Case ID: us-ct-cl_22/html/0332-01.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

DAVID MERIWETHER v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [No. 15316.
    Decided June 2, 1887.]
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    In 1856 the governor of New Mexico acts without compensation as disbursing agent of the Treasury in regard to the erection of the public buildings in Santa Fé. In 1882 an appropriation act provides that “ any disbursing agent who has been or may be appointed to disburse my appropriation” for public buildings “shall beentiiled to theeom- ■ pensaiion allowed by law to collectors,” &c.
    The provision in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act, 1883 (22 Stat. D., 202), that “ any disbursing agent who has been or may be appointed to disburse any appropriation for any United States court-house,” &c., “shall be entitled to the compensation allowed by law to collectors of customs,” &c., is not so far rotroactive as to fix the compensation of former disbursing officers in all the past transactions of the Government.
    
      The Reporters’ statement of the case:
    The claimant, who had disbursed $72,047.53 for public buildings in Santa Eé, did not bring this suit until after the claim for compensation had been long barred by the statute of limitations and rested his right to a recovery entirely upon the sundry civil appropriation act, 1882. The claim being for less than $3,000, no findings of fact were filed.
    The claim was for three-eighths of 1 per cent, commission for the claimant’s services as disbursing agent, in the disbursement of the appropriations for building the public building at Santa Fé, in the Territory of New Mexico.
    He was appointed governor of that Territory May G, 1853, and held the office until October 30,1857. During his term of service the Secretary of the Treasury requested him to act as commissioner and disbursing agent for the work of building the public buildings in the Territory, which duty he performed, and settled his accounts to the satisfaction of the accounting officers of the Treasury, receiving their thanks for the interest he had taken in the matter. He disbursed in this matter $72,647.53, for which he received no compensation.
    
      Mr. George A. King for the claimant:
    The First Comptroller having given an official opinion adverse to claims of this character, holding that the act does not apply to officers whose accounts have already been settled, the claimant brings the case in the first instance to this' court. (Bavesies v. United States, 21 C. Ols. It., 243.)
    It seems almost too plain for argument that the clause was intended to be retrospective in its character. Congress was well aware that there were pending before it claims of officers of the Government for amounts disbursed by them in a manner not required by their official duties, and that the officers were entitled, under the decision of the Supreme Court in Converse v. United States (21 How., 463), to compensation for services in making such disbursements. This compensation not having been fixed by any general statute, Congress thought proper to settle all such demands by a general law prescribing the rate at which all such service should be valued, not only for the future, but for the past.
    This is a much stronger case in favor of the retrospective-construction of the statute than was that of Kaivldns v. United States, 19 C. Cls. R., 611, where, without any words of the past tense in the statute, the court nevertheless inferred from the manifest purpose of the statute a retrospective intent on the part of Congress.
    Indeed, if a retrospective construction be not given to this statute, it is difficult to see what was the object in passing it; for the act of March 3,1875, hereinbefore alluded to, had already fixed the compensation of such disbursing officers at three-eighths of one per cent., and neither that act nor the Act of March 3, 1869 (16 Stat. L., 312), to which it refers, nor section 3654 of the Bevised Statutes (which is a re-enactment of the Act of March 3, 1869), is at all limited in its operation to collectors of customs. All disbursing agents thereafter appointed were entitled to the three-eighths of one per cent-, and needed no new statute to give it to them. Hence, unless the act is construed as retrospective in its operation it will fail of effect altogether. This result will never be adopted by the judiciary if it can possibly be avoided, for the rule is to construe the law ut res magis valeat quam per eat. {JEmory v. United States, 19 C. Cls. B., 254, 264.)
    
      Mr. H. J. May (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Howard) for the defendants.
   Per curiam:

The counsel for the claimant relies upon the following provision in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act, 1882 (22 Stat. L., 302):

“ And any disbursing agent who has been or may be appointed to disburse any appropriation for any United States court-house and post-office, or other building or grounds not located within the city of Washington, shall be entitled to the compensation allowed by law to collectors of customs for such amounts as have been or may be disbursed.”

The court is of the opinion that this provision probably was not intended as general legislation or to extend beyond the appropriations authorized by the act itself, and certainly was not intended to be so far retroactive as to fix the compensation of former disbursing officers in all the past transactions of the Government.

The judgment of the court is that the petition be dismissed.