Case ID: us-ct-cl_30/html/0059-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Richaedson, Oh.. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WILLIAM S. KNOX, EX’R, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [No. 18056.
    Decided February 11, 1895.]
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    A mail-messenger service contractor agrees to carry “ the matt-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service in the city of Washington” and the “post-office Mamies, mail loóles, and hags, and all other postal supplies,” and “to perform all nexo or additional mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station sex-vice without additional compensation.” At the time, the repair shops are operated in different cities. After the making of the contract the Department establishes a general repair shop in Washington. The contractor is required to haul a great number of loads of mail bags and sacks between the new repair shop and the railroads. He protests that it is not service required or contemplated by the contract.
    I. A mail-messenger service contractor who agrees to perform the service between designated points, and new and additional service without additional compensation, is not bound to haul mail bags for repairs to and from a subsequently established repair shop. The new and additional service contemplated by the contract is service between the post-offices and mail stations and the railway stations.
    II. The Revised Statutes, section 3871, authorize the establishment of branch post-offices “for the receipt and delivery of mail matter.” A repair shop, though designated as a station, is not a branch post-office or station within the intent of the statue. Merely designating a shop as a branch post-office or mail station without using it for that purpose does not make it such.
    
      The Reporters’ statement of the case:
    The following are the facts of this case as found by the court:
    I. Said deceased entered into a contract with the defendants, a copy of which is annexed to the petition.
    
      The advertisement upon which the claimant’s testator was accepted as a bidder, and upon which said contract was founded, was as follows:
    EOUTE No. 10312.
    MAIL-MESSENGER SERVICE. WASHINGTON, D. C.
    [Service from July 1, 1885, to June 30, 1889.]
    
      Number of wagon trips required for the performance of
    
    SERVICE PROM RAILROAD STATIONS AND STEAMBOAT LANDINGS TO POST-OPPICE.
    
      
    
    
      Number of wagon trips required for the performance of
    
    SERVICE PROM POST-OPPICE TO RAILROAD STATIONS AND STEAMBOAT LANDINGS.
    Depot or steamboat landing. Post-office to Baltimore and Potomac depot... Post-office to Baltimore and Obio depot. Post-office to steamer George Leary. Post-office to steamer Mattano. Post-office to steamer W. W. Corcoran. Feet. 1,301 3,484 5,700 6,350 5,900 11 6 n (*) <*> 66 18 (*) (*) <*) 197 102 Mmutes. 30 80 30 30 30 Running time allowed from July 1,1885. Total number of wagon trips per week. Number of other trips per week. Number of trips on Sunday. Number of trips daily, except Sunday. Distancefrom post-office.
    
      TRANSFER SERVICE
    
      jVamber of wagon trips required to perform the transfer service.
    
    
      
    
    MAIL-STATION SEE-VICE.
    
      Number of wagon trips required for the performance of & office and mail staUon. vice between the post-
    
    
      
    
    
      Among the instructions accompanying the advertisement for proposals was the following:
    “2. The contractors under this advertisement will be required to perform, without additional compensation, any and all new or additional service that may be ordered from July 1, 1885, o1’ at any time thereafter during the contract term, whether between post-offices or mail stations, and railway stations or steamboat landings, or between railway stations and mail stations, or steamboat landings, or between post-offices and mail stations (including mail stations, railway stations, and steamboat landings) now established or that may hereafter be established.”
    II. At the time of making the contract, and for a long time previously, the Post-Office Department operated various mailbag repair shops in different cities, including one at the city post-office in Washington, D. C., to each of which damaged mail bags in each particular section were forwarded for repairs.
    III. In November, 1888, the Post-Office Department established a general repair shop at the city post-office of Washington, and the contractor was required to haul mail pouches and sacks for the general repair shop. To this he made a written protest to the Postmaster-General that such service did not come within the terms of his contract and claiming extra compensation therefor. The following correspondence took place:
    “Washing-ton, D. 0., November 26,1888.
    
