Case ID: us-ct-cl_39/html/0543-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Holmes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE ST. LOUIS HAY AND GRAIN COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [37 C. Cls. R., 281; 191 U. S. R., 159.]
    
      On the claimant’s Appeal.
    
    The contract in suit is for the sale and future delivery of hay. It consists of a quartermaster’s advertisement, the claimant’s bid, and the quartermaster’s acceptance of the bid, but is not reduced to writing and signed by the parties, as required by statute. The quartermaster unreasonably prolongs the deliveries beyond the .period named in the advertisement; but the claimant delivers when required to do so, and accepts payment at the contract rate. The claimant objects to the delay, -which causes heavy losses, but complies with the quartermaster’s demands under the coercion of his withholding money due and threatening to buy hay in the open market.
    The court below decides:
    1. It is well settled that where contracts are required to be in writing and signed by the parties, as prescribed by the Revised Statutes (sec. 3744), no action can be maintained for the defendant’s breach unless the requirements of the statute have been complied with.
    2. It is also -well settled that where a recovery will be in quantum, meruit, and the price to be paid is undetermined by agreement, acceptance of a price as payment closes the transaction, and the contractor can not afterwards allege that his goods were worth more than the price which he consented to take for them.
    3. The fact that officers of the Government neglected their statutory duty, prescribed by Revised Statutes, section 3746, and that the contractor, being ignorant of the law, relied upon them, and complied with their demands in the belief that he was legally bound to do so, when he was not, does not take his case out of the statute. Ignorance of law does not change the law.
   The decision of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.

Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, November 16, 1903.