Case ID: us-ct-cl_9/html/0153-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

OSBORN’S CASE. James A. Osborn v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      The elaimani brings Ms action for the additional compensation given hy the Twenty per uent. Resolution, 28th February, 1887, (14 Slat. L., p. 569.) Thisconrt hears the case with others of the same class, and decides against the claimant. 
      
      Judgment is entered dismissing the petition. Subsequently, in other oases, the Supreme Court gives a different construction to the resolution, probably favorable to this claimant’s demand. Se noto brings a second action for the same demand. The defendants plead their former recovery in bar.
    
    I. A final judgment in the Court of Claims cannot he evaded by a second action on the same causo; and, notwithstanding the Supreme Court in a similar suit has reversed the doctrine of the Court of Claims, still, the former recovery against the present claimant determines the rights of the parties, and, if pleaded by the defendants, bars his second action.
    II. Where a claimant has no right of appeal, and the Government has, he should request judgment jiro forma in his favor, if he wishes to secure a review in the Supreme Court. But if he argues and submits his case without reservation to the decision of this court, and takes no step) to keep the matter open, the judgment will be final, and preclude a reconsideration of the question, oven though the Supreme Court may decide differently in another case.
    
      Mr. James H. Mandeville for the claimant:
    The claimant admits that the same identical cause of action, as alleged in the defendants’ special plea in this case, was upon the merits thereof decided by this court against the claimant on the 17th of May, 1869; but the claimant contends that his case is analogous to another class of cases, which was duly allowed upon appeal by the Supreme Court of the United States, to wit: The employés upon the Treasury extension. That though no actual appeal was taken in'this case to the United States Supreme Court, it was in effect appealed, because the same equitable principles which governed the class of cases of the Treasury extension governed that class of cases to which the claimant belongs; and that a reversal of the decision of the Court of Claims in the cases of the Treasury extension employés, in equity, was a reversal of the decision in the cases of employés of the National Currency Bureau of the Treasury Department, to which Bureau the claimant belonged, and in which he was employed for that time which entitles him to the benefit created by the Twenty per cent. Resolution, approved February 28, 1867. ' •
    
      Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Goforth for the defendants.
   Nott, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The claimant brought his action for the 20 pe* cent, given by the Joint Resolution 28th February, 1867, (14 Stat. L., p. 569.) This court heard the case, with others, and decided against the claim, renderiug judgment for the defendants, and dismissing the petition. (Baker’s Case, 4 C. Cls. R., p. 237.) Subsequently certain cases, in which this court had decided in favor of the claimants, were carried by the Government to the Supreme Court, and a construction was there given to the_ resolution probably favorable to this claimant’s demand. Accordingly, he has brought a second action for the same thing. The former judgment against him stands unvacated and unreversed; and in this, the second suit, the defendants have pleaded it in bar. It is impossible to sustain this suit. The former recovery or adjudication is in the nature of a final judgment. It is still in existence; it still determines the rights of the parties; and it possesses all the finality of ajudgment in courts of the comtnan law. (Spicer’s Case, 5 C. Cls. R., p. 34.) However erroneous it may have been, it cannot be reviewed when its effect is sought to be evaded by a second action.

There is a certain hardship in the claimant’s case, because he had no right of appeal which would have enabled him to review the judgment of this court; but he could have requested the court to decide one case of the claás proforma against the Government, which had the right of appeal, and to suspend j udgment in the other cases, all of them having been submitted at the same time and by the same counsel; or, after judgment had been rendered, he might have moved for a new trial, to keep the matter open, and then to postpone the hearing thereof until the Supreme, Court should render a decision in the cases which had then gone up. Instead of taking these precautions, the claimant, with others, elected to submit the case upon the merits, and to abide by the decision of this court. And now, after several terms have intervened, that decision cannot be disturbed.

The judgment of the court is that the petition be dismissed.

LoniNGr, J., did not sit in this case, and took no part in the decision.