Case ID: us-ct-cl_29/html/0554-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Brown", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CHARLES F. HUTCHINS v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [27 C. Cls. R., 137; 151 U. S. R., 542.]
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    A naval officer in San Francisco is- ordered to New York, via the isthmus, in charge of a detachment of men. The distance by that route is 6,186 miles; by the direct overland route, 3,266 miles. The accounting officers allow him his actual expenses of travel, but refuse mileage by either route.
    Tbe court below decides:
    1. The Navy Appropriation Aot SA March, 1835 (4 Stat. L., p. 755, § 2), gave naval mileage; the Army Appropriation Act, 1874 (18 id., p. 72), took it away; the Navy Appropriation Act 1876 (19 id., p. 65), restored it; the Navy Appropriation Act, 1882 (22 id., pp. 284,286), withholds it from travel abroad.
    2. The principle which governs the computation of mileage ordinarily is that where an officer is left free to exercise discretion, he must select an ordinary route; but where a route is prescribed for him by superior authority, he is entiled to mileage for the distance actually traveled.
    3. Travel abroad within the intent of the act 1882 means travel in foreign parts. Where the point of departure and the point of destination are both within this country, a naval officer is entitled to mileage though a portion of the route is on the high seas or through a foreign country. Where the route prescribed by superior authority is complex in character, the officer may elect to take his actual expenses by the route prescribed or his mileage by the ordinary direct route.
    The decision of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.
   Mr. Justice Brown

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, January 29, 1894.