Case ID: us-ct-cl_3/html/0307-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thomas Aiken v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      A colored man receives from his employer for wages and rations three bales of cotton but a few days before the evacuation of Charleston. The employer is a rebel and has no money wherewith to pay the claimant, except confederate, which the claimant regards as worthless. The transfer is otherwise free from suspicion of an intent to defraud the defendants.
    
    A transfer of cotton made & few days before the evacuation of Charleston from a rebel to a colored citizen, being in payment of wages due, and the owner having no other means of paying the claimant, is not per se a fraud against the “Abandoned or captured property act," 12 Stat. L., p. 820.
    Mr. D. N. Cooley for the claimant.
    The Assistant SolicitoR for defendants.
   Per Curiam :

■ The claimant is a colored man who took the three bales of cotton from his employer, for wages and rations due him, hut a few days before the evacuation of Charleston by the rebel forces, and its occupation by the Union troops. The employer had no funds but confederate money, which was then worthless, and gave Aiken the cotton for the debt due him. The circumstances under which it was received relieve the transaction from all suspicion of collusion and fraud. The ownership is well proved, and the loyalty of the claimant undoubted. .We award him the net proceeds, amounting to $393 60.

Nott, J., dissented.