Case ID: us-ct-cl_62/html/0760-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Chief Justice Taft", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CHEROKEE NATION v. UNITED STATES
    [59 C. Cls. 862; 270 U. S. 476]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, the Supreme Court deciding:
    1. Tlie effect as res juMeata, of tlie judgment of tlie Court of Claims, as modified by tliis court (202 U. S. 101), determining the claims of the Cherokee Nation against the United States, was waived in so far as concerns interest, by the act of March 3, 1919, directing a reexamination of that question and specially conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims, with a right of appeal to this court.
    2. Congress has power to waive the benefit of res juMeata by allowing another trial of a claim against the United States.
    3. Interest can not be recovered from the United States in a suit on contract referred by special act to the Court of Claims, unless the contract or the special act expressly authorized interest.
    4. On the amounts of principal owing them by the United States, as determined in the ease reported in 202 U. S. 101, the Cherokees were entitled, as by stipulation, to simple interest only at five per cent to date of payment.
    5. The fact that Congress failed to appropriate money, in accordance with its agreement, to pay principal amounts and accrued simple interest due to the Cherokees on an account stated and agreed to between them and the United States is not a good reason for allowing interest on the interest from the time when the payments should have been made.
    C. The provision in the sixth article of the agreement with the Cherokees, of December 19, 1891, ratified by act of March 3, 1893, providing for interest at five per cent on money to be paid them “ so long as the money * * * shall remain in the Treasury,” refers to money payable for the land ceded by the Indians under the agreement, and not to the principal sums and interest to be accounted as due under past treaties and laws.
    7. The provisions in the act of September 11, 1841 (Rev. Stats, section 3659), for investing Cherokee funds in United States stocks and paying interest are not a basis for compounding interest on the amount expended from such funds for removal of Eastern Cherokees to Indian Territory, since, by agreement of the Cherokees and the United States under a Senate resolution of 1850 and through ratification of the account stated under the agreement of December 19, 1891, the interest was to be at five per cent until the debt was paid.
    8. Under the judgment rendered by this court in 1906, 202 U. S. 101, interest thereafter should not have been calculated on the interest included in the judgment but only on the principal amount until paid.
    9. The provision of the act of September 30, 1890, for paying interest at four per cent on judgments appealed to this court by the United States from the Court of Claims, from the date of filing the transcript of judgment in the Treasury Department to the date of the mandate of afiirmance, does not apply to a judgment which itself provides for a certain rate of interest after its entry.
   Mr. Chief Justice Taft

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court April 12, 1926.