Case Name: ROBERT MORSS LOVETT v. THE UNITED STATES; GOODWIN B. WATSON v. THE UNITED STATES; WILLIAM E. DODD, JR. v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1945-11-05
Citations: 104 Ct. Cl. 557
Docket Number: No. 46026, No. 46027, No. 46028
Parties: ROBERT MORSS LOVETT v. THE UNITED STATES GOODWIN B. WATSON v. THE UNITED STATES WILLIAM E. DODD, JR. v. THE UNITED STATES
Judges: LittletoN, Judge, concurs.
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 104
Pages: 557–594

Head Matter:
ROBERT MORSS LOVETT v. THE UNITED STATES GOODWIN B. WATSON v. THE UNITED STATES WILLIAM E. DODD, JR. v. THE UNITED STATES
[No. 46026]
[No. 46027]
[No. 46028]
[Decided November 5, 1945]
The Reporter’s statement of the case:
Mr. Charles A. Horsky for tbe plaintiffs. Mr. Edward B. Burling, Miss Amy Ruth Mahin, and Covington, Burling, Rublee, Aeheson <& Shorb, were on tbe briefs.
Mr. Rawlings Ragland, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Francis M. Shea, for the Attorney General. Messrs. Donald B. MacGuineas and Henry Weihofen were on the brief.
Mr. John C. Gall for the Congress of the United States. Messrs. Dean Hill Stanley, William F. Howe, Karl M. Dolíale, Jos. G. Butts, Jr., John E. Ritzert, and Clark M. Robertson were on the briefs.
Defendant’s petitions (by the Attorney General) for writs of certiorari pending.

Opinion:
Whaley, Chief Justice,
delivered the opinion of the court:
On August 26,1943, plaintiff Robert Morss Lovett was appointed Executive Assistant to the Governor of the Virgin Islands by the Secretary of the Interior, pursuant to authority granted in Section 23 of the Organic Act of the Virgin Islands of the United States, approved June 22, 1936, 49 Stat. 1807, 1813. He took the oath of office and entered upon the duties thereof October 12, 1948. He performed them thereafter through March 18,1944, at which time his services ended. He has not been paid the salary of his office for the period November 15, 1943, through March 13, 1944, which amounts to $1,996.40, and this sum he sues to recover.
Plaintiff Goodwin B. Watson was appointed Chief of the Analysis Division, Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, Federal Communications Commission, November 16,1941, by the Federal Communications Commission, and took the oath of office and entered upon the duties thereof on that date, and performed them thereafter through November 21,1943, when his active services ended. His appointment was made under Section 4 of the Communications Act of 1934, approved June 19, 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 1066. He sues to recover the salary of his office from November 16, 1943, through November 21, 1943, amounting to $101.78, which he has not been paid.
Plaintiff William E. Dodd, Jr., was appointed Assistant News Editor, Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, Federal Communications Commission, December 22,1942, by the Federal Communications Commission, under Section 4 of the Communications Act of 1934, immediately entering upon the duties of that office. He performed those duties thereafter through November 21,1943. He has not been paid the salary attached to that office for the period from November 16,1943, through November 21, 1943, which amounts to $59.83, and he sues herein for that amount.
None of the appointments here involved were made by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.
The three cases have been submitted on stipulations, and they have been briefed and argued together. The general question raised has been the constitutionality of Section 304 of the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1943, 57 Stat. 431, 450.
The plaintiffs assert that the section is unconstitutional, setting forth their reasons for that assertion. The Attorney General having heretofore also taken the position that the section was unconstitutional, and still adhering to that position, the Assistant Attorney General, appearing for the defendant, supports the plaintiffs. Special counsel appear in the cases as amici curiae, having been employed to defend the constitutionality of the disputed section. The special counsel are designated variously in the record as representing the House, the Congress, the United States. Their brief is entitled "Brief for the Congress of the United States," and they sign as "Special Counsel for the Congress of the United States." They will hereinafter be referred to as "special counsel."
Insofar as the law involved in these three cases is concerned, they are not to be distinguished one from the other.
Special counsel raise the question of jurisdiction. Section 145 of the Judicial Code governs. The general jurisdiction of this Court in pay cases is too well-known and established to justify re-examination. Section 304, which will be quoted verbatim, in no way indicates that this Court is without jurisdiction. There is not a line or word to that effect. Inferences will not be employed to go to the extent of holding that Congress went so far as to deny these plaintiffs their day in court. The jurisdictional statute is general, and Section 304 contains no exception.