    “ Sir : This office is in receipt of your letter asking that you be allowed additional compensation as contractor for mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service in the city of Washington, on account of service required of you in hauling mail pouches and sacks for the general repair shop in this city.
    “ In reply thereto your attention is invited to section 8 of your contract, which reads as follows:
    “‘To carry post-office blanks, mail locks and bags, and all other postal supplies.’
    “ The mail pouches and sacks which are hauled by you form a part of the mail to and from the Washington post-office, hence their transportation by you can not in any manner bf construed as ‘ additional service,’ your contract providing foi the transportation of ‘ the whole of the mail, whatever may be its size, weight, or increase during the term of the contract.’
    “ The Department must therefore decline to allow you any additional compensation. ....
    “ Yery respectfully, “ Jas. T. Briscoe, ■
    “ Acting Second Assistant Postmaster- General.
    
    “Mr. Geo. W. Knox,
    “ Washington, t>. 0.”
    
    
      “ Washing-ton, D. C., November 28,1888.
    
    ‘‘Hon, A. Leo Knott,
    “ Second Assistant Postmaster-General.
    
    “Sir: Acknowledging receipt of yonr letter of tbe 26tb instant, I beg leave to say that I am unable to concur in tbe decision you bave reached that tbe transportation of tbe pouches to and from tbe general repair shop in this city is service required or intended to be required or contemplated by your advertisement, my proposal, and the contract executed in accordance therewith for mail-messenger service in tbe city of Washington. I therefore repeat my protest against the performance of this work as service due under my contract, and I insist that reasonable compensation be paid me for doing this work.
    “ Very respectfully, “ Geo. W. Knox.”
    IV. December 10, 1888, the Postmaster-General, in pursuance of an act of Congress of October 19, 1888, ch. 1223 (25 Stat. L., 615), rented a building on the north side of E street, between Sixth and Seventh streets, previously known as “The Skating Kink,” for the purpose of being used as a mail-bag repair shop and for the storage of supplies used by the Post-Office Department in supplying post-offices, and a general repair shop was there established, and thereafter no mail bags and sacks were transported to the repair shop in the Washington post-office.
    The mail-bag repair shop at New York City was discontiued October 10,1888; at Indianapolis, Ind., March 2,1889; and at St. Louis, Mo., May 23,1889, and the number of mail bags carried in Washington to and from the general repair shop at the rink was greatly increased.
    V. The Postmaster-General made an order, and gave notice to the claimant’s intestate as follows:
    “ February 11,1889.
    “ Ordered, No. 38. The premises known as the ‘ Kink,’ Nos. 611 and 613 E st. NW., having been rented for use of the mail-bag repair shop and mail-bag depository, in connection with the Washington, D. O., post-office, it is ordered that said premises be designated as Station I of the Washington, D. 0., post-office, from February 11th, 1889, and the postmaster will designate a superintendent of the said station, from the date named.
    “ Washington, D. C., Mareh 14,1889.
    
    “ Sir : The Postmaster-General orders that the service on route No. 10312 (mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service, Washington, D. C.) embrace Station I without change in pay. [‘ Station ’ being the departmental term for 1 branch post-office’}
    
    “ This order to take effect at once.
    “ Very respectfully,
    “ A. Leo Knott,
    “ Second Assistant Postmaster-General.
    
    “ Mr. Geo. W. Knox,
    “ Contractor, Washington, J>. 0.”
    During the term of said contract there was in the Kink no post-office, railroad station, or cars, or steamboat landing, and there was no receipt or delivery of mail matter, and no sale of stamps and envelopes at said Kink, and the same was not, in fact, used as a branch post-office.
    VI. From December 15,1888, to June 30,1889, the claimant’s testator, by direction of the Postmaster-General, transported mail bags and sacks between the general repair shop at said “ Kink ” and the Post-Office Department, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad depot, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot, and the Washington City post-office, for which service the reasonable value was nine hundred and seventy-five dollars ($975).
    VII. The claimant’s testator was paid the contract price named in the contract, but nothing has been paid as compensation for transporting the mail bags and sacks to and from said “ Rink.”
    
