Case ID: us-ct-cl_22/html/0484-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Field", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PACIFIC RAILROAD v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (20 C. Cls. R., 200; 120 U. S. R., 227.)
    
      Both parties Appeal.
    
    The Government sets up a counter-claim for rebuilding railroad bridges in Missouri during the war, maintaining that the work was done for the claimants’ benefit, with their actual knowledge and at their implied request, amid circumstances from which the law would imply a contract. Also that the destruction of bridges by the United States military authorities for the public safety imposed no obligation to rebuild. The claimants deny that the work was done at their request, and contend that the bridges were avowedly rebuilt for the Government’s own military purposes, and that the law will not imply a contract where the plaintiff’s acts negative one.
    The court below decides:
    (1) The right of the Government in time of war to destroy bridges for the public defense or to rebuild them as a military necessity does-not carry with it a right to force an implied contract upon the owner of the realty for the cost of the structures erected. Such a contract must rest upon the owner’s license, express or implied, and be subject to its limitations.
    (2) Where a railroad company assented to the Government’s rebuilding certain bridges, asserting at the same time that those destroyed by its own military authorities should be rebuilt at its own cost and only those destroyed by the public enemy at the cost of the company, the assent was in legal effect a license, which set bounds to the liability of the one party and imposed conditions upon the acts of the other.
    The judgment of the court below for §44,800.71 is reversed so far as it is adverse to the claimant on the ground that—
    (1) The United States are not responsible for the injury or destruction of private property caused by their military operations during the late civil war, nor are private parties chargeable for works .constructed on their property by the United States to facilitate such operations.
    
      12) Accordingly, where bridges on the line of a railroad were destroyed during the civil war by either of the contending forces, their subsequent rebuilding by the United States as a matter of military necessity, without the request of, or any contract with, the owner of the railroad, imposes no liability upon such owner, and judgment ordered for $130,195.98.
    At the same time the judgment of the Court of Claims in United States v. Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Go. was affirmed.
   Mr. Justice Field

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, January 31, 1887.