Case ID: us-ct-cl_41/html/0510-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice White", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HARRIET T. JAMES, ADMINISTRATRIX OF CHARLES P. JAMES, DECEASED, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [38 C. Cls. R., 615; 202 U. S. R., 401.]
    
    
      On the claimants Affeal.
    
    The salary of the office being $4,000, Congress in 1891 appropriated “ for salary of the chief -justice and five associate judges of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, at the rate of $5,000 -per annum each, $30,000.” For the following fiscal year only the salary of the office is appropriated, and during tlie year one. of the judges retires. Subsequently, in 1895, Congress appropriates for the deficiency, so as retroactively to malte the amount $5,000. The retired judge is paid his proportion. The question presented by the case is whether he retired on a salary of $4,000 or $5,000; and the question is raised by the defendants whether a court of the District of Columbia is a “ cowf of the United States ” within the intent of the Constitution, Article III.
    The court belotv decides:
    1. It was the purpose of the framers of the Constitution that the 10 miles square which by the cession of States and the acceptance of Congress might become “ the seat of the Government ” should he as permanent as the States from which it should be taken; and territory acquired from States for the seat of the Government continues to be national. The District of Columbia is a part of the United States for all purposes, domestic and international.
    2. The legislation of Congress from the beginning of the Government has been upon the theory that the courts of the District are permanent tribunals.
    3. An inferior court under Article III of the Constitution need not possess all the powers and subjects of jurisdiction of every other inferior court of the United States.
    4. By the Act Set March, 1863 (12 Stat. L., p. 702), establishing the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, the judges are to hold office “ during good behavior,” as prescribed by section 1, Article III, of the Constitution.
    5. Legislative and .executive construction since the establishment of the court in 1863 has uniformly treated it as a court established under Article III and one where judges are protected by the Constitution. t
    
    0. The Act 3d. March, 1901 (26 Stat. L., pp. 908,’047), which appropriated “ For the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, and for other purposes,” was temporary in its operation and did not increase the salary of the judges from $4,000 to $5,000.
    7. A judge who retired in December, 1S92, under the Revised Statutes (§ 714), which provides that a judge who resigns after having held his commission ten years and being 70 years of age “ shall during the residue of his natural life receive the salary which by law was payable to him at the time of his resignation,” can receive no more, though Congress previously appropriated more than the salary of the office, and subsequently appropriated more for the same fiscal year in which he resigned.
    
      The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that as Congress had the power retroactively to fix the salary payable to a justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for an antecedent year, and as the act of 1899 was a determination by Congress that the salary payable to Justice Janies for the year during which he resigned was $5,000, it can not be disregarded, and fixes his retiring salary at that amount.
   Mr. Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court May 21, 1906.