      Mr. JoJm 0. Pay for the claimant.
    Could the contractor be required to carry postal supplies to or from a point not embraced on the route at the time the contract was made ¶ If not, the claimant’s right to recover is complete.
    It can hardly be contended that “ route 10312, being the mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service at the city of Washington,” is such a general and indeterminate designation that would cover any and all services in Washington, present, past, or future. If that were so, paragraph 10 would not have been inserted. If route 10312 covered all possible service in Washington there could be no such thing as “new or additional mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service.”
    . Paragraph 10 does not provide for such new or additional service on route 10312, but at the city of Washington. The contract was, therefore, to perform the service on route 10312 as scheduled in the advertisement, and, in addition, all such new or additional service at Washington. It can not be contended that the carrying of post-office supplies to and from a point not embraced on route 10312 is new or additional mail-messenger, transfer, or mail-station service provided for by paragraph No. 10.
    The carrying of postal supplies is not mail-messenger or mail-station service, but is a duty imposed upon the contractor by a specific provision in each contract, and in the absence of such specific provision it could not be required of him.
    While it is true that paragraph 8 of Instructions to Bidders provides that “the transfer service shall include the conveyance of all cases of post-office supplies arriving for transit through the cities,” the service to and, from the Rink was not transfer service. (Transfer service is service from one railroad station or steamboat landing to another, 20. C. Cls. R., 318, 319, 320.)
    There is no provision in the Instructions that the mail-messenger or the mail-station service should include the carrying of postal supplies, and the express inclusion thereof in the transfer service is proof that it was not regarded as included in the messenger or station service. The duty of a mail messenger is to carry the mail. (Postal Laws and Reg., 1879, sec. 627; Postal Laws and Reg., 1893, secs. 736, 738.)
    There is nothing in the Postal Laws and Regulations requiring mail messengers to carry postal supplies, and no duty could be imposed upon them in this regard save that reserved in the contract. New or additional mail-messenger or mail-station service, therefore, does not cover the new or additional carrying of postal supplies, and for the latter there is no provision in the contract.
    The conclusion that the contractor could only be required to carry postal supplies to or from points embraced by the route when the contract was made is irresistible. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that new or additional mail-messenger or mail-station service carries with it, as incidental, the conveying of postal supplies, it is yet clear that this clause could not cover the conveying of supplies, not as incidental, but as, independent service.
    
      Nothing except damaged mail bags were carried to or from the Rink by the contractor. He was performing no mail-messenger or mail-station service to this point to which the carrying of these bags conld be incidental. The advertisement was for proposals for carrying the mails on route 10312, being the mail-messenger, etc., service at Washington, “between the post-offices, railroad stations, station offices, steamboat landings, and between the several' stations and landings, as described herein.”
    The instructions to bidders provided*.
    “ 2. The contractors under this advertisement will be required to perform, without additional compensation, any and all new or additional service that may be ordered from July 1,1885, or at any time thereafter during the contract term, whether between post-offices or mail stations and railway stations or steamboat landings, or between railway stations and mail stations or steamboat landings, or between post-offices and mail stations (including mail stations, railway stations, and steamboat landings) now established or that may hereafter be established.”
    The contract provides: “ Second. To take the mail from and deliver it into the post-offices, mail stations, and cars.”
    It has been settled beyond question by this court that new or additional service, within the meaning of such a contract, must be service between the post-offices, mail stations, or branch post-offices, and railroad stations, or cars, or steamboat landings, whether it arose by reason of the establishment of a new branch post-office or a new railroad station, or by reason of the growth of existing service requiring an increased number of trips or a greater number of wagons. (Otis v. United States, 20 C. Cls. R., 315; 120 U. S., 115; Woolverton v. United States, 27 O. Cls. R., p. 292.)
    The words “mail station” or “station office” is the Department’s designation for a branch post-office. Branch post-offices are regarded as part of the post-office with which tlfey are connected, and are usually known and distinguished as ■Station “A,” Station “B,” Station “C,” etc. (See Rev. Stat., ;sec. 3871 (P. L. and R., 1893, sec. 390); Act March 2,1889 (P. L. and R., sec. 451, p. 200); Otis v. United States, supra; WooZ-verton v. United States, supra.
    
