Case ID: us-ct-cl_23/html/0491-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Miller", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GEORGE E. HENDEE v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (22 C. Cls. R., 134; 124 U. S. R., 301.)
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    The act of March 3, 1883, provides that “all officers of the Navy shall he credited xvith the actual time they may have served as officers or enlisted, men in the regular or volunteer Army or Navy or hoth.” The only question presented by the case is whether a paymaster’s clerk ia an officer of the Navy within the meaning of the act.
    The court below decides:
    (1) The word “ officers ” is frequently used in a broader sense than that indicated by the constitutional method of appointment.
    (2) In the case of Germaine (99 U. S. R., 508) the Supreme Court held that civil surgeons appointed by the Commissioner of Pensions are not officers within the meaning of the Act 1825 (4 Stat. L., 118). But the court took into consideration the nature of the employment and the circumstance that the statute was penal.
    (3) There are persons who, from the tenure of their service and the nature of their employment, are known as and styled officers, though not technically so by constitutional appointment.
    (4) The Act 3d March, 1883 (22 Stat. L., p. 472), relating to the longevity pay of naval officers, is a remedial statute, and an officer is entitled to a liberal interpretation, giving to the language as broad a meaning as Congress may be presumed to have intended.
    (5) The “petty officers ” of the Navy, appointed by or with the approval of the commander of the vessel on which they are employed, are entitled to the benefits of the aet.
    
      (6) The Revised Statutes (seo. 1410), which defino -who are petty officers, class clerks as officers of the Navy.
    (7) In the Navy Regulations, 18C5, clerks were expressly enumerated under the title of “ line and staff officers ” and in rank were classed with midshipmen. In Regulations, 1876, they have no classification, but in orders and official papers are referred to and treated as officers and are held subject to the Revised Statutes (§. 4808).
    Tbe decision of the court below is affirmed on the ground that the claimant was an officer of the Navy within the meaning of the act of March 3, 1883.
   Mr. Justice Miller

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, January 23, 1888.