Case ID: us-ct-cl_13/html/0251-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Drake, Ch. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MUIRHEAD’S CASE.
    William Muirhead v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      A. chief supervisor of elections prepares and furnishes instructions for Ms siiboi’di-nates l>y printing them in pamphlet form and filing one copy as apart of the records of Ms office. Ae claims fees as if each printed copy ivas a copy of the paper on file in his office, vie, fifteen cents per folio.
    
    I. The Revised Statutes (§ 2031), which allow the chief supervisor of elections fifteen cents per folio for a copy “of any paper on file” va.'bi&o'&iae, do not extend to a pamphlet; of instructions printed by him and sent to Ms subordinates; they must he regarded as original instructiohs printed for convenience; filing one cofiy did not constitute the others copies of it.
    II. The chief supervisor of elections has no power to administer oaths.
    III. A commissioner having power to administer oaths is entitled to no fee for affixing Ms seal to an affidavit.
    
      The Reporters statement of the case:
    This case not being appealable on the part of the claimant, no findings were filed by the court, but the facts fully appear in the opinion.
    
      Mr. Frank W. Haclcett for claimant:
    The instructions furnished in 1874 were “ necessary,” within the meaning of the requirements of section 13 of the Act 28th February, 1871 (Eev. Stab., § 2026). The fact that “instructions” are classed with “ books, forms, and blanks ” indicates that Congress contemplated other than oral instructions.
    The law imposed upon the chief supervisor the duty of receiving, preserving, and filing all oaths of office of the supervisors and special deputy marshals, and all “certificates, returns, reports, and records of every kind and nature contemplated or made requisite” by the act, save where otherwise specially directed. It was his duty, therefore, to file these instructions as a record in his office. In the event of a disputed election these instructions might become of the last importance. So, in criminal cases arising under section 22, Act 31st May, 1870, where a supervisor is charged with preventing a voter from exercising his right at the polls, it might prove very material in mitigation of the sentence, or for other reasons, to know the precise language of the instructions received from the chief supervisor. This world be impossible where instructions are verbal. Section 13, requiring the chief supervisor to file records of every kind and nature, specially excepts such as are otherwise in the act specially directed. The report, statement, record, return, or examination required by section 7 is thus taken out of the provision of section 13, requiring a filing in the office. Special provision had to be made to pay for making copies of such papers, and tbe act allows therefor fifteen cents per folio. It then goes on to allow a similar sum for a copy of any paper on file. The copy was as necessary as the instructions themselves.
    Section 14 of the act provides that the accounts shall be made out as in the case of accounts of commissioners. The Act 26th February, 1863 (10 Stat., 161), regulating commissioners* fees, defines a folio as one hundred words. (Eev. Stat., § 854).
    Where fees have been allowed for copies, the law, in the absence of special permission to that effect, makes no distinction between printing and writing. (In re Robinson, 1 Nat. Bank. Eeg. Rep., 285. Morrison v. Rodes, 7. T. B. Mon. (Ky.), 20.)
    Had the compensation in this case been intended solely as a remuneration for the manual labor of writing out copies, the act would have employed apt language for that purpose.
    Congress intended that the giving of instructions to supervisors should be paid for. That duty of his office is a higher and more difficult one to execute, and calls for better compensation ; and unless this construction of the statute is sustained, the chief supervisor is obliged to render these services without any remuneration therefor whatever.
    The question is not whether Congress adopted a wise method of paying this class of officers, but whether a fair interpretation of the act allows the sum of fifteen cents per folio to be charged for copies of necessary instructions.
    
      Mr. John 8. Blair (with whom was the Assistant Attorney - General) for the defendants:
    An examination of sections 2026 and 2027 of the Revised Statutes shows that while the chief supervisor was to receive, preserve, and file all oaths of office of supervisors and special deputy marshals, yet it was not his duty, nor was he as chief supervisor empowered, to administer these oaths. The supervisors and special deputy marshals might be sworn before any United States officer competent to administer oaths, and, the affidavit being forwarded to the chief supervisor, he would receive and file it. And section 2031, while it provides a fee for affixing the supervisor’s seal, does not provide a fee for administering oaths.
    As United States commissioner, therefore, he administered 316 oaths, and was entitled therefor to $31.60, which has been paid him. For attaching his seal as commissioner, section 847 of the Eevised Statutes gives him no fee, and the ten cents fixed for administration of the oath is intended as full compensation. His seal, either as commissioner or chief supervisor, was wholly unnecessary upon papers passing into his own custody.
    Section 2026 provides for two kinds of papers: first, those that should emanate from the supervisor, to wit, necessary books, forms, blanks, and instructions; second, those that emanated from others, which he should receive, preserve, and file, to wit: oaths of supervisors and special deputy marshals, certificates, returns, reports, and records of every kind contemplated or made requisite by Title XXVI.
    It was not incumbent on him to file either the books, forms, blanks, or instructions; in issuing them, they would derive no vitality from being certified as copies of his records, nor did they require any authentication except his signature. Counsel for plaintiff in his brief has suggested several advantages which might result from filing the instructions, but the purpose of Congress in providing for the filing and preserving of papers was that the records might be transmitted to that body; and the failure to prescribe that these instructions should be printed or written demonstrates that they had served them object when received by the supervisors. Upon the principle contended for by plaintiff, he might have filed his forms and blanks and furnished them as copies of papers on file; but the opening clause of section 2026 seems to me capable of but one construction, to wit, that the chief supervisor should prepare and furnish directly, and not mediately, through the files of his office, the papers described. If he adopted the more troublesome plan, he did it of his own motion, and is entitled to no greater compensation than that already received by him. Section 2031 j>ro-vides that for any copy of a paper on file he should receive fifteen cents for each folio; it is not necessary to argue that this means any paper |>roperly on file. With the adequacy of the compensation of this chief supervisor or the chief supervisor of any other judicial circuit in the United States we have no concern; the question simply is, Does the law provide for the fee which plaintiff claims ?
   Drake, Ch. J.,

