Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/148/222.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 08:55:08+00:00

Document:
Charles King, George A. King, and William B. King, for petitioner.
A claim of John B. Sanborn, presented in the department of the interior, for certain fees under a contract with Sisseton [148 U.S. 222, 223] and Wahpeton Indians, of 10 per cent. of the amount appropriated for said Indians by section 27 of the Indian appropriation act of March 3, 1891, ( 26 St. p. 989,) was referred by the secretary of that department, with the consent of the claimant, to the court of claims, in pursuance of section 12 of the act of March 3, 1887, (1 Supp. Rev. St. [2d Ed.] 561.) That court having concluded that Sanborn was not entitled to recover, and having reported its findings of fact and conclusions of law to the department, Sanborn, on the 6th day of July, 1892, asked for the allowance of an appeal to the supreme court of the United States. This application, being made in a vacation of the court of claims, was heard and denied by the chief justice, but was renewed and argued before all the judges on November 2, 1892, and was denied by the court, which adopted the opinion of the chief justice previously filed upon the motion before him.
The petitioner does not complain of any illegality on the part of the court below in dealing with his claim. He concedes that the action of that court had been invoked with his consent. What he complains of is the frfusal of the court to allow his appeal, and we learn from the opinion of the court that its refusal to allow the appeal was not put upon any irregularity or defect in the claim, or in the application for the allowance of an appeal, but upon its view that the [148 U.S. 222, 224] proceedings before it were not the subject of appeal to this court.
We must find an answer to the question thus put to us by a construction of the act of March 3, 1887, read in the light of the previous legislation establishing the court of claims, and regulating the subject of appeals from its judgments to this court.
This subject came for the first time before this court in the case of Gordon v. U. S., 2 Wall. 561, wherein it was held that, as the law then stood, no appeal would lie from the court of claims to this court. The reasons for this conclusion are stated in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, reported in the appendix to 117 U.S. 697 , and interesting as his last judicial utterance. Briefly stated, the court held that, as the so- called 'judgments' of the court of claims were not obligatory upon congress or upon the executive department of the government, but were merely opinions, which might be acted upon or disregarded by congress or the departments, and which this court had no power to compel the court below to execute, such judgments could not be deemed an exercise of judicial power, and could not, therefore, be revised by this court.
A similar question arose in this court as early as 1794, in the case of U. S. v. Todd, an abstract of which case appears in a note by Chief Justice Taney to the later case of the U. S. v. Ferreira, 13 How. 52, and wherein it was held that an act of congress conferring powers on the judges of the circuit court to pass upon the rights of applicants to be placed upon the pension lists, and to report their findings to the secretary of war, who had the right to revise such findings, was not an act conferring judicial power, and was, therefore, unconstitutional.
The case of U. S. v. Ferreira was that of an appeal from the district court of the United States for the district of Florida. The judge of that court had acted in pursuance of certain acts of congress, directing the judge to receive, examine, and adjust claims for losses suffered by Spaniards by reason of the operations of the American army in [148 U.S. 222, 225] Florida. It was decided that the judge's decision was not the judgment of the court, but a mere award, with a power to review it conferred upon the secretary of the treasury, and that from such an award no appeal could lie to this court.
Afterwards, and perhaps in view of the conclusion reached by this court in these cases, on March 17, 1866, (14 St. p. 9,) congress passed an act giving an appeal to the supreme court from judgments of the court of claims, and repealing those provisions of the act of March 3, 1863, which practically subjected the judgments of the supreme court to the re- examination and revision of the departments, and since that time no doubt has been entertained that the supreme court can exercise jurisdiction on appeal from final judgments of the court of claims. U. S. v. Alire, 6 Wall. 573; Same v. O'Grady, 22 Wall. 641.
With these statutory provisions and decisions of the supreme court before it, the court below held that a finding of fact and law made, at the request of a head of a department, with the consent of the claimant, and transmitted to such department, is not a judgment within the meaning of the 9th section of the act of March 3, 1887, or of the 707th section of the Revised Statutes, and is not, therefore, appealable to this court.
Such a finding is not made obligatory on the department to which it is reported, certainly not so in terms, and not so, as we think, by any necessary implication. We regard the function of the court of claims in such a case as ancillary and advisory only. The finding or conclusion reached by that court is not enforceable by any process of execution issuing from the court, nor is it made, by the statute, in final and indisputable basis of action either by the department or by congress.
In the case before us there was, as held by the court of claims, no final judgment obligatory upon the department of the interior, or enforceable by execution from any court. Moreover, there was really no suit to which the United States were parties. The claimant did not pretend that the government owed him anything for property sold or services rendered. His effort was to get the department of the interior, which was paying money over to Indians under treaties, to withhold from them an agreed percentage thereof for services rendered by him to the Indians. While such a claim may be rightfully regarded as a matter pending in one of the executive departments, which involves controverted questions of fact on law, within the meaning of the twelfth section of the act of 1887, we are unable to regard it as a suit brought against the United States within the contemplation of the ninth section of that act. It is true that by several statutes which appear in a compendious form in sections 2103, 2104, and 2105 of the Revised Statutes, the form and substance of contracts between Indians and agents or attorneys for services to be performed in reference to claims by such Indians against the United States, are prescribed, and the approval of such contracts by the secretary of the interior and the Indian commissioner is made necessary. But such enactments, intended to protect the Indians from improvident and unconscionable contracts, by no means create a legal obligation on the part of the United States to see that the Indians perform their part of such contracts.
Such a claim may be, as already said, a matter pending in [148 U.S. 222, 228] the department of the interior, within the meaning of the twelfth section of the act of 1887, but it is plainly not a suit against the United States with respect to which an appeal is provided for by the ninth section.
The application for a writ of mandamus must therefore be denied.

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