Case ID: us-ct-cl_32/html/0610-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice PeckhaM", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [28 C. Cls. R., 427; 164 U. S., 93.]
    
      On the claimant’s Appeal.
    
    The claimant carries the mails for many years upon its several roads [Pacific, land grant and nonaided). No express contract exists, hut the claimant is paid and accepts, without objection, the compensation which the Postmaster-General deems to he just or prescribed by law. The claimant also carries the post-office special agents traveling on business of the Department. By the existing regulations “railroad companies are required io convey free of charge all duly accredited 'special agents of the Department.” No notice of the claimant’s intention to charge for the special agents is given to the Department until this suit is brought.
    The court below decides:
    1. When the Post-Office Regulations authorize inspectors “to open and examine the mails tohenever and wherever they may find it necessary io do so,” and require railroad companies “to convey free of charge all duly accredited special agents of the Department,” a company carrying the mails can not carry the inspectors, with apparent acquiescence in the terms of the regulations, for many years and then sue for the service.
    2. A construction given to a contract by the express declaration of one party and the silent acquiescence of the other, prior to and during the performance of a service, can not be repudiated after a party has acted upon the faith of it.
    3. The doctrine of equitable estoppel is applicable where a mail carrier ought to have notified the Postmaster-General that he would not carry the mails and post-office inspectors on the terms prescribed by the regulations and his silence was deemed his acquiescence.
    4. A contract will not be implied where the intendment to contract is forbidden by the position of the parties by positive law or by the character of the transaction.
    The decision of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.
   Mr. Justice PeckhaM

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, November 9, 1896.