    The rink was a repair shop, and nothing more. The mails were in no wise handled there,.nor were stamps, etc., sold. It was not a branch post-office and was not so designated, and it is unnecessary to say that it was not a railroad station or a steamboat lauding.
    The Postmaster-General had no power to establish anything except a branch post-office, and the characteristics or requirements of a branch post-office are set forth in the act of Congress empowering the Postmaster-General to establish them.
    When the bidder is informed that he will be required to perform “new or additional service to mail stations that may thereafter be established” this must mean such mail stations that the Postmaster-Geueral has lawful authority to establish. It did not mean that he was to do the “hauling” for the Department all over town.
    It was not within the contemplation of either party that this general repair shop would be established, or that the contractor for regulation wagon service would be required to haul the damaged bags to and from it. For a long time the Post-Office Department had maintained repair shops at various convenient points, each handling the damaged bags in its particular section.
    There was one of these repair shops in the city post-office at Washington, and the contractor for mail-messenger, etc., service there may have hauled some of the damaged bags as part of the mail to and from the city post-office.
    When the claimant made his proposal and entered into his contract he was willing to carry mail bags along with the mail to and from the post-office, and if that had been all that had been required of him he would not have complained •, but certainly neither he nor the Post-Office Department expected or intended that he should, under his contract, haul all the damaged mail bags of the whole country, amounting, on an average, to eight loads per day (Sundays included) and often as as high as twenty to twenty-three loads per day, not along with the mail, but in separate wagons to a distant point, to and from which no mails were carried.
    The contract price was $9,876.54 per annum, and the Post-Office Department would impose upon the contractor an extra service which, as appears by the evidence and is not disputed, for the two hundred days that Knox performed it, was reasonably worth $3,272 — $16.36 per day, or $5,971.40. per annum.
    
      The subject of contract was service in minutely described regulation wagons on stated schedules, at indicated hours, and by limited running times. Such extreme precaution and careful provision for the safety and expedition of the mail is reasonable and proper; but these empty mail bags, which even after being repaired could be of little value to any but the Government, it would be absurd to require their transportation in expensive, highly ornamented, and burglar-proof wagons at particular hours and at specified rates of speed. The very description of the wagons itself gives denial to the Department’s requirement in this respect.
    The contract contemplated service that would naturally and properly be performed by regulation wagons on schedules carefully prepared to meet the demands of the mail service, and the contractor made his contract for such service and performed it. The other service was clearly extra, and for that he is entitled to a fair and reasonable compensation.
    
      Mr. George JET. Gorman (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Dodge) for the defendants:
    Under the authority given and the right reserved in the advertisement and contract, the Postmaster-General created a new station in the city of Washington, route No. 10312, called Station I, the same being located at Nos. 611 and 613 E street NW. (the same place referred to in the record as “ The Bink”), and ordered the contractor to supply this station without any additional pay, in accordance with the terms of his contract.
    In the construction of contracts, the question not unfre-quently arises whether the words used shall be taken in a comprehensive or restricted sense; in the popular and common, or in some unusual and peculiar sense. In all these cases the court will endeavor to give the contract a rational and just construction; but the presumption is always in favor of the comprehensive over the restricted, the general over the particular, the common over the unusual sense. (2 Parsons Oont. (8 ed.), star p. 501.)
    What Lord Ellenborough says with reference to the construction of a policy of insurance is equally true as to all other instruments, namely, that it must be construed according to its sense and meaning, as collected, in the first place, from the terms used in it, which terms are themselves to be understood in their plain, ordinary, and popular sense, unless they have generally, in respect to the subject-matter, as by the known usage of trade, or the like, acquired a peculiar sense distinct from the popular sense of the same words, or unless the context evidently points out that they must, in the particular instance, and in order to effectuate the immediate intention of the parties to that contract, be understood in some other special and peculiar sense. (Robertson v. French, 4 East, 135; Parsons on Cont., supra.)
    