Section 304 is as follows :
Seo. 304. No part of any appropriation, allocation, or fund (1) which is made available under or pursuant to this Act, or (2) which is now, or which is hereafter made, available under or pursuant to any other Act, to any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States, shall be used, after November 15, 1943, to pay any part of the salary, or other compensation for the personal services, of Goodwin B. Watson, William E. Dodd, Junior, and Robert Morss Lovett, unless prior to such date such person has been appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate: Provided, That this section shall not operate to deprive any such person of payment for leaves of absence or salary, or of any refund or reimbursement, which have accrued prior to November 15, 1943: Provided further, That this section shall not operate to deprive any such person of payment for services performed as a member of a jury or as a member of the armed forces of the United States nor any benefit, pension, or emolument resulting therefrom.
If Section 304 is unconstitutional and of no effect, recovery follows. Special counsel argue that it is not sever- able. Their argument is not convincing. We are in no doubt about our jurisdiction.
If, on the other hand, Section 804 is a valid exercise of constitutional power, but notwithstanding that plaintiffs are entitled to recover, then it becomes a matter of indifference whether the section is valid or invalid as an exercise of constitutional power.
The Court will not reach out gratuitously to avail itself of questionable but inapplicable elements in an act and thereby hold it to be unconstitutional. There is always the presumption of validity. The Court will not undertake to say that, because provisions in Section 304, not here operative, are invalid, the whole of the section falls for invalidity.
Much of the argument presented seems to be based on a supposed lack of appropriation. But there was an appropriation. Section 304 refers to an actual appropriation, an "available" appropriation. If "available", the appropriation, as far as these cases are concerned, was available for the payment of these salaries. Availability of the appropriation for other purposes is beside the question. The disbursing agency could divert no part of an appropriation to purposes other than those for which that appropriation was made. Section 304 does not say "otherwise" available, and important words may not be put into the statute that Congress did not place there. There Avas an appropriation, it was available for the payment of these salaries. If it was not available for the payment of these salaries, then it was clearly not "available" to the administrative bureau. Congress did not limit the appropriation. What it did limit and what it was directed to, was the activities of the disbursing agency. There, and there only, did Congress apply the brake.
Section 304 is notable for what it did not do, as well as for what it did do.
It did not terminate plaintiffs' services. Special counsel insist that it did not work removal from office, and so stated on argument of the cases.
Bemoval from office is not made an item of damages here. The claim made is only for salary of the office during the time of service, and no longer. We are therefore not con cerned with, the cause of termination, or in what situation, except for lack of pay, the plaintiffs found themselves thereafter.
This limitation upon the claims made explains why it has not been necessary in reviewing the facts, to gather in many things that are of record, or of which judicial notice may be taken. Many of the circumstances are interesting only, and in no sense material to disposition of the cases.
There is nothing in Section 304 which disturbed plaintiffs' incumbency in office. Special counsel in their brief say
All that the statute did was to say to the disbursing officers of the Government: After November 15, 1943, you shall not pay out any money to Watson, Dodd and Lovett unless prior to that date they have been appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This was merely a direction to disbursing officers, and in itself created no legal rights in anyone.
We repeat, the Court, in passing upon the constitutional validity of a statute will not gratuitously reach out to make use of that which is irrelevant to the case in hand. It was said in Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 402:
A law which is constitutional as applied in one manner may still contravene the Constitution as applied in another. Since all contingencies of attempted enforcement cannot be envisioned in advance of those applications, courts have in the main found it wiser to delay passing upon the constitutionality of all the separate phases of a comprehensive statute until faced with cases involving particular provisions as specifically applied to persons who claim to be injured.
Section 304 does comprehend more than a direction not to pay for the isolated services here rendered. But that "more" is here irrelevant. In terms the section extends to all available appropriations, all disbursing officers, all departments, agencies or instrumentalities of the United States, all personal services of the instant plaintiffs, and is without limitation in time. But in the cases before us we have for consideration only one specified period of employment, and the conditions of that specific employment. We cannot introduce situations which are not before us, and which may indeed never come into being. It may be re peated, that here we have no claim for damages for removal from office, no petition for compulsory process, solely a claim for the as yet unpaid salary of an office, the duties of which have been performed by the undisputed holder of that office. These are not suits for reinstatement to office. As was said in California v. San Pablo etc. Railroad, 149 U. S. 308, 314:
The duty of this court, as of every judicial tribunal, is limited to determining rights of persons or of property, which are actually controverted in the particular case before it. When, in determining such rights, it becomes necessary to give an opinion upon a question of law, that opinion may have weight as a precedent for future decisions. But the court is not empowered to decide moot questions or abstract propositions or to declare, for the government of future cases, principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue before it. No stipulation of parties or counsel, whether in the case before the court or in any other case, can enlarge the power, or affect the duty, of the court in this regard.
