Case ID: us-ct-cl_23/html/0483-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SARAH E. RAMSAY ET AL. V. THE UNITED STATES.
    (21 C. Cls. R., 443; 120 U. S. R., 214.)
    
      On the defendant’s Appeal.
    
    An informer gives information which ultimately leads to the recovery of internal-revenue taxes and penalties. His share under the existing law amounts to $1,700; hut before the money is recovered the act 1872 is passed, prescribing a new basis of compensation for informers. The Secretary of the Treasury declines to fix the facts which determine an informer’s rights, upon the ground that the act 1872 repealed the previous statutes. But a subsequent Secretary decides that he was the first informer, etc., and he remits the question of law to the decision of this court.
    The court below decides :
    (1) The Aoi 6th Jane, 1872 (17 Stat. L., 256), did not forbid revenue officers to use information previously given, nor did it forbid the Secretary of the Treasury to accept an informer’s service; it merely provided a new mode of compensation.
    (2) Under the Aots 30t7i Jane, 1864, and 13t7t July, 1866 (13 Stat. L., 305, 14 id., 145), the informer’s share in a fine, penalty, or forfeiture did not vest until the money was recovered; but the repealing act 1872 did not prohibit payment for pribr services; nor does it deprive such informers of compensation fairly earned under previous statutes.
    did not repeal any law imposing a penalty; it was merely the right of future informers to a share in the penalty . which was repealed.
    
      (4) The Secretary of the Treasury alone has power to adjudicate an informer to a share of a penalty under the acts 1864, 1866 ; but when he decides all the material facts of a case, it is an adjudication or award on which an action will lie, notwithstanding that he refuses to order payment upon the ground that those acts were repealed before the penalty was recovered.
    (5) After an award is made upon the merits by an officer having exclusive jurisdiction of the claim, a refusal to order payment does not deprive the court of j urisdiotion, but on the contrary is one of the facts upon which jurisdiction rests. The distinction between this case and that of Ramsay (14 C. Cls. R., 367) stated.
   The decision of the court below is affirmed by a divided court January 17, 1887.