    Courts can not adopt a construction of any legal instrument which shall do violence to the rules of language or the rules of law in order to avoid the consequences of a particular case, or to accomplish that illegitimate and illogical end which some people are pleased to term “substantial justice,” which is not •justice at all, but a farce and a confusion. It can not be the • duty of a court that sits to administer law, and for no other purpose, to be curious and subtle and astute, or to invent reasons and make acts in order to escape from the rules of law. All that can be true or wise in this doctrine is that courts should make wise and just rules, and should then, by their help, effectuate a contract or an instrument wherever this can be done by a perfectly logical and entirely rational construction of the language actually used. To do more than this would be to sacrifice to the apparent right of one party in one case that steadfast adherence to law and principal which constitutes the only protection and defense of all rights and of all parties.
    Bearing in mind these fundamental principles of law, we approach the examination of this contract with a mind void of confusion.
    The plaintiff’s testator entered into a contract with the United States, which said contract is captioned “Mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service in the city of Washington, D. 0.”
    In the body of the instrument it is recited that “ Whereas George W. Knox has been accepted as contractor for transporting the mails on route 10312, being the mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service at the city of Washington, D. 0.,” so that it becomes perfectly clear that the contract of tbe plaintiff’s testator was to perform tbe enumerate^ services at tbe city of Washington, and at any place in said city, and not upon any confined or restripted portion of said city referred to in any schedule or designated by any number; it becomes perfectly clear that “Route 10312” is synonymous with “tbe city of Washington, D. C.,” and is only a short way of saying tbe same thing.
    Having ascertained tbe place at which the services were to be performed, let us inquire what the nature of those services was. The contract is so perfectly plain and devoid of ambiguity on this point as to require a microscopic eye to discover a reason upon which to hang an honest doubt. It can only be done by robbing words and phrases of their truthful signification, qualifying expressions that require no qualification, transposing sentences, limiting things that have no limit, and otherwise disporting one’s self as a mental gymnast, a performance which, for the reasons already given, does not commend itself to a court of law.
    Turning to the contract, we find that the plaintiff’s testator obligated himself to perform all the “mail-messenger, tranfer, and mail-station service in the city of Washington, D. 0.,” from the places designated in the advertisement, or to and from such places as might be thereafter designated by the Postmaster-General, in the city of Washington. In addition, we find that he contracted “ to carry post-office blanks, mail locks and bags, and all other postal supplies,” thereby making such articles, so far forth as this contract is concerned, a part of the mails to be carried. However, such things may be regarded independently of the contract.
    Now, isn’t it absurd to ask where said “post-office blanks, mail locks and bags, and all other postal supplies” should be hauled to? Can any rational human being have but one answer to such a question? The answer springs to the lips as naturally and as irresistibly as water flowing down hill. Where was he to haul them? Why, to any place in the city of Washington to which he was instructed to haul them by the Postmaster-General, either at the commencement or at any time during the continuance of his contract, in accordance with the very plain and unmistakable provisions of the contract itself.
    