The incumbent of the office held it de jwre. There was no irregularity in the appointment. There was no removal of the officer from the office, no removal of the salary from the office. The appropriation was made and designated as "available." The only appropriation here, in fraesenti, is the appropriation available to pay these salaries.
The closer the statute is examined, the more clearly does it appear that with reference to the particular situation we have here, Congress confined itself to one thing — prohibiting the disbursing agencies from paying the salaries of the plaintiffs. The Act is very carefully framed to avoid denying pecuniary obligations. It is a bare caveat issued against the disbursing agency.
As special counsel contend, Congress did not remove from office. The original appointment was unaffected, the office was undisturbed, the compensation was unchanged, the incumbents were not separated from office. They held de jure.
Quoting again from the brief of special counsel:
Section 304 did not deprive plaintiffs of any right to salary. Section 304 denied to the Federal Com munications Commission and to tbe Secretary of the Interior the funds with which to pay plaintiffs: and since under 47 U. S. C., Sec. 154 g and 48 U. S. C., Sec. 1405 v, the power of those agencies to grant plaintiffs a right to salary depended upon the existence of such funds, Section 304 prevented these agencies from granting the right plaintiffs assert.
We are not free to conclude that Section 304 accomplished deviously that which for certainty's sake should have been accomplished directly, if it could be accomplished at all. What it did do directly, not indirectly, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, and nothing more, was to stay the hand of the disbursing agency.
There would have been no occasion for Section 304 to stop payment if the plaintiffs were not holding their respective offices in fact and in law. No disbursing agent had authority to make payment of salaries to men out of office or not entitled to office, and a direction to such an agent not to pay the salary to a legally displaced officeholder would have been something less than an empty gesture. The obvious circumstance that the section was dealing with was one where the plaintiffs were legally and actually in office. Section 304 did not remove them.
It is to no very useful purpose to inquire into the reason for enactment of Section 304. But, it may be remarked in passing, that it is impossible to conclude that Congress meant that in the final outcome, service was to be free to the Government, because the plaintiffs were, in its opinion let us say, unfit for office. It is plain that the plaintiffs, if unfit, were just as unfit serving the Government for nothing, as serving it for something. There is no logic to the proposition that the plaintiffs were to serve the Government for nothing. The proposition is irrational. Unfitness could not be converted into fitness by withholding salary. Yet the statute allowed these plaintiffs to continue in office.
Section 304 is not to be construed beyond its express, explicit terms, nor beyond its incidence in time. It effectually halted the disbursing process in a special situation, at a particular time. We are not here concerned with other situations, other times. The situation, the occasion, has now passed into history. The accomplished event is not now before the Con gress and never has been. But it is here and now before this Court.
It is urged that plaintiffs must fail, because the procedure was not followed of having an appointment "by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate," as provided for in Section 304. It has been observed that Section 304 is notable for what it does not say. It does not say that the services of the plaintiffs are terminated, that they shall not continue on under their current appointments. In other words, as special counsel observe, the section did not remove them from office. The plaintiffs did not have to have a presidential appointment in order to continue in office. They did continue in office. It is only the period of their continuance in office, after November 15, 1943, that is involved in this controversy.
In a long line of cases it has been held that lapse of appropriation, failure of appropriation, exhaustion of appropriation, do not of themselves preclude recovery for compensation otherwise due. King v. United States, 1 C. Cls. 38; Graham v. United States, 1 C. Cls. 380; Curtis v. United States, 2 C. Cls. 144; Grant v. United States, 5 C. Cls. 71; Collins v. United States, 15 C. Cls. 22; Briggs v. United States, 15 C. Cls. 48; Parsons v. United States, 15 C. Cls. 246; Huffman v. United States, 17 C. Cls. 55; Dougherty v. United States, 18 C. Cls. 496; Ferris v. United States, 27 C. Cls. 542; Sherlock v. United States, 43 C. Cls. 161; Strong v. United States, 60 C. Cls. 627; Danford v. United States, 62 C. Cls. 285; McNeil v. United States, 64 C. Cls. 406; Cogswell v. United States, 68 C. Cls. 694; Palmer v. United States, 69 C. Cls. 260; Crist v. United States, 74 C. Cls. 283; Conrad v. United States, 74 C. Cls. 289; Wilson v. United States, 77 C. Cls. 630; Leonard v. United States, 80 C. Cls. 147; Miller v. United States, 86 C. Cls. 609; United States v. Langston, 118 U. S. 389; United States v. Vulte, 233 U. S. 509.
