Case ID: us-ct-cl_55/html/0506-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice McReyNolds", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [53 C. Cls., 222; 251 U. S., 123.]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants in tbe court below. On appeal tbe judgment was affirmed, and tbe Supreme Court decided:
    
      Semble, that under Rev. Stats., see. 4002, as amended, the Postmaster General may fix the sums payable to a railroad company for transporting- the mails upon the basis of weights taken immediately before the beginning of the four-year term of the contract, and that annual weighings are not required.
    A railroad company which knowingly contracts and receives on this basis less than it would have received on the basis of annual weighings has no implied contract right to be paid the difference by the United States.
    Prior to the act of July 28, 1916, c. 261, 39 Stat., 429, a non-land-grant railroad was not required to carry the mails; and when it voluntarily accepted and performed the service with knowledge of what the United States intended to pay, it can not claim more upon the ground that its property was taken.
   Mr. Justice McReyNolds

delivered tbe opinion of tbe

Supreme Court December 8, 1919.