delivered tbe opinion of tbe court:

In tbe years 1874 and 1876 tbe claimant was, under tbe authority of sections 2025 and 2026 of tbe Revised Statutes, chief supervisor of elections of tbe district of New Jersey j and as such, in each of said years, prepared and furnished instructions to tbe supervisors of election acting under him. Having prepared tbe instructions in writing, be caused them to be printed in pamphlet form, and in that form furnished them to tbe supervisors, and filed one copy of each set of tbe same in that form as a part of tbe records of bis office.

Tbe instruction issued in 1874 made 82 folios, and 82 copies thereof were furnished to supervisors. Those issued in 1876 made 81 folios, and 86 copies thereof were furnished to supervisors.

Tbe claimant demands pay at the rate of 15 cents for each folio contained in all tbe printed pamphlets so issued ■, that is, 13,690 folios, at 15 cents each, amounting to $2,053.50, less $64.30 paid him at tbe Treasury after this suit was brought. That sum was made up of two items: $24.30 as pay for preparing tbe instructions, at tbe rate of fifteen cents per folio, and $40 for tbe expense of printing tbe instructions. Tbe claimant protested against receiving tbe $64.30 any otherwise than as a payment on account. After crediting that sum, bis claim is for $1,989.20, for furnishing to tbe supervisors 168 printed copies, in pamphlet form, of the instructions. This is at tbe rate of a fraction over $11.70 for each copy.

The'words of tbe law relied on to sustain this demand are found in section 2031 of tbe Revised Statutes, as follows : “ There shall be allowed and paid to tbe chief supervisor, for bis services as such officer, tbe following compensation: * * * For arranging and transmitting to Congress, as provided for in section 2020, any report, statement, record, return, or examination, for each folio, fifteen cents; and for any copy thereof, or of any paper on file, a bke sum.”

Tbe entire basis, in tbe law, of this demand is in tbe words “of any paper on file.” Tbe claimant insists that each printed copy be debvered to a supervisor was, within tbe meaning of tbe law, a copy of a paper on file, and that be ought to be paid for it at tbe rate of fifteen cents per folio.

In one sense this may be true: that is, each printed copy of tbe instructions was a counterpart of every other printed copy of them; but that is not enough to entitle the claimant to pay for each of them as a copy of a paper on file.

The words “ copy of any paper on file” mean a copy certified and issued by the supervisor as a copy; not a duplicate printed copy of an original paper issued as an original document. The printed instructions to the supervisors were issued to each of them, not as a copy of an original paper which the claimant kept on file, but as themselves the original paper1, sent out for convenience in print instead of manuscript, and having in them an obligatory force by reason of being an original paper directed to them. When, therefore, the claimant, either at the time of issuing the instructions, or before or afterward, saw fit to put on file in his office, for preservation, either a printed copy thereof, or, if he pleased, the manuscript from which the type of the printed copies was set up, he put on file simply a counterpart original document, of which there were altogether 170 copies, two of which he kept and the other 168 sent to the supervisors. For the expense of printing those 170 copies he was entitled to be paid, as he has been; but for the 15 cents per folio he has no legal claim.

The claimant also demands for affixing his seal, as United States commissioner, to 316 oaths of' supervisors and special deputy marshals, 20 cents each, amounting to $63.20. He held two offices, that of commissioner and that of chief supervisor. As commissioner, he had power to administer oaths, but as chief supervisor he had not. The law gives him as commissioner no fee for affixing a seal to an affidavit. As chief supervisor, he was entitled to 20 cents “for affixing a seal to any paper, record, report, or instrument”; but he did not, as chief supervisor, affix his seal to those oaths. He stands, therefore, in the position, on the one hand, of claiming for affixing a seal as chief supervisor which he did not affix; and, on the other, of claiming as commissioner for affixing the seal a fee which the law does not allow.

The petition is dismissed.