Case ID: us-ct-cl_33/html/0507-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Shiras", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DIXON N. GARLINGER v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [30 C. Cls. R., 208, 473; 169 U. S. R., 316.]
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    The Treasury regulations provide that night inspectors in the Customs Service “shall he divided into two watch.es;” “"both watches to perform duty every night;” and that when it is necessary for a night inspector to perform duty all night, “he will he excused from performing any duty the following night.” In the port of Baltimore the night inspectors are not so excused, hut are required to serve from sunset to sunrise and until relieved.
    The court below decides;
    1. The law of master and servant has a certain elasticity not to he found in the law which regulates other contracts. The servant can not charge the master for overlionrs, nor the master.the servant for lost time. But the variations from the letter of the contract must relate to trivial things. A servant who has agreed to render one kind of servico can not he required to render another nor to do double duty.
    2. Kequiring a night inspector to perform duty through two watches in one night, when the regulations prescribe one watch as a day’s work, is too gross a deviation from the terms of the contract to he sustained by the law of master and servant.
    3. The'Treasury regulations, prescribing the duties and watches of-night inspectors, have the force of law and regulate the service and hours of service.
    4. The compensation of a public officer is not regulated or limited by the law of master and servant, and where fixed and certain can not be diminished by official authority.
    5. A daily pay implies a daily service, and when regulations having the force of law prescribe what the daily service shall be, it becomes as complete a thing with reference to the daily pay as a year’s service is with reference to an annual salary. Therefore a night inspector who is required to perform duty through two night watches when the regulations prescribe one as his daily service is entitled to pay for both.
    The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that it is not possible for the Secretary of the Treasury by regulations to divide a day’s service into parts and attach to each the pay of a full day’s work, and on the ground that where payments are made for work done and are received without objection or protest and there is no allegation of fraud or duress, the inference is that the payments were understood by both parties to be in full; and such presumption is strengthened by a delay of two years in making any demand for further compensation.
    February 21, 1898.
   Mr. Justice Shiras

delivered the opinion of the Supreme .Court