Case ID: us-ct-cl_17/html/0055-01.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

John Huffman v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      The claimant carries the mail in Kentucky until September 10,1861, when his contract is annulled by the Postmaster-General because of his supposed disloyalty. He isuot paid for services rendered subsequent to March 31,1861. Congress in 1817 appropriate money for the payment of such claims; but the Secretary of the Treasury pays none, and the appropriation lapses.
    
    I.Though Congress iu the Sundry civil appropriation Act 3d March, 1877 (19 Stat. L, 344, 362, oh 105), grouped certain mail contractors in Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia with those in the seceded States, it doesnot follow that provisions and limitations properly applicable to the latter are to be taken as applicable to the former.
    II.A Confederate statute directing payment for certain mail services out of moneys designated and set a part for that purpose may raise a presumption of payment to contractors within the Confederate States, but the presumption cannot be extended to a contractor whose route and service were both exterritorial to the power of the Confederate government. The distinction between this case and HukilVs (16 C. Cls. K., 562) stated.
    III.Where a statute directs an executive officer to examine a class of claims and report them to Congress, there to await legislative action, the report has not the Anal character of an award, and no action can be maintained upon it; but where Congress validate a class of claims, appropriate money to satisfy them, and direct the Secretary of the Treasury to examine and pay them, the cause of action is not dependent upon the proceedings of the Secretary, and a suit may be sustained on the original claim.
    
      
      The Reporters’ statement of the case:
    The mail-transportation contract out of which the cause of action here arose was one of the ordinary contracts of the Post-Office Department, and its construction was not involved in the suit. The following are the facts as found by the court:
    I. The contract mentioned in the claimant’s petition, and set forth in full in the exhibit thereto, was duly executed by both parties-on the 24th day of April, 1858.
    II. The claimant carried the mail under the above contract to and including the 10th day of September, 1801, when he ceased to carry the mail, by reason of the annulment of the contract by the Postmaster-General, upon the ground of his (the claimant’s) alleged disloyalty.
    III. He was paid in full by the United States, to and including March 31, 1801. For his services subsequent to that date he received $17.14 by collections from postmasters on the route. No further payments were made by the government or received by the claimant, and there remains unpaid and due to him a. balance of $144.44.
    IV. The mails ran regularly from the beginning to the close of the war of the rebellion on the route covered by the contract in this case, and the Government of the United States was at all times in possession and control of the country through which said route passed; and the said country and route and the post-offices on said route were never in the possession or control of the insurgents or of their government.
    V. At an early day after the passage of the Sundry civil appropriation Act of March 3, 1877 (19 Stat. L., 344, 362, ch. 105), which contains a certain appropriation of $375,000, referred to in the claimant’s petition, the Secretary of the Treasury issued an order that no payments should be made out of that appropriation until all claims covered by its terms should have been received and adjusted, and, if the appropriation should proveinsufficint, they should then be paid pro rata. In consequence of this order no claims were adjusted within two years after the date of the act, and the appropriation was therefore covered into the Treasury, under the requirement of section 5 of the Legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation Act of June 20,1874 (18 Stat. L., ch. 328, p. 85),-which provides “that from and after the first day of July, 1874, and of each year thereafter, the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause al'l unexpended balances of appropriations which, shall have remained upon the books of the Treasury for two fiscal years to be carried to the surplus fund and covered into the Treasury.”
    YI. This claim has never been paid wholly or in part by the Confederate States Government.
    VII. The appropriation referred to in Finding Y was duly covered into the Treasury before the commencement of this suit or the presentation of the claim, to wit, on or before June 16, 1880.
    VIII. The claimant has never presented any claim under the Sundry civil appropriation Act 3d March, 1877, to the Post-Office or Treasury Department, either before or since suit brought.
    And upon the foregoing findings of fact, the court decides as conclusion of law:
    The claimant should recover the amount due to him upon his contract for mail service performed by him in the State of Kentucky in the year 1861, as set forth in the forgoing findings, to wit, the sum of $144.44.
    
      Mr. George A. King for the claimant.
    
