Case ID: us-ct-cl_32/html/0607-01.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

CHARLES G. GILLIAT, Administrator.
    [Not reported in C. Cls. R.;
    164 U. S. R., 42.]
    
      On the defendant's Appeal.
    
    The Act 23d August, 1894.(28 Stat.L.,487), enacted “that the sum of $35,840.44, appropriated to be paid to John A. Brim-mer, jr., administrator of John Gilliat, deceased, in the act entitled An act making appropriations to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30,1891, and for prior years and for other purposes,’ be paid to the person or persons entitled to recover and receive the same, to be ascertained by the Court of Claims upon sufficient evidence and certified to the Secretary of the Treasury.” Proceeding under the above enactment, Charles G. Gilliat, the appellee, presented his petition to the Court of Claims for the paymeut of one-third of the sum named, on the ground that he was a grandson of one of the three original sufferers by reason of the seizure of the ship Hannah and had been duly appointed administrator de bonis non of the estate of his grandfather by the chancery court of the city of Richmond and State of Virginia. The Attorney-General answered the petition of the claimant, denied the allegations therein, and asked judgment that the petition be dismissed.
    Upon the hearing the Court of Claims decided that the petitioner was the administrator of the estate of Thomas Gilliat, who was one of the three members of the firm of Gilliat & Taylor, the original sufferers, and that the petitioner represented the descendants and next of kin of the above-mentioned Thomas Gilliat, and the court certified to the Secretary of the Treasury for payment to such administrator to tbe extent of one-third of the sum of $35,840.44, appropriated by the act of March 3,1891, being the sum of $11,946.81, which was the extent of the interest of Thomas G-illiat in the partner-, ship of Gilliat & Taylor. The Attorney-General in his notice of appeal described the certificate of the Court of Claims, which it made to the Secretary of the Treasury, pursuant to the above act of March 3,1891, as a judgment, and as such assumed to appeal therefrom to the Supreme Court of the United States. The appeal was allowed by the Court of Claims.
    The Supreme Court decided that “it was undoubtedly the intention of Congress, by the language used in the act of 1894; to refer to the Court of Claims simply the ascertainment of the proper person to be paid the sum which it had already acknowledged to be due to the representatives of the original sufferers from the spoliation, and it was not intended that the decision which the Court of Claims might arrive at should be the subject of an appeal to this court. We think Congress intended that when such fact had been ascertained by the Court of Claims, upon evidence sufficient to satisfy that court, the fact was to be certified by the court to the Secretary of the Treasury, and such certificate was to be final and conclusive.”
   Mr. Justice Peckham.

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, October 26, 1896.