Case ID: us-ct-cl_49/html/0685-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Me. Justice Van Devantee", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MALINDA THURSTON, ADMINISTRATRIX, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [Not reported in C. Cls. R.;
    232 U. S. R., 469.]
    
      On the ■plaintiff’s appeal.
    
    No opinion was delivered by tbe court below, but judgment was rendered for tbe defendants on tbe question of jurisdiction.
    On appeal the judgment was affirmed and the Supreme Court decided:
    The Court of Claims has no general jurisdiction over claims against the United States and can take cognizance only of those which are committed to it by some act of Congress. Johnson v. United States, 160 U. S., 546.
    A claim embraced by sec. 1 of the Indian depredation act of March 3, 1891, but which accrued prior to July 1, 1865, is not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims if it falls within .the restriction clause of see. 2 because not allowed or pending prior to the passage of the act.
    An appeal to the bounty or generosity of Congress for damages sustained from depredations by other than Indians can not be considered as a claim for reparation for depredations of Indian wards of the Government within the meaning of the act of 1891.
    Jurisdiction of a claim which accrued in 1857, was never allowed and was not pending as a claim for depredations by Indians, was expressly withheld by the act of 1891, and the fact that the same claim was presented to Congress as a claim for depre- • dations by Mormons does not bring it within the jurisdiction.
   Me. Justice Van Devantee

delivered tbe opinion of tbe Supreme Court February 24, 1914.