Case ID: us-ct-cl_59/html/0545-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES
    [No. B-65.
    Decided March 31, 1924]
    
      On.the Proofs
    
    
      Railroad transportation; mistake in computation; erroneous payment. — Where a railroad company presents a bill for transportation of Government property which contains an error of multiplication, and said bill is paid by the disbursing officer as presented, the company may recover the amount it was underpaid by reason of such error.
    
      The Reporters statement of the case:
    
      Mr. John F. MoOarron for the plaintiff. Mr. George E. Hamilton was on the brief.
    
      Mr. Albert E. Marks, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Lovett, for the defendant.
    
      The following- are the case as court:
    I. Plaintiff is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Maryland and is and at the time herein involved was engaged in operating a system of railroads in interstate commerce.
    II. For services rendered by plaintiff and connecting carriers for the U. S. Marine Cor-ps, Quartermaster Department, it, being last carrier, presented on February 2, 1921, its bill No. 2012-1467 for the transportation of 27,500 pounds of prunes, stated in four items, aggregating net $288.64, which was allowed and paid. Said bill was presented upon the usual approved form and was certified by plaintiff to be correct.
    III. Thereafter, and after plaintiff had received the amount allowed in payment of the bill, it was discovered that in stating transportation from Chicago to Philadelphia there was stated under the heading “ weight,” 40,000 (meaning minimum car weight), under the head “ rate,” 34.4, and under the head “ gross amount,” $13.76. Said gross amount so erroneousely stated was so stated by reason of error in multiplication and should have been correctly stated as $137.60. It is not contended that there was any mistake in the statement of weight or rate.
    IY. By reason of said mistake plaintiff was paid $121.14 less than it was entitled to receive for ¿aid transportation. It filed a supplemental bill for said amount which was disallowed and revision refused because it had accepted payment of the amount allowed.
   MEMORANDUM BT THE COURT

Recovery is sought of such amount 'as is necessary to correct a plain error in mathematics; 40,000 (pounds) X 31-4 (cts. per hundred) = $137.60, not $13.76. The certification of the amount as correct can not preclude recovery as urged, for the weight and the rate, the controlling elements, were correct. The deduction therefrom was an error. The auditor, in examining the 'account and passing it in that shape must have participated in the mistake or knowingly passed an account with such a mistake in it, to the detriment of plaintiff; a surely conceivable action. The plaintiff earned this money 'and ought to have it and we know of no law or rule precluding its recovery under these circumstances. Judgment for plaintiff in the sum of $121.14.