Case ID: us-ct-cl_48/html/0507-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice McKenna", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JAMES L. BRADFORD v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [47 C. Cls. R., 141; 228 U. S. R., 446.]
    
      On the claimant’s appeal.
    
    The claimant is convicted of conspiring to defraud the Government of public lands in Louisiana. The President pardons him upon condition that he make full restitution to the satisfaction of the district attorney. He executes releases of the lands embraced within the terms of the pardon, “ reserving under the latos of Louisiana the right to all improvements, or the value thereof, and the fight to proceed against the United States for the same.”
    
    
      The court below decides:
    Í. Where a person convicted of a conspiracy to defraud the Government of public lands is pardoned upon condition that he shall make full restitution, he can not reserve “ under the laws of Louisiana the right to all improvements ” which he has made on the land, or “ the value thereof.”
    
    ÍI. A district attbrney is not authorized either by virtue of his office or the direction of the President to do any act which will obligate the United States to reimburse a person for money expended in the improvement of public lands.
    III. The Government is in no way responsible for money expended on public lands by a wrongdoer; neither can it be made responsible by any act, nor by a conditional pardon, of the President.
    IV. It is well settled by decisions of the courts of Louisiana that a person acquiring possession of the public lands of the United States without title can not set up a claim for improvements under the laws of that State.
    V.Where all that the Government claimed and acquired was full restitution of lands that had been fraudulently possessed, there was no taking of private property within the meaning of the Constitution, and no contract can be implied founded on such restitution.
    VI.No right can be acquired in relation to the public lands except under the authority of Congress.
    VII.The theory of the law of Louisiana is “ that no one should he made richer at the expense of another, even though the latter has acted in had faith.” But the laws of Louisiana can not east a liability on the United States though the lands be situated within the State.
    The decision of the court below is affirmed on the ground that the claimant has not established a contract against the United States.
    April 28, 1913.
   Mr. Justice McKenna

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court