Case ID: us-ct-cl_58/html/0708-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Sutherland", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

RUSSELL MOTOR CAR COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES. HENRY FREYGANG AND ALBERT A. TBOCON, DOING BUSINESS UNDER THE FIRM NAME OF THE MIDLAND BRIDGE COMPANY, v. THE UNITED STATES. ALBERT & J. M. ANDERSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [57 C. Cls. 464, 244, 626 ; 261 U.S. 514.]
    Judgments were rendered in the court below in each of the above cases for a portion of the amounts claimed. On appeals by plaintiffs the judgments were affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided:
    The act of June 15, 1917, c. 29, 40 Stat. 182,» empowered the President, within the limits of amounts appropriated, “ to modify, suspend, cancel, or requisition any existing or future contract for the building, production, or purchase of ships or material ” and to exercise the authority' “ through such agency or agencies as he shall determine from time to time,” “ material ” being defined as including stores, supplies, and equipment for ships and everything required for or in connection with the production thereof.
    
      Meld: (a) The word “material” included antiaircraft gun mounts for the Navy.
    (6) The power “to modify, suspend, cancel, or requisition” any contract, etc., extends to the cancellation of the Government’s own contracts.
    (c) An Executive order designating power under this clause in sweeping terms to the Secretary of the Navy should be construed broadly, and included the power to cancel Government contracts.
    (d) An order of the Secretary canceling a contract need not refer to the statute.
    (e) The just compensation to which a party is entitled, upon cancellation of his contract under the statute, does not include anticipated profits.
    
      The maxim nosoitur a soeiis is used only to solve ambiguity. Verbs in an enumeration whose meaning, when they are separately applied to their common object, is plain, should be interpreted distributively.
    Where the meaning of a statute may be ascertained without extrinsic . . aid, debates in Congress will not be considered.
   Mr. Justice Sutherland

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court April 9, 1923.