Case ID: us-ct-cl_27/html/0564-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Field", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JAMES A. BRIGGS, EXECUTOR, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (25 C. Cls. R., 126, 143; U. S. R., 346.)
    
      On the claimant's Appeal.
    
    In April, 1862, Mo rehead gives to Briggs, hoth being in Kentucky, a hill of sale of “ all the cotton on my two plantations in Mississippi. This is intended, to cover all cotton that I have now or may have this year on said two plantations, supposed to he about two thousand hales.” There is no cotton on the plantations; but a crop is grown that year which subsequently is captured. Congress pass an act authorizing Briggs to bring suit in this court for the proceeds.
    Tbe court below decides:
    The Act dth Jume, 1888 (25 Stat. L., 1075), for the relief of C. N. Briggs, revives the jurisdiction of the Captured Property Act.
    It is well settled in suits for the proceeds of captured property that if the claimant’s title was acquired in contravention of prohibited intercourse or against public policy it is void.
    All property produced within enemy’s territory, by whomsoever owned, is stamped with the character of that country, and no act of the owner can free it from that inherent character.
    A sale or transfer of cotton in Mississippi in April, 1862, the parties being in Kentucky, the crops not yet grown, but subsequently made by the agent of the vendor appointed before the war began, was absolutely void, and no legal title passed to the purchaser.
    Tbe decision of tbe court below is reversed on tbe ground that tbe sale or transfer was valid, and tbe case is remanded with direction to pass upon tbe question whether tbe transaction was an absolute sale or merely a mortgage or pledge and to enter judgment accordingly.
   Mr. Justice Field

delivered tbe opinion of tbe Supreme Court, February 29, 1892.