      Is there any room for doubt here? Is there any need for “construction?” The court has no power to “construe” a contract so perfectly plain and simple as this. When courts resort to “construction” where construction is unnecessary they are acting ultra vires, so to speak; they are departing from their legitimate business, and are exercising legislative or contractual rather than judicial functions. They are not construing a law or a contract as it exists, but are creating a new thing that has no existence save in the minds of ingenious judges.
    It is submitted that this contract required the plaintiff’s testator to perform the services mentioned, including the carrying of mail sacks to and from any point in the city of Washington which was then or which might thereafter be designated by the Postmaster- General. The plaintiff’s counsel admits this in principle by admitting that the contract required that his client should haul the mail bags to and from the various depots and the city post-office, etc. His only complaint is as to the place to which he was required to carry the bags. Why quarrel about the place? He had contracted to carry the mails, etc., including the mail bags, in the city of Washington, D. C., and as long as he was not required to haul them beyond the confines of the city he has no cause of complaint.
    But, as if to rid the matter of every element of doubt, we find that the contract further provides that the contractor is—
    To perform all new or additional mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service that the Postmaster-General may order at the city of Washington, D. 0., during the contract term, without additional compensation.”
    Certainly there can be no reasonable doubt as to the intention of this provision, as expressed by the language used — the only legitimate method of arriving at intention in written instruments. Having awarded a contract for the transportation of the mails, including mailbags and all other postal supplies, at the city of Washington, D. C., and having designated certain points in said city which at that time appeared to be sufficient for the needs of the service as it then existed, but desiring to provide for any additional or further service of the like nature which the exigencies of the service might from time to time require, the above provision was inserted in the •contract in order to enable the Postmaster-General to require such service from time to time as it might be needed, the intention being that the contract price should cover the entire expense of transporting the mails, including mails bags and all other postal supplies (which, so far as the contract is concerned, are part of the mails) at the city of Washington, whether the same was required at the time the contract was dated, or whether it should become necessary at any time during the four years the contract had to run.
    There can be no doubt that such was the intention of the post-office authorities, or that they plainly expressed such intention by the language used in the contract, or that Knox so understood it. When a man contracts to “perform all new or additional mail messenger, transfer, and mail-station service ” who has already contracted to perform sucb service at certain designated places in the city of Washington, which said service he contracted should include the hauling of mail bags and all other postal supplies, he necessarily contracts to haul said mail bags in the new or additional service just as he did in the old, and no one can escape so fair, manifest, and logical a conclusion unless he be a mental gymnast or a psychological contortionist. He contracted to haul the mail, mail sacks, etc., to and from certain designated points, and to perform such new or additional service of a like character as might be required of him, and to contend that such new or additional service does not include the hauling of mail bags (under the contract) falls little, if any, short of absurdity. '
    Nor is this all. The place to which these mail bags were carried by the contractor was a regular mail statiou of the United States, so officially created and designated by the Postmaster-General and regularly established as such and called Station I. The contractor had contracted to carry the mails and mail bags to and from the places named and to “ perform all new or additional mail-station service” that might be required of him. Why, then, should he not carry the mail bags to this new mail station — Station I?
    The only reply that the plaintiff has to this is that the station, I, was not a branch post-office, because the mails were not handled there nor stamps sold. He furnishes no proof of these alleged facts. But suppose they are true. Upon what authority does be assert that a station is a branch post-office and nothing more1? Upon what authority does he assert that the Postmaster General had no authority to establish this station? In the absence of any authority for the bald statement it might be only necessary to remind’ the court that the law presumes that officers of the Government do their duty, and that the presumption is in favor of the validity of their official acts.
    But while we are on the subject, I desire to call the court’s attention to the ninth paragraph of section 395 of the Revised Statutes, which provides that it shall be the duty of the Postmaster-General “to superintend generally the business of the Department and to execute all laws relative to the postal service.” Unless this provision is a mere jingle of words, it means that the Postmaster-General, in his capacity of general superintendent of the postal service, has authority to do any reasonable thing that is necessary to insure the prompt and economical dispatch of the mails. If so, he has authority to establish a station for the repair of damaged mail bags instead of throwing them away or leaving them round to rot.