      Mr. A. T>. Robinson (with whom was the Assistant Attorney-General) for the defendants: *
    
    Claimant having made no application for pay, or commenced any suit before the appropriation had lapsed and been covered into the Treasury, no vested right attached to his claim, and his case now stands as if no appropriation had ever been made, except that he may present his claim to the accounting officers, and if they find anything due him the Secretary is to report it to Congress for their action. (20 Stat. L., 130, § 4.)
    This court held in Ludingtoii’s Gase (16 C. Cls. P., 453) that a similar act took away its jurisdiction.
    Congress did not intend to make an abiding contract on which a recovery could be based in any event, but to retain in their own hands the decision of such claims as should not be paid within the two years.
    No contract is made by this act with claimant by name. It is a general act for the benefit of all “whom it may concern.” Did not Congress say to all pretended claimants, “We give you two years to establish your claims and get your money. Those who fail to be diligent must, wait for farther legislation ”1
    Claimant has not, by the depositions taken by him, shown sufficient facts to raise a presumption that his claim has not already been paid from some other source, as decided by the court in EuldWs Case (16 O. Cls. B., 562) to be necessary.
   Nott, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The Sundry civil appropriation Act 3d March, 1877 (19 Stat. L., pp. 314, 362, ch. 105), appropriates the sum of $375,000 for the purpose of paying “the amount due to mail contractors for mail service performed” in certain designated States. The States so designated are those which seceded in 1860-1861, and likewise the States of Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. The mail service so to be paid for is limited to that performed “in the'years 1859, 1860, and 1861, and before said States respectively engaged in Avar against the United States”; and “ claims which have been paid by the Confederate Government^” the act says, “ shall not be paid again.”

Of course such a statute is passed Avith reference to facts well known to Congress. It ivas well knoAvn that the States of Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia never passed ordinances of secession, that they never “ engaged in war against the United States,” and that they Avere not members of the Confederate States, or a portion of the “ Confederate States Government.” But it was also known to Congress that their territory at times had been a part of the theater of Avar, and that there were mail contractors in those States avIio, for reasons more or less connected with the Avar, had never been paid the full amount due them for mail-transportation service. Of course, if there were such contractors in those three States, there was no reason why Congress should do less justice to them than to those in the seceded States, and, when legislating upon the subject, it Avas natural and convenient that they should be provided for by the same statute; biit it does not folloiv that provisions applicable to contractors within the seceded States are to be taken as applicable to those in Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. The statute might have been more clearly expressed; yet the manifest intent is that mail contractors in those three States shall be paid the amount due to them for mail service performed in 1859, 1860, 186Í, while in the case of the seceded States there-is practically a further limitation imposed which restricts the relief to service in those years, rendered “ before said States respectively engaged in war against the United States.”

In the case of Hukill (16 C. Cls. R., 562) the court, when interpreting this statute, reached two general conclusions: 1st, that the court has jurisdiction of cases arising under it; and, 2d, that the provision declaring that those claims “ which have been paid by the Confederate States Government shall not be paid again,” when interpreted in connection with certain Confederate statutes directing payment of the same, casts upon the claimant the burden of showing that his claim was not paid. We see no reason now for doubting the correctness of either conclusion; but the latter is applicable to cases like Hukill, where the route was within a seceded State, and is not applicable to a case like the claimant’s, where the service was rendered in the State of Kentucky. Neither the reasoning of the court nor the language of the Confederate statutes extends to the case of a contractor whose route and service were both exterritorial to the power and authority of the Confederate Government.

It was said on the argument that the decision in the Ludington Case (15 C. Cls. R., 453) decides this; and reference was made to the second section of the AetlGth June, 1874 (1 Supplmt. R. S., p. 37), and to the fourth section of the Act Itíh June, 1878 (Ibid., p. 350), as being substantially the same in effect, the former governing the Ludington Case and the latter this. But the distinction between the two cases lies.behind the operation of these statutory provisions, and is, we think, a broad One.

In Ludington’s Case the executive officers were without authority to pay the class of claims to which it belonged, and their duty was limited t'o reporting the facts connected with them to Congress, there to await legislative action. The claimant founded his suit on such a report, upon the theory that it was an award. The court held that the provision of the Act 16th June, 1878 (1 Supplmt. R. S., p: 37, § 2), requiring the consideration of Congress upon the reports of the officers charged with the examination of such claims, took away whatever character of an award such reports previously might have had. In this case Congress validated a class of claims, appropriated money to satisfy them, and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to examine and pay them. The Secretary did not examine them, and this suit is not founded upon any report of his. The fact that he did not pay'the claims while the appropriation remained under his control did not extinguish the parties’ rights j and the general statutory provision in the Act 1878 (1 Sapplmt. R,. S., p. 350), directing the accounting officers to continue to examine claims “under appropriations, the balance of which may have been exhausted or carried to the surplus fund,” and directing the Secretary to report the amount due to each claimant to the Speaker of the Nouse, to be laid before Congress “for consideration,” does not affect the causes of action, nor change their character, nor remove them from the jurisdiction of this court. In a word, the decision of the court in Ludington’s Case was that the alleged cause of action had never become complete; and the ruling of the court in this case is that a perfected right of action is not taken away by the lapsing of an appropriation under provisions of law which are intended to regulate the power and duties of the accounting officers.

The judgment of the court is that the claimant recover of the defendants the sum of $144.44.