The provision in Section 304 that no available appropriation shall be used to pay the salaries of these plaintiffs, here in question, does not reach to this Court. Speaking with reference to the constitutional provision that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law, this Court said (Collins v. United States, supra):
That provision of the Constitution is exclusively a direction to the officers of the Treasury, who are intrusted with the safekeeping and payment out of the public money, and not to the courts of law; the courts and their officers can make no payment from the Treasury under any circumstances.
This court, established for the sole purpose of investigating claims against the government, does not deal with questions of appropriations, but with the legal liabilities incurred by the United States under contracts, express or implied, the laws of Congress, or the regulations of the executive departments.
Section 304 made no pretense to determine a legal liability. It assumed no judicial function. It simply prevented a particular disbursement from a particular fund, no more than that if it be taken for just what it says, without inferences. We are confining ourselves, of course, to the precise claims asserted.
In United States v. Dickerson, 310 U. S. 554, it was held that an appropriation act could suspend the operation of a prior statute granting certain reenlistment allowances. Granted that an appropriation act may be something more than an accounting process, in the case we have here Section 304 makes no attempt to change or do away with compensation attached to the offices held by the plaintiffs. It merely stopped payment in three specific instances (no other instances are here involved), regardless of obligation.
The obligation was undisturbed. The Act did not say it was destroyed, or even subtly attempt to destroy it, unless we are to indulge in inferences, which we are not disposed to do. It did not say to the plaintiffs: "You are discharged." The status of the plaintiffs was untouched.
The cases cited indicate survival of the obligation in spite of lapse, exhaustion, failure of appropriation. Other reported cases not pay cases, are crowded with instances of un-liquidated damages recovered, recovery against the United States being had in the absence of any appropriation at all to pay unliquidated damages, and in the absence of any authority in the disbursing agency to satisfy the litigant's claim.
In the three cases now here considered there was more than in the cases cited. There were in existence "available" appropriations. As heretofore indicated, full value must be given to the express word "available." It can not be changed to "unavailable." If the appropriations could not be used for these offices, then they were unavailable. The statute says they are available, and they must be so considered.
We have pointed out that Section 304 was without time limitation. Congress can not bind itself to discontinue legislation, if it is to go on as a constitutional body. It may therefore repeal Section 304. Section 304 is statutory, not a part of the Constitution. It may or may not turn out to be permanent legislation.
Congress, by enacting Section 304, did not foreclose itself from thereafter appropriating for the payment of these salaries. Congress even now may appropriate, and authorize a selected disbursing agency to pay them. Claims therefor, presented to Congress, may be satisfied by an appropriation to pay them, as claims. Judgments, recovered here, may be satisfied by any appropriation out of which the judgments may be by Act of Congress, payable.
The statute did not separate the plaintiffs from office, it did not take away the salary of that office, it did not prohibit plaintiffs from receiving their salaries. The Act did provide an appropriation for the payment of their salaries. The appropriation for the pay period was there, but it was not made use of. The plaintiffs were appointed lawfully, they continued in office lawfully. Section 304 is no way disqualified them, and we can find no rational basis for construing the Act otherwise than as a mere stoppage of disbursing routine, nothing more. To construe it as something more is to volunteer inferences. Whether the Congress had the constitutional authority to stop payment, within the limitations of the Act, is immaterial. That which is material is that the salaries have not been paid, that the obligation was never destroyed, and that the obligation continues to this day.
In the conclusion arrived at, it is immaterial whether Section 304 of the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1943, or any part thereof, is constitutional or not. We do not de cide that question. The plaintiffs are entitled to recover in either event. As previously indicated, consideration of Section 304 is necessarily confined to narrow limits, as narrow as the claims themselves.
Plaintiff Robert Morss Lovett in case No. 46026 is entitled to recover $1,996.40; plaintiff Goodwin B. Watson in case No. 46027 is entitled to recover $101.78; and plaintiff William E. Dodd, Jr., in case No. 46028, is entitled to recover $59.83. Judgments will be entered accordingly. It is so ordered.
LittletoN, Judge, concurs.