Case ID: us-ct-cl_60/html/1020-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice SutheblaNd", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE UNITED STATES v. JEFFERSON F. MOSER
    [58 C. Cls. 164; 266 U. S. 236]
    Judgment was rendered against the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided':
    1. While the doctrine of res judicata, does not apply to unmixed questions of law, a fact or right distinctly adjudged can not be disputed in a subsequent action between the same parties, even upon another demand and though the original determination was reached upon an erroneous view or application of the law.
    2. A determination of the status of an individual upon which his right to recover depends is as conclusive as a decision upon any other matter.
    3. Where a retired naval officer had obtained judgments in the Court of Claims for installments of increased pay under an act of March 3, 1899, providing “ that any officer of the Navy * * * who served during the Civil War, shall, when retired, be retired with the rank and three-fourths the sea pay of the next higher grade,” and sued there again for another installment, held, that the .Government was estopped from maintaining that his service during the Civil War as a cadet in the Naval Academy was not service within the meaning of the statute, that question having been determined against.it in the previous litigation.
   Mr. Justice SutheblaNd

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court November 17, 1924.