Case ID: us-ct-cl_24/html/0530-01.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

JOSEPH M. CUMMING ET AL. v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [22 C. Cls. R., 344; 130 U. S. R., 452.]
    
      On both parties’ Appeals.
    
    Prior to the Internal Bevenue Begulations, August 29, 1867, a firm of wholesale liquor dealers occupied a building in New York, one of them being authorized to keep a bonded warehouse on the premises. The basement is used for the storage of free goods; the first floor as a place of business; the upper floors constitute the bonded warehouse. Two of the firm are likewise partners in another firm engaged in tho production of distilled spirits. The new regulations forbid that any other business in distilled spirits be carried on in the buildiug used as a bonded warehouse. Therefore a clerk of the firm applies for authority to keep the bonded warehouse. This application is approved, and the appointment made. He does not, in fact, own the warehouse, nor has any right of property or possession therein, the firm continuing in the occupancy and he continuing to be their clerk. Subsequently the warehouse is kept under surveillance, the books are taken and removed to the collector’s office, the removal of spirits is for a time forbidden, and the business is interfered with, though no seizure is made. The firm fails, and Congress refer the claim by a private act.
    The court below decides:
    (1) When Congress, by special legislation, refer a claim of which the Court has not jurisdiction, it must be held that the first purpose of the act is to confer it.
    (2) It must also be held that the purpose of conferring jurisdiction was to enable the Court to render substantial justice, if upon ordinary principles of law the claimant is entitled to it.
    (3) Where a private act submits the .question whether the Government is liable for certain alleged acts of its officers, the liability spoken of must be deemed to be the legal liability which an ordinary body-corporate, such as a municipal corporation, would be subject to for similar acts of its agents.
    
      Judgment for the claimant.
    The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that the private act waived only the defense of the statute of limitations, and not the defense that the Government is not liable for unauthorized wrongs inflicted by public officers while engaged in the discharge of official duties.
   Mr. Justice Harlan

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, April 22,1889.

Mr. Justice Miller and Mr. Justice Field dissented.