Case ID: us-ct-cl_61/html/1019-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice BeaNdeis", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MERRITT v. THE UNITED STATES
    [58 C. Cls. 371; 267 U. S. 338]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, the Supreme Court deciding:
    1. Action by a subcontractor in the Court of Claims, held not maintainable under the Dent Act, sections 1 and 4, the petition not showing an agreement with the plaintiff entered into by or under authority of the Secretary of War, or performed, etc., prior to November 12, 1918, or a claim presented before June 30, 1919, or that, before a payment was made by the Government to tbe prime contractor, the plaintiff had made expenditures, etc., “ with the knowledge or approval of any agent of the Secretary of War duly authorized thereunto.”
    March 2, 1925.
    2. Where a contractor, upon settling with the Government under the Dent Act, induced the claimant to release his subcontract for less than was due him by fraudulently misrepresenting to him the basis upon which the settlement was made, and the Government, learning this, exacted a repayment to itself from the contractor of an amount equal to that of which the claimant had thus been defrauded, but it did not appear that the exaction was for the claimant’s benefit, held, that the claimant had no cause of action to recover this amount from the United States under the Tucker Act, since the United States was under no express contract to pay the claimant and none- was to be implied in fact.
    3. The Tucker Act does not give a right of action against the United States in those cases where, if the transaction were between private parties, recovery could be had upon a contract implied in law.
    4. The practice of the Court of Claims does not allow a general statement of claim in analogy to the common counts, but requires a plain, concise statement of the facts relied on, not leaving the defendant in doubt as to what must be met.
   Mr. Justice BeaNdeis

delivered the opinion of the Su~ preme Court