Case ID: us-ct-cl_62/html/0412-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hat, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

FRANK KINSEY HILL v. THE UNITED STATES
    [No. C-483.
    Decided June 14, 1926]
    
      On the Proofs
    
    
      Pay of Government employee; expense of exchange. — When an officer or employee of the Government has been paid by a disbursing officer’s check drawn in accordance with section 3620, Revised Statutes, such officer or employee has received his salary in the manner provided by law, and he is not entitled to reimbursement of the expense incurred by him in securing payment of the check so drawn.
    
      The Reporter’s statement of the case:
    
      Mr. Edgar T. Fell for the plaintiff.
    
      Mr. John G. Ewing, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Herman J. Galloway, for the defendant.
    The court made special findings of fact, as follows:
    I. The plaintiff was a captain in the United States Navy on the retired list when, by proper orders dated April 24, 1917, he was placed on active duty and directed to proceed to Bio de Janeiro, Brazil, as naval attaché, the United States Embassy. He left the United States on April 28, 1917, and arrived in Bio de Janeiro on May 17, 1917, where he continued to serve as naval attaché until August 1, 1920, when he was ordered to return to the United States and was relieved from further active duty on August 19, 1920.
    II. As a captain in the Navy on active duty the plaintiff’s pay and allowances were fixed by law, as that of all other naval officers, in terms of American dollars. The plaintiff acted as naval disbursing officer from the date of his arrival at Bio de Janeiro on May 17, 1917, to May 17, 1918, and during that period drew checks in dollars on the Treasurer of the United States for the full amount of his salary and allowances as fixed by law and signed the pay roll as in full receipt of the amount of each individual check. On May 17, 1918, another officer was appointed naval disbursing officer and, excepting for the payment to the plaintiff of the sum of $1,600 in gold, which amount had been received for coal sold to the Brazilian Government by the United States, the plaintiff received from said disbursing' officer and his successors checks from time to time drawn on the Treasurer of the United States in dollars for the full amount of his salary and allowances. During a part of the period from May 17, 1917, to August 19, 1920, the exact dates not being shown in the record, the plaintiff also received an additional allowance of $200 a year, and for the balance of said period he received an additional allowance of $300 a year as a “special allowance for maintenance * * * serving under unusual conditions ” as authorized in the current Navy appropriation acts. These special allowances were also paid by checks drawn in dollars on the Treasurer of the United States and all such checks have been paid by the Treasurer of the United States for the full amount for which they were drawn.
    During the whole of this period regular pay rolls were made up by the plaintiff acting as paymaster and by the subsequent paymasters. On the receipt by the plaintiff of each of his payments for salary and allowances he signed according to his statements the pay rolls showing the receipt. The evidence does not satisfactorily establish that the plaintiff made at any time protest against payment in checks drawn on the Treasurer. The evidence shows that no protest was made in writing.
    The plaintiff made no protest in writing against payment in checks drawn on the Treasurer of the United States. He did from time to time make verbal protests to the different paymasters, but what checks he so protested is not shown by the evidence.
    III. Except for checks totaling $4,500, which were sent to and cashed or deposited in the United States, and for which no claim is made, the plaintiff sold all of his checks for his pay and allowances and special allowances to bankers in Bio de Janeiro, and received cash for the same, in Brazilian paper milreis and some small silver and copper coins. The plaintiff was paid by the said bankers at the commercial rate of exchange on New York City, which was a less sum than he would have received for his checks if he had been paid in American dollars.
    
      IY. The commercial rate of exchange fluctuates from day to day and hour to hour and transaction by transaction, and is determined as the price of any commodity is determined in the open market on the basis of the supply and demand for the particular currency for that particular day, hour, or transaction.
    It has not been shown what the rate of exchange was at the time the plaintiff cashed his checks. It is therefore not possible to calculate the loss of the plaintiff, if any.
    Y. The mint or par rate of exchange represents the relative amount of gold in the standard unit of currency of two countries. The standard unit of currency in the United States is the gold dollar and the standard unit of currency in Brazil is the milreis. The gold dollar is equivalent to 4.09 milreis, and this gold rate does not fluctuate except as the gold content of either the gold dollar or the gold milreis is changed. The mint rate of exchange and the commercial rate of exchange are not necessarily the same, and during the period of the plaintiff’s claim the money of Brazil was not converted into gold milreis, but was a depreciated paper currency.
    The court decided that plaintiff was not entitled to recover.
   Hat, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The plaintiff was a captain in the Navy, and during the period to which this suit refers was naval attache in the embassy of the United States at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He brings this action to recover the cost incurred by him in procuring the payment of some of his checks, alleging that by reason of the rate of exchange he received $2,444.11 less than he would have received if his checks had been paid in United States dollars.

We are of opinion that the plaintiff can not recover. The accounting officers of the Government have uniformly held that when ah officer or employee of the Government has been paid by a Government check drawn by a disbursing officer such officer or employee has received his salary in the manner provided by law, and that the manner of securing payment of the check is one for his action in such manner as he thinks best and at his own expense, if any expense is involved. Section 3620, Revised Statutes, 22 Decisions of Comptroller, 341.

In the present case the officer of the Navy in Brazil received checks through a series of years; some of these he cashed at banks in Rio de Janeiro, some he deposited in banks in New York City. These checks were drawn on the Treasurer of the United States. This is the manner which was prescribed by law for the payment of this officer; there is no law which provides that he shall be reimbursed for any loss which he may have sustained by reason of the rate of exchange, nor does the Government undertake to reimburse him for any expense which he may have been put to in cashing his checks. The real loss or expense, if any, can not be calculated, for the evidence is most conflicting. But at all events it is not denied that the rate of exchange varied from day to day; nor can the plaintiff with any certainty point out on what day or days his various checks were cashed by or sold to the banks. It must follow that no relief can be given the plaintiff here, and his petition must be dismissed. It is so ordered.

Graham, Judge; Booth, Judge; and Campbell, Chief Justice, concur.