Case ID: us-ct-cl_12/html/0430-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SIMMONS’S CASE.
    William J. Simmons v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      The Senate Committee on Contingent Expenses authorizes the employment of certain laborers. At the end of the Eorty-second Congress an act is passed increasing the compensation of “ the present employ és ” of the Senate 15 per cent, on the amount actually received and payable to them from the beginning of that Congress or from the date of their employment. The employes under the committee are paid this 15 per cent, from the beginning of that Congress to its end. They noto insist that the statute toas also prospective, and fixed the rate of their pay under the next Congress.
    
    
      The Act 3(2 March, 1873, (17 Stat. L., 485,) which increased the pay “of the present employes ” of the Senate 15 per cent, “on the amount actually received and payable to them” “from the beginning of the present Congress, fyc.” did not fix the rate of compensation which should be paid by the succeeding Congress.
    
      The Reporters’ statement of the case :
    The petition was as follows:
    “Your petitioner says he was in the employ of the Senate of the United States prior to and on the 3d day of March, 1873; that he continued in the employ of the said Senate up to and including the 20th day of January, 1874; that the amount of money actually payable to him before and up to the 3d day of March, 1873, was at the rate of $3.25 per day; and that after the date last named up to the 20th da,y of January, 1874, the amount payable to him was at the rate aforesaid, with 35 per centum thereon additional, under and by virtue of an act of Congress approved' March 3, 1873.
    “ But your petitioner was not paid and has not been paid the said additional 15 per centum after the 31st day of March, 1873; and 15 per centum on the amount paid to him from March 31, 1873, till the 20th day of .January, 1874, amounting to $154.35, is still due and unpaid.”
    
      Mr. Alexander Johnston for the claimants:
    I can see no defence; but one is dimly foreshadowed in a letter put in evidence by the Assistant Attorney-General, which states that the Committee to Audit and Control the .Contingent Expenses of the Senate would not or did not approve of the payment of this increased compensation. Whether this be so or not makes no difference, because the payment was not to be made from the contingent fund of the Senate, and the plea of a refusal to pay has never been held to be a sufficient defense in an action for debt.
    
      Mr. Sor ace M. Hastings (with whom was the Assistant Attorney■ General) for the defendants:
    The claims here presented were disputed claims, for which claimants, having accepted the amounts proffered by the Gov-eminent and given therefor receipts in full, cannot recover. (Oomstoclc’s Case, 9 0. 01s. R., 151, whole case and cases there cited; Arthur Martinis Case, Supreme Court, ante, p. 87.) These claims were not only disputed, but disputable in their character and nature. After what has transpired between the Government and claimants, of course they cannot recover. (■GomstocWs Case, 9 O. Oís. R., 141, whole case and cases there cited.) ■ The statute of March 3, 1873, did not increase the pay or compensation of these claimants 15 per cent, after March 3, 1873. It may have increased it retrospectively; it did not increase it prospectively. Claimants have already been paid too much by mistake, to wit, from and after March 3,1873, up to the 1st of April, 1873. Under the rulings of this court, this excess could from them be recovered back by the United States. If, however, the statute did increase their pay or compensation prospectively, claimants have been paid it.
   Nott, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Stripped of the verbiage which does not in any way relate to the case, the Act 3d March, 1873, (17 Stat. L., 485,) provided as follows:

“ The pay of all the present employés of the Senate whose pay has not been specifically increased by this act, holding their places by the authority of the Committee on Contingent Expenses of the Senate, be increased 15 per cent, of their present compensation on the amount actually received and payable to them, respectively, from the beginning of the present Congress, or from the date of their appointment, during the present Congress, and who shall be actually employed at the passage of this act.”

The claimants were day-laborers at the time the act was passed, employed by the authority of the committee referred to. They were paid the 15 per cent, allowed by the act up to the end of the Forty-second Congress, and-they now seek to recover it subsequently.

It is manifest that the act refers to the employés of the then existing Congress, that it relates to their compensation for the period of that Congress, and that it was not intended to affect the compensation of the employés of future Congresses, nor to single out those who chanced to “be actually employed at the passage of this act” and fix their pay for all time,leaving subsequently-employed persons to be engaged at whatever rate the committee saw fit to impose.

The judgment of the court is that the petition be dismissed.

Peck and Loring, JJ., did not sit iu this case, and took no part in the decision.