Case ID: us-ct-cl_51/html/0480-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Hughes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CECIL D. ROSS v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [49 O. Ols. R., 55; 239 U. S. R., 530.]
    
      On the defendants’ appeal.
    
    A private in the Infantry service was transferred as a private to the Hospital Corps of the Army and immediately on his arrival at the general hospital at the Presidio, San Francisco, he was assigned to duty in the telephone and telegraph office at the hospital and was on duty there from November 9, 1900, to April 24,1903, except at short intervals when he was sick. The records of the War Department show that he was carried on the reports as “ telegraph operator ” and this suit is to recover “ extra duty pay,” under section 1287, R. S., and the act of July 5,1884. 23 Stat. L., 107, 110.
    The court below decides:
    Upon the question of the necessity for a written order detailing an enlisted man on “ extra-duty pay ” the case of EoltJiaus v. U. 8., 42 0. Cls., 544, is controlling and here followed.
    Where the actual employment of an enlisted man in the telephone and telegraph office of a hospital for a comparatively long period of his enlisted service is known personally to the officers in charge of said hospital, and he is carried on the regular returns as a “ telegraph operator,” he is entitled to the “ extra-duty ” pay ” provided by law.
    Section 1287, R. S., refers to artificers and laborers, and the act of March 3, 1885, 23 Stat. U., 359, refers to mechanics, artisans, school-teachers, and “ clerks ” at headquarters in one class, and “ other clerks, teamsters, laborers, and other enlisted men on extra duty,” and the latter act is amendatory to section 1287, R. S., and enlarges in a way the classes referred to therein.
    The decision of the court below is reversed.
   Mr. Justice Hughes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court January 10,1916.