Case ID: us-ct-cl_23/html/0324-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Scofield, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JAMES HARVEY DENNIS v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [Congressional,
    147.
    Decided June 4, 1888.]
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    On the defendant’s motion to dismiss it is held that the court has jurisdiction (20 C. Cls. R., 119),for the reason thattheaccounting officers were not precluded from adjusting the claim, though the statute of limitations barred it in this court. It is now found that the claim is for unliquidated damages.
    I. A claim for unliquidated damages, growing out of written, oral, and implied contracts, is not one which the accounting officers are authorized to adjust. ’
    
      II. A claim within the general jurisdiction of the court, hut which was harrecl hy the statute of limitations at the time of the enactment of the Bowman Act, can not he transmitted under section 1 of that statute if it be for unliquidated damages.
    
      The Reporter’s statement of the case:
    This case first carne before tbe court upon a motion of tbe defendants to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, the ground being that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The court overruled the motion, holding that the accounting officers might still adjust the claim, and hence that it was not barred as a Congressional case within the intent of the Bowman Act. (See 20 O. Cls. R., 119, where the motion is reported.) The panics then proceeded to take depositions and finally submitted the case on voluminous proofs and an extended argument. No findings of fact were filed, but the facts on which the court based its present decision are stated, generally, in its opinion.
    
      Mr. James Lowndes and Mr. Linden Kent for the claimant.
    
      Mr. W. J. Kill, (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Koward) for the defendant.
   Scofield, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a claim for unliquidated damages, growing out of written, oral, and implied contracts for improvements in the Tennessee River, under the direction of the War Department.

The claim accrued prior to 1873. For six years thereafter this court had jurisdiction under section 1059 of the Revised Statutes u to hear and determine the matters in dispute between the claimant and the Government; but section 1069 provides that such claims, unless presented to the court within six years after the claim first accrues, * * * shall be forever barred.” The claim was not presented to the court within that time.

The accounting officers of the Treasury Department are not authorized to adjust unliquidated damages of this nature, and the claim was not presented there.

It was before the Secretary of War, but the alleged damages were not calculated nor paid by him, but were rejected prior to 1882.

The last clause of section 3 of the Bowman Act provides that tbis court shall not u have jurisdiction of any claim against the United States which is now (March 3, 1883) barred by virtue of the provisions of any law of the United States” (act of March 3, 1883, 22 Stat. L., 485).

The court is thus forbidden to make any finding of facts in the case.

The claimant’s petition is therefore dismissed.