Case ID: us-ct-cl_20/html/0521-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE UNITED STATES v. JAMES H. NORTH. THE UNITED STATES v. WILLIAM H. EMORY.
    (19 C. Cls. R., 254; 112 U. S. R., 510.)
    On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    The Act 1848 gives “ three months’ extra pay” to the officers and men “ engaged in the military service in the war with Mexico, and who served oat the term of their engagement, or have been or may he honorably discharged.” It is construed by Secretary Marcy to apply only to volunteers. In 1879 Congress extend it to the Army and Navy.
    The court below decides—
    (1.) The purpose of the Aot 19th February, 1879 (20 Stat. L., p. 316, ch. 90), ■was to extend to officers, soldiers, and seamen of the Army and Navy ■who served in the war with Mexico the three months’ extra pay granted by the Act 19th July, 1848 (9 Stat. L., p. 248, § 5, ch. 29), notwithstanding that the Act 1848 prescribed conditions which restricted it to volunteers alone.
    (2.) Where one statute prescribes conditions which restrict its benefits to the volunteer forces, and another extends them to the Army and Navy, the restrictions of the first cannot be used to defeat the intent of the second.
    (3.) The “three months’ extra pay” given to those who served in the war with Mexico by the Acts 1848,1879, is pay proper, not pay and allowances.
    (4.) The “ three months’ extra pay ” granted by the Act 1848 was Army pay; but the extra pay intended for naval officers by the Act 1879 was necessarily naval pay.
    (5.) The hind of pay which a naval officer was receiving when his service in the war with Mexico ended furnishes the standard by which the “ three months’ extra pay” given him by the Act 1879 must be computed; if he was then on sea-service, it will be “ sea-serviee pay”; if on other duty, it will be “ other-duty pay,” <fcc.
    (6.) The rank which should determine an Army or Navy officer’s “ three months’ extra pay ” under the Act 1879 is the rank which he held at the time when his “ actual service” in the war with Mexico ceased-
   The judgment of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.

Mr. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, December 8, 1884.