    The case of Otis v. The United States (20 O. Gis. R., 315, and 120 U. S., 115), cited by the petitioner’s counsel, is not authority for the contention made. That case is not authority for the statement that “new or additional service, within the meaning of such a contract, must be service between the post-offices, mail stations, or branch post-offices, and railroad stations, or cars, or steamboat landings, whether it arose by reason of the establishment of a new branch post-office or a new railroad station, or by reason of the growth of existing service requiring an increased number of trips or a greater number of wagons,” as is stated by claimant’s counsel, as a very cursory examination of the case will disclose. In the first place, the case is wholly unlike the case at bar, in that there were two wholly different classes of service provided for in two entirely separate contracts, the one for mail-messenger service in the city of New York, which prohibited additional compensation for additional service, the other for mail-station service outside of New York, in part, which disallowed additional compensation for new service.
    New or additional service beyond the limits of New York, such as carrying mail to Jersey City, Hoboken, etc., was required of tbe contractor, and the question arose whether said additional service fell within the operation of the one contract or the other; and it was held, both in this court and in the Supreme Court, that though a city transfer contract provides for new or additional mail-messenger or transfer service in said city, yet the post-office can not compel the contractor to take the mails to another city over the line of another contractor, for delivery there to him, unless there be a specific provision therefor in the contract. The facts of the case do not admit of any other or further decision, and none was made either in this court or in the Supreme Court. The first contract, which was for mail-messenger service only, expressly provides for a pro rata increase of pay when an increase of work was ordered.
    Inasmuch as there is only one contract in the case at bar, which is so perfectly plain and simple as to require no construction; inasmuch as the contractor in the case at bar was not called upon to do work outside of the city of Washington nor to perform any exceptional service already provided for in another contract, it follows that the facts in the Otis Case are inapplicable to the one at bar and that the decision on those facts do not form a precedent for a decision on the facts of the case at bar.
    And so the (¡ase of Wolverton v. United States (27 C. Cls. It., 393), the only other case cited by counsel for claimant, in no wise militates against the position which I have taken. Indeed, there is nothing new in the Wolverton Case, it being practically a suit for the very identical services performed by Otis, the decision being a practical reaffirmance of the doctrine laid down in the Otis Case.
    There is no sort of analogy between the facts of this case and those of the case at bar. The plaintiff’s testator was not required to perform any extra service; service of a different kind from that enumerated in this contract, or which at the date of his contract was being performed by another contractor, or which was being paid for out of other appropriations, or which was without the city of Washington, etc. He contracted to transport.the mails, including mail bags, in the city of Washington, according to the route then laid down, subject to change from time to time as the Postmaster-General might direct, and to perform any new or additional service of a similar nature that might be required of him. He has been required to do nothing more. He has only been required to carry the mail and mail bags to points in the city of Washington ; the only change in the route being'that he was required to carry the bags to Station I on E street, instead' of to the city post-office, as he had been doing before without any sort of" complaint and as to which he makes no complaint now— only complaining of the change of place.
    It is true that counsel talks in his brief about the contractor being required “to do the hauling of the Department all over town,” am i about the contractor being required to “ haul the damaged, mail bags from all over the country to the general repair shop,” but the record furnishes no proof of these bald assertions, while, on the contrary, the letter of the Postmaster-General, in answer to plaintiff's call, shows that no order was made discontinuing the repair shops at other points and establishing a general repair shop at Washington; that while the shops at various points were discontinued from time to time, the bags from such points were not sent to Washington for repair, but were sent to Chicago; that no “general repair shop” was established in Washington until after the contract of the claimant’s testator had expired by limitation, and that hence the contractor did not haul any disproportionate share of such mail bags.
   Richaedson, Oh.. J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The claimant’s testator having been accepted as a contractor upon his bid under an advertisement of the Post-Office Department, entered into a written contract with the defendants for transporting the mails on Route No. 10312, “being the mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service in the city of Washington, D. C.”

