Case ID: us-ct-cl_23/html/0486-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Harlan", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JOHN FINN v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (No opinion in C. Cls.;
    123 U. S. R., 227.)
    
      On the claimant’s Appeal.
    
    The claim for twenty-four horses and seventy-eight mules, amounting to $15,677.40 was first presented to an Executive Department by being filed in the office of the Quartermaster-General, July 3, 1874. The Quartermaster-General decided adversely to the claim, and transmitted it to the accounting officers of the Treasury. On the 14th June, 1879, the Third Auditor disallowed the claim, and the Second Comptroller concurred. But on the 20th July, 1886, the Second Comptroller ordered that the case be opened, because of newly-discovered evidence produced by the claimant; and on the 13th August, 1886, the Secretary of the Treasury transmitted it to this court under the Revised Statutes, § 1063.
    The court below dismisses the claimant’s petition without an opinion.
    The decision of the court below is affirmed. The Supreme Court decides:
    (1) It is a condition or qualification of the right to a judgment against the United States in the Court of Claims that the claimant, when not laboring under one of the disabilities named in the statute, voluntarily begin suit or make his claim at the proper Department within six years after suit could be commenced thereon.
    (2) The general rule as to limitation does not apply in the Court of Claims. It is the duty of that court to dismiss the-petition of its own motion when it appears that the claim is barred, though the statute may not have been pleaded.
   Mr. Justice Harlan

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court October 17, 1887.