (1.) Where each purchase is by written order, separate and distinct from other purchases, and each parcel is forwarded by the Commissioner with a letter stating that it is “ in satisfaction” of the order, and the purchaser also acknowledges the stamps received as “in satisfaction” of the order, and subsequently pays- for them without objection, the facts constitute a contract of sale and delivery in each case at a price fixed by the parties.
    (2.) Where stamps were from time to time ordered upon sixty days’ credit and were paid for within that period of time, there was no running or open account, such as would authorize the purchaser to treat the transaction as open and unsettled.
    (3.) Accounts of the claimants having been adjusted by the Commissioner once each month, and notice given to them through a period of nine years, it must he held that the accounts were not open and running accounts beyond one month each.
    (4.) A purchaser of stamps who through a series of years accepts and pays for those sent to him at the rate of commission allowed by the Commissioner without objection, is’concluded from afterwards claiming that, the statute authorizing such transaction gave him a right to a discount beyond the amount allowed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. (Act of July 1, 1862, ch. 119, § 102, 12 Stat. L., 477; and Act of March 3, 1863, ch. 74, 12 Stat. L., 718.)
    The judgment of tbe court below dismissing tbe petition is reversed on tbe grounds: (1.) That a payment made to a public officer in discharge of a tax illegally executed is not sucb a voluntary payment as will preclude tbe party from recovering it back; (2.) That a course of business and a periodical settlement between tbe Commissioner of Internal Revenue and a regular periodical purchaser of internal-revenue stamps upon the basis of payment of commission in stamps at their par value does not prevent tbe purcha.-er asserting bis statutory right if be had no choice, and tbe alternative was to submit to illegal exaction or discontinue bis business; (3.) When tbe Commissioner of Internal Revenue adopted a rule of dealing with purchasers of stamps which deprived them of tbe right of being paid commissions in money and made it known that tbe rule would not be changed, there is no necessity of proving in each instance that compliance was forced; (4.) In a course of dealings through a series of years where a separate written order was given for each purchase, and the Commissioner answered by sending the stamps u in satisfaction of the order,” and where remittances made from time to time by the purchaser were applied on a general credit by the Commissioner, and accounts balanced monthly, and in each transaction, part of the commission was withheld, the right of action accrued as the commission in each transaction was withheld, and the statute of limitation in each case began to run then.
   Mr. Justice Matthews

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, March 17, 1884.