Case ID: us-ct-cl_20/html/0538-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WILLIAM ALLING, SURVIVING PARTNER OF THE FIRM OF SAMUEL A. BELDEN & CO., v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (17 C. Cls. R., 311; 114 U. S. R., 562.)
    
      On the claimants Appeal.
    
    The American government, while occupying Matamoras, shortly before the promulgation of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, exacts duties on tobacco imported into Mexico. The claimants purchase it. Subsequently it. is seized wrongfully by Mexico. Congress refund the duties upon condition that the claimants assign to the United States “ all their right to the amount so refunded when recovered from the government of Mexico.” The claimants in 1871 recover an award against Mexico for property seized. The money is paid to the Secretary of State. He withholds, under the assignment, the amount previously refunded by Congress for taxes.
    The courfc below decides—
    (1.) When construing an assignment given under and required by an act of Congress, the court will go behind the instrument and iuquire into the intent of the act and the circumstances attending its passage.
    (2.) Where a special act directs the Secretary of the Treasury to refund certain duties paid into the Treasury, and to take at the same time from the parties “a legal assignment to the Untied States of all their right to the amount so refunded when recovered from the government of 2texico,” it must he hold that the act merely iixod the amount to be assigned, and made it a lien, not upon any particular item of a claim against Mexico, but upon whatever amount the claimants might recover from that government.
   The judgment of the court below is reversed on the ground that the claim grew out of the provisions of a treaty with a foreign nation, within the provisions of section 1060, Revised Statutes, and the petition is directed to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Mr. Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, May 4, 1885.