Case Name: MRS. MINOR'S CASE. Rebecca A. G. Minor, executrix, v. The United States
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1870-12
Citations: 6 Ct. Cl. 393
Docket Number: 
Parties: MRS. MINOR’S CASE. Rebecca A. G. Minor, executrix, v. The United States.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 6
Pages: 393–398

Head Matter:
MRS. MINOR’S CASE. Rebecca A. G. Minor, executrix, v. The United States.
On the Proofs.
>General Butler, commanding at Hew Orleans, orders a sequestration of property ■in certain parts of Louisiana, and appoints a commission of military officers to carry outtlib order. The commission is empowered to work abandoned plantations. It authorizes one IP. to work five plantations, two of them the claimant’s. From the five, F. ships a known quantity of sugar and molasses, but only a part reaches the commission, and there is nothing to indicate the proportion contributed by each. The commission sells the property, and carries the proceeds into one general account. The whole transaction takes place before the enactment of the Abandoned or captured property act, but the proceeds ultimately come into the abandoned or captured property fund.
I. "Where tlie proceeds of property captured and sold prior to the enactment of the Abandoned or captured property act have come into the Treasury and form a part of that fund, tho Hci 2c? July, 1864, (13 Stat. L., p. 375, § 3,) has the effect, in connection with the former act, of conferring- jurisdiction on this court, of a suit brought by a loyal owner to recover the net proceeds.
II. When a known quantity of captured property belonging to five several owners is shipped by one government agent to another, and only apart reaches the latter, and there is nothing to indicate how much actually belongs to each owner in the mass rooeivod, then the court, as the only equitable measure of damages, will apportion the amount received by the second agent among the different owners in proportion to the amount actually taken from each by the first.
Mr. T. H. If. McPherson and Mr. O. II. Lovell for the claimant:
This is an action brought to recover the proceeds of the sale of 354 hogsheads of sugar, 900 barrels of molasses, and 523 molasses barrels, the property of the claimant, taken from his plantations, Hollywood and Southdowii, in the parish of Terre-bonne, State of Louisiana, during the fall and winter of 1862 and 1863, by the United States military authorities, then in possession of that section of the country, and which property was sold by said authority, and the proceeds paid into the Treasury of the United States.
Through the returns made b3T the War Department in this case, supported as it is by the evidence presented to the court, there is no.question as to the claimant’s ownership of the two. plantations, Hollywood and Southdown, or the personal prop erty found thereon and taken off by the agent of the United States ; certainly none to the growing crop, the result of his own labor and expense.
The ownership conceded, no alienation of the property having been made in the life-time of W. J. Minor, the right to the proceeds vests in the executrix, whose certificate of appointment, duly authenticated, is filed.
The testimony shows a course of most consistent loyalty by the claimant that neither drooped nor flagged during the whole period of the late rebellion.
Brevet General E. G. Beckwith, of the United States army, and, at the time of the taking of the property in controversy, president of the United States sequestration commission, an appendage to the military power of Louisiana, makes a report which is'embodied in the return of the War Department in this case, which report very fully establishes the taking, carrying off, selling, and appropriating the proceeds of the property of the claimant.
It seems to be a matter of difficulty, according to the report of the president of the United States sequestration commission, to determine whether they got the exact quantity of sugar and molasses claimed in the petition from the plantations of claimant, and the effort is made to mix them up with other sugars, &c., received from their agent. The closest scrutiny will fail to-show any transaction of this sequestration commission as an open, plain one; its province seemed to be to confuse things generally. The commission, through its authorized secretary, gives an account of all sugar and molasses that the commission received from its agent, the account is duly certified to by said secretary, and is included in the report of War Department.
General Order No. 8 directs that all such proceeds, after the date thereof, January 12,1803, shall be added to the fund in the hands of the quartermaster. We find the report of Secretary of the Treasury, as filed in the case of B. H. Montgomery, No. 2921, in this court, in which it is shown that there has been covered into the Treasury of the United States $802,392 48 to the credit of the captured and abandoned property fund, from Colonel Holabird, who was the quartermaster-in-chief for the Department of the Gulf in 1802,1803, and 1804. And in another return from the Treasury Dejiartment, called for in this cause,. the said Holabird is represented as having received from the sequestration commission $243,909 73 from sales of pro- - dace, kind or quality not mentioned, and the further sum of $52,310 81, which he states to be derived from the sales of sugar and molasses. . This point has, however, been settled by the judgment rendered in the case of John A, Sudnall v. United States, (Yol. 3, C. Cls. B., p. 291.) The money had not then been covered into the Treasury.
Mr. J. A. Ware (with whom was the Assistant Attorney General) for the defendants:
The claimant’s husband, now deceased, owned two sugar plantations in Louisiana at the opening of the rebellion. There was a considerable amount of the crop of 1801 on the plantation at the time it was taken possession of by one William Faux, under the sequestration order of General Butler, dated November 9,1862, and that property was restored to Minor during his life-time, on the representation to the special claims commission sitting at New Orleans. The plantations were leased to William Faux, under a contract that he was to turn over to the United States one-half of the gross proceeds. Under that contract he raised the sugar and molasses in dispute.
