Case ID: us-ct-cl_11/html/0181-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Chief-Justice Waite", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SPENCER’S CASE.
    (8 Court of Claims R., 288.)
    Horatio N. Spencer, appellant, v. The United States, appellees.
    
      On t]ie courts oten Motion.
    
    
      The claimant brings suit under the Abandoned or captured property Act. Judgment is given against Mm. The court below in its findings of fact returns a letter in extenso from a Treasury agent to the Secretary of ike Treasury, giving a history of the seizure of the claimant’s cotton, its release to third persons, $-c. The facts narrated in the letter are not otherwise found by the court below. After the appeal has been argued and submitted, the Supreme Court, of its oton motion, directs a further finding as to the facts set forth in the letter.
    
    Tlie rule of the Supreme Court requiring “ a finding by the Court of Claims of the facts in the case established by the evidence in the nature of a special verdict" is not complied with when the court returns a letter from a Treasury agent to the Secretary of the Treasury, narrating how certain cotton came into his hands and what was done with the proceeds, instead of finding as a fact whether the cotton was or was not received by the agent as captured property, and wdiether the proceeds were or were not paid into the Treasury.
   Mr. Chief-Justice Waite

delivered the opinion of the court:

Eule 1, in reference to appeals to this court from the Court of Claims, provides that no case shall be heard here on such an appeal except upon a record containing, among other things, 1 a finding by the Court of Claims of the facts in the ease estab lished by the evidence in the nature of a special ver diet P

The finding certified here with this record does not show—

1. Whether the cotton, which is the subject of the action, was.received or collected by any agent specially appointed by tbe Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose, as captured or abandoned property, under any act of Congress providing therefor ; or,

2. Whether, if so received or collected, it was sold as such, and the proceeds paid to any agent of the United States whose duty it was to accept and transmit the same to the Treasury of the United States.

A determination of these questions of fact may be material to the judgment in the case, and the record is remanded to the Court of Claims for a further finding thereon, to be certified and returned to this court with the record.