Case ID: us-ct-cl_32/html/0611-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Brown", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WILLIAM J. VERDIER, Administrator, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [28 C. Cls. R., 268; 164 U. S., 213.]
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    A postmaster is sued in 1870 and a judgment recovered. At the same time the Government is indebted to. him in an amount which can not be ascertained because of the neglect of the Post-Office Department to fix and allow an increase of salary to which he has been entitled by law. In 1885 this is done, and he is credited with $2,892, which he should have been credited with in 1870. The accounting officers charge his estate with interest on the judgment, but refuse to allow interest on the deferred salary.
    
      The court below decides:
    1. It can not lie held that the Government should derive a benefit from its own laches or take advantage of the omission of its officers to perform a duty imposed upon them by statute.
    2. This court, in the exercise of its equity powers, will not enforce the payment of interest upon a judgment in favor of the United States which would not have been recovered if their officers had duly complied with the law.
    The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that interest prior to the judgment in the Court of Claims can not be allowed; that it must be allowed to the Government under It. S., § 966, under all circumstances to which the statutes apply, with no regard to such equities as might prevail between private suitors.
   Mr. Justice Brown

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, November 16, 1896.