The loyalty 'of the claimant is sufficiently proved.
I. The seizure of the property is only proved under the operation of the order of General Butler, dated November 9,1802, for the sequestration of certain property lying in “ the district west of the Mississippi Kiverand the contract of William Faux, dated November 28, 1802, made by the seqiiestration committee with him, to work certain plantations on certain conditions. It appears from the report of B. G. Beckwith that this condition was that Faux should turn over to the United States one-half the products of the plantations.
The claimant argues that this is a capture of property by military forces'within the enemy’s country. This is the ground upon which she bases her right to recover, and she claims that jurisdiction is granted the court under the Act March 12,1863. The case cannot come under the Act March 12,1863, giving-jurisdiction to the Court of Claims, in cases where the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to collect “captured and abandoned propertjq” when loyal claimants seek to recover the same, for tbis act was passed after the alleged seizure of tlie property in question. That seizure was made solely by military power and authority, and the Act March 12, 1863, cannot be retroactive so as to cover captures made before the passage of the act, unless the words of the statute expressly declare such an intention.
This point appears to be in contravention of the opinion of this court in the 'case of Barringer v. The United States, (3 0. Cls. El, p. 358,) but in this opinion no reference is made to the Act July 4, 1864, (13 Stat. L., 381,) which expressly takes away jurisdiction from the Court of Claims in cases where claims arise out of the appropriation of captured property by the army or navy. Such is precisely this case. The property was taken by the army.- This case is therefore out of the jurisdiction of this court. The claimant must apply to Congress, or perhaps to the commission recently appointed under act of Congress.
II. The plantations on which the sugar and molasses claimed in this case were raised were situated, in the enemy’s country. That portion of territory was occupied by the military forces of the United States. It was purely a military occupation. The military commander of that district, having sovereign control over those two plantations, leased them to Faux for a certain amount of rent, viz: one-lialf the gross proceeds. Thus was established the relation of landlord and tenant. The United States owned and had possession of certain territory which had been captured by force of arms. The United States disposed of two plantations within the area of that territory by leasing them at an annual rent. Minor, the ci-devant owner of the plantations, had nothing to do Avith the raising of the crop of 1862; he paid none of the plantation expenses; not a dollar of his money ever went into that crop.

Opinion:
Draee, Ch. J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
In November, 1862, Major General Butler, United States Volunteers, commanding at New Orleans the Department of the Gulf, ordered a sequestration of all the property in all that part •of the State of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi Biver, except the parishes of Plaquemines and Jefferson, and appointed a commission of military officers to carry out said order.
Among the powers conferred on said commission -was the power to work, for account of the United States, such plantations as were deserted by their owners or were held by disloyal owners.
Under this power, the commission gave authority to one Faux, to work two plantations of William J. Minor, the claimant's, testator, and three others of other persons; and the said Faux, took possession of all of said plantations, and from the cane found upon them made a quantity of sugar and molasses. Upon each of them, also, he found sugar and molasses already made.
From the several plantations he shipped to New Orleans a large quantity of those articles, as well that which he had made as that which he found already made there; but there was nothing to indicate how much of each came into the hands of the commission.
The whole quantity shipped by him from the five plantations-was 730 hogsheads of sugar and 2,338 barrels of molasses; of which, however, only 501¿- hogsheads and 1,764= barrels were received by the commission; and there was nothing to enable the commission to know from which of the five plantations any particular part came; and the whole was therefore carried by the commission into one general account.
The 5011 hogsheads of sugar and 1,764 barrels of molasses were sold by the commission. The whole transaction took place vbefore the passage of the Captured, and abandoned property act of March 12,1863; and it is therefore claimed that we have no jurisdiction to render any judgment for the claimant in the premises.
This is the same question that was before us in Barringer's Case, (3 C. Ols. B., id. 358,) where we held that the third section of the Act 2d July, 1864, had the effect, in connection with the Act 12th March, 1863, of giving us jurisdiction over cases which had arisen prior to the last-named date. We adhere to the decision in that case, and hold that our jurisdiction extends to the case in hand.
The proceeds of sugar and molasses shipped from the plantations of the claimant's testator having been paid into the Treasury, and his loyalty having been satisfactorily shown, the claimant is entitled to judgment.
' From the testator's two plantations, Faux shipped 352 hogsheads of sugar and 854 barrels of molasses; and for these quantities the claimant demands judgment.
We have seen, however, that only a .part of the shipments made by Faux were received and sold by the commission, and that there was no way to distinguish what came from one plantation from what came from another — to any such extent, at least, as to enable ns to decide that point satisfactorily; and there seems, therefore, to be no course left to us but to apportion the amount received by the commission among' the several plantations, in proportion to the amount shipped from each.
The shipments were as follows:
Apportioning the 5011 hogsheads and 1,704 barrels to the several plantations, according to the amount shipped from each, we find 241 of the former and 640 of the latter to have come from the plantations of Minor.
The average net proceeds of the sugar and molasses sold were $64 91 per hogshead of the former, and $7 56 per barrel of the latter, and this rate we allow the claimant for the 241 hogsheads and 640 barrels; making in the aggregate 020,481 71; for which sum judgment is awarded her.