By the advertisement upon which the contract was founded and therein referred to, the service on the route to be performed was divided into three parts — mail-messenger service, transfer service, mail-station service, as set out in finding I.

By the eighth clause of the contract, the contractor agreed “To carry post-office blanks, mail locks and bags, and all other postal supplies.”

By tbe tenth clause be was “To perform all new or additional mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service tbat tbe Postmaster-General may order at the city of Washington, D. 0., during the contract term, without additional compensation.”

By the terms of the advertisement the points between which “the mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service” was to be performed were specified.

The carrying of “post-office blanks, mail locks and bags, and all other postal supplies,” which was not covered by those terms, was not limited as to localities of performance, except that by implication it was to be done on Route No. 10312.

Tbe counsel for tbe defendants contends that this latter service was to be performed to any extent between any points in the city of Washington tbat tbe Postmaster-General might order without limit. We can not adopt that view. In Otis Case (19 C. Cls. R., 472) we said: “In seeking to ascertain the intention of the parties to a written contract the whole tenor of the instrument, the object apparently in view as disclosed by the language of its different parts, the surrounding circumstances under which it was entered into” maybe taken into consideration. To this may be added that a contract of this kind is to be construed with reference also to the postal laws and regulations in force at the time and the instructions to bidders under the advertisement for proposals on which the contract was founded, as well as the manner in which like service had previously been performed. .

The instructions to bidders provided:

“2. The contractors under this advertisement will be required to perform, without additional compensation, any and all new or additional service that may be ordered from July 1, 1885, or at any time thereafter during tbe contract term, whether between post-offices or mail stations, and railway stations or steamboat landings, to between railway stations and mail stations, or steamboat landings, or between post-offices and mail stations (including mail stations, railway stations, and steamboat landings) now established or that may hereafter be established.”

The new and additional service contemplated by the tenth clause was explained by the above instructions in the advertisement and was clearly to and from post-offices or mail stations, railway stations (or depots), and steamboat landings in tbe city of Washington.

Revised Statutes, section 3871, authorized the establishment of branch post-offices as follows:

‘‘The Postmaster-General, when the public convenience requires it, may establish within any post-office delivery one or more branch offices for the receipt and delivery of mail matter and the sale of stamps and envelopes, and he shall prescribe the rules and regulations for the government thereof. But no letter shall be sent for delivery at any branch office contrary (to the request of the party to whom it is addressed.

Branch offices have come to be called, in departmental language, “mail stations” and to be designated by letters of the alphabet.

At the time of making this contract there was in the city post-office a local repair shop for the repair of damaged mail bags, as there was in each of several other cities in the country, and the only mail bags the contractors had previously been required to carry on this route was to and from the city post-office.

In the autumn of 1888 the Post-Office Department entered upon a new policy of having mail bags from other localities repaired in Washington. For this purpose Congress, by the Act of October 19, 1888, chapter 223 (25 Stat. L., 615), gave the Postmaster-General authority “to rent a suitable building in the city of Washington to be used as a mail-bag repair shop.” Under authority of this act the Postmaster-General rented a distinct building on E street, and established there, at some distance from the city post-office, a general repair shop in the “Rink,” so called, to and from which mail bags were carried by the contractor upon the order of the Postmaster-General.

This was neither a railway station, steamboat landing, nor, in fact, a mail station (nor branch post-office).

It is true that on February 11,1889, the Postmaster-General issued an order that the premises known as the “ Rink,” on E street, having been rented for the mail-bag repair shop, be designated as “ Station I of the Washington (D. 0.) post-office, from February 11,1889, and the postmaster will designate a superintendent of said station from the date named.” But there was no receipt or delivery of mail matter, and no sale of stamps and envelopes at said Rink, and it was never used, in point of fact, as a branch post-office. Merely designating the Rink as a branch post-office (or mail station) without using it for that purpose did not make it such any more than it would have been a railway station or a steamboat landing by being so designated. In either case it still remained a general repair shop as established by the Postmaster-General in accordance with a law of Congress passed after this contract was entered into.

In our opinion this carrying of mail bags to and from the general repair shop at the Rink, greatly enlarged by the change of policy by the Postmaster-General on the subject by authority of Congress, was not such new or additional mail-messenger, transfer, and mail-station service as was contemplated by the tenth clause nor by the parties in entering into the contract, but was extra service, for which the contractor was entitled to be paid a reasonable compensation.

Judgment will be entered for the claimant in the sum of $975.