Case ID: us-ct-cl_15/html/0631-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Miller", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PARISH’S CASE.
    (12 C. Cls. R., 609; 100 U. S. R., 500.)
    Joseph W. Parish et al., appellants, v. The United States, appellees.
    
      On the claimants’ Appeal.
    
    
      In 1883 the acting medical qmrveyor of the Amy contracts with the claimants for “ the whole amount of ice required to be consumed ” in certain hospitals. The Assistant Surgeon-General, being also chief medical officer in the district where the ice is to be furnished, direots the claimants to deliver 30,000 tons, 20,000 without delay. The claimants thereupon purchase a large quantity. Before delivery the Surgeon-General “ suspends” the order. A large quantity of the ice so purchased proves a total loss.
    
    The court below decides that as the contract bound the contractor to deliver “the whole amount of ice required to be consumed,” the Assistant Surgeon-General had no authority to fix the quantity in advance. Judgment for the defendants. The claimants appeal.
    The judgment of the court below is reversed. The Supreme Court now holds: (1) That the acts of the Assistant Surgeon-General were the acts of the Surgeon-General until revoked; (2) That the claimants should recover for so much of the ice purchased in consequence of the Assistant Surgeon-General’s order as was lost in consequence of the Surgeon-General’s suspension of the order.
   Mr. Justice Miller

delivered tbe opinion of the Supreme Court, April 12, 1880.