Case ID: us-ct-cl_20/html/0539-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE UNITED STATES v. RICHARD R. CORSON.
    (17 C. Cls. R., 344; 114 U. S. R., 619.)
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    In March, 1865, an assistant quartermaster, without hearing or notice, is dismissed by President. Lincoln. In June, 1865, the order of dismissal is revoked by President Johnson. In October, 1866, the officer is honorably mustered out. He claims three months’ pay proper and pay from March 27,1865, to June 9, 1865, under 13 Stat. L., 497, and 14 Stat. L., 94.
    The court below decides—
    (1.) The power to revoke an order dismissing an officer from the Army has been frequently exercised by different Presidents.
    (2.) If an order dismissing an officer be revoked before the rights of other parties have intervened, the revocation presents only a question of executive authority.
    (3.) The power of revocation, where it does not disturb the intervening' rights of other officers, nor draw from the Treasury large amounts of unearned back pay, has frequently been recognized, and by the early decisions of this court.
    (4.) Whether, under recent decisions, the President, having- once dismissed an officer, or accepted his resignation and given notice thereof, so that nothing remains to be done to make the severance complete, can again restore him to office, except by a new appointment, with the advice and consent of the Senate, quaii-e.
    
   Judgment for the claimant.

The judgment of the court below is reversed on the ground: (1) That an officer of the Army, dismissed from the service, during the recent civil war, by order of the President, could not be restored to his position merely by a subsequent revocation of that order. (2) The vacancy so created could only be filled by a new appointment,"by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, unless it occurred in the recess of that body, in which case the President could have granted a commission, to expire at the eud of its next succeeding session.

Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, May 4, 1885.