Case Name: WILLIAM W. CHANCE v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1903-01-05
Citations: 38 Ct. Cl. 75
Docket Number: No. 21582
Parties: WILLIAM W. CHANCE v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 38
Pages: 75–82

Head Matter:
WILLIAM W. CHANCE v. THE UNITED STATES.
[No. 21582.
Decided January 5, 1903.]
On the Proofs.
An army officer in the Philippines in April, 1899, is ordered home for ' honorable discharge. From Manila to San Francisco he travels on a Government transport. FromSan Francisco to his home he travels by railroad. He is paid his actual expenses, but seeks to recover mileage for the land travel within the United States.
I. The Army appropriation act 3d March, 1899 (30 Stat. L., 1068), allows mileage at 7 cents per mile, distances to be computed over the shortest usually traveled routes, with the proviso, however, ‘1 that actual expenses only shall he paid to officers when traveling to and from our island possessions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.” An officer traveling under orders from Manila to his home in Ohio for honorable discharge is not entitled to mileage for the land travel within the United States. “Prom our island possessions” to the United States does not mean to the place of landing in the United States, but to the end of the officer’s journey, wherever it may be. Nott, Ch. J., dissenting.
II. General legislation in an appropriation act, beginning with the word “hereafter," takes effect at the date of the act and not at the beginning of the ensuing fiscal year for which the appropriation is made.
The Reporters' statement of the case:
The following are the facts of this case as found by the court:
I. The claimant, a captain in the United States Volunteer Signal Corps, received the orders which are correctly set out in liis petition. In pursuance thereof he was relieved from duty April 28, 1899, to enable him to comply with the orders, and went to San Francisco on a Government transport. From San Francisco he traveled to his home at Mount'Vernon, Ill., in pursuance of the order, and reported upon arrival to the Adjutant-General of the Army, whereupon he was mustered out June 13, 1899.
II. From San Francisco to Mount Vernon, Ill., a distance of 2,419 miles, mileage at the rate of 7 cents would amount to $171.43. He claimed payment of mileage, but the account ing oificers of the Treasury held, that under the act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat. L., 1068), “that actual expenses only shall be paid .to officers of the Army traveling without troops to and from our island possessions,” an officer who travels from an inland point in the United States to an inland point in one of those islands, or vice versa, is authorized to receive actual traveling expenses only for the entire journey or any part thereof.
The expenses thus allowed amount to $55, leaving as the amount to which he would be entitled if allowed mileage $116.43.
Messrs. George A. and William B. King for the claimant.
Many cases might be supposed illustrating the absurdity of tbe theory adopted by the Comptroller. Two officers stationed at Washington are ordered to Manila. One gets an order at Washington for the entire journey in one order; the other is ordered to report at San Francisco. The latter upon reporting there finds another order directing him to go to Manila. The 'two officers make the entire journey in the same railroad car to San Francisco and by the same steamer to Manila. One gets only his actual expenses for the entire journey; the other receives mileage from Washington to San Francisco. The only difference is in the form of the orders. In fact, it majr be mentioned that most orders now under which officers proceed from Atlantic coast or inland points in the United States to Manila are promulgated in the very form suggested, by ordering the officer first to San Francisco, so that he gets mileage for that portion of the journey, and then giving him a new order to go from San Francisco to Manila. A construction of the law requiring a resort to such inconvenience and circuity in order to avoid an unequal and inequitable construction of the statute should not receive the sanction of the courts.
A sample of the positively grotesque results to which such a view leads is afforded by an examination of the case reported in 5 Comptroller’s Decisions, 699. Here an officer was ordered from Savannah, Ga., to Habana, Cuba, via Ke_y West, Fla. On reaching Key West he found a telegraphic order revoking the prior order and directing bis return. It was bold that the provision in question in this case prohibited him from receiving any mileage for the journey, although he had not been out of the limits of the United States.
All these absurdities are avoided by holding in accordance with the manifest spirit and intent of the act that sea travel between a port of the United States and a port of our island possessions is subject to the provision of the act; but that travel within the United States, whether performed as part of a through journey to or from our island possessions or not, is not within the proviso of the act of 1899, but entitles the officer to receive his mileage.
Jfr. John Q. Thompson (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney- General Pradt) for the defendants.

Opinion:
Howkt, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
Plaintiff was an officer in the Volunteer Signal Corps of the Armjr on duty in the Philippine Islands during the war with Spain. Under telegraphic instructions from the WTar Department dated April 20, 1899, he was relieved from duty with directions to leave Manila on the first transport for San Francisco and to proceed thence to his home at Mount Vernon, Ill., for honorable discharge. Pursuant to the order, plaintiff left Manila Maj7 7, 1899, and arrived at San Francisco on June 2 thereafter, and in a few days from that time he left San Francisco, arriving at Mount Vernon on the night of June 12, 1899, when and where he was mustered out. of the service.
Plaintiff claims his travel within the United States from San Francisco, Cal., to Mount Vernon, 111., 2,449 miles, as mileage at the rate of 7 cents a mile, $171.43, less the sum of $55 actual expenses, which has been paid, leaving due to him a balance of $116.43, as he claims, for mileage.
The case is one of a class of cases of general importance by reason of the number of officers w7ho have presented, or may hereafter present, claims for mileage over and above actual expenses allowed by the accounting officei's, for that part of a journey not performed at sea.
The question involved is as to the application and construction of the act making appropriations for the support of the Regular and Volunteer Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, approved March 3, 1899 (30 Stat. L., 1068).
The act in question provides:
"That hereafter the maximum sum to be allowed and paid to any officer of the Army shall be seven cents per mile, distances to be computed over the shortest usually tiweled routes; Provided further, That actual expenses only shall be paid to officers when traveling to and from our island possessions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."
The first contention is that the act limiting the officer to actual expenses can not be applied, as most of the provisions of that act were not intended to take effect until the beginning of the fiscal year succeeding its passage, and as the journey for which mileage is now claimed was completed in June before the commencement of the next fiscal year the liability of the Government for mileage is governed by the act approved March 15, 1898, making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899 (30 Stat. L., 318, 321).
In support of this contention it is argued that, in the absence of any language in the act of 1889 showing that the proviso therein was intended to take effect immediately, it is unreasonable to suppose that it was intended that the act should go into effect before the following July, especially because many of the officers to be affected by it were at distant points, where it might be months before they would learn the particulars of its provisions.
It is true the act in question was an appropriation act carrying appropriations for a fiscal year subsequent to the time the travel was performed, but it recites in express words that, "hereafter (that is, from March 3, 1899) the maximum sum to be allowed and paid officers, shall be 7 cents per mile." This provision is followed by provisos, the last of which linfdts the officers who are to receive a reduced mileage to actual expenses in case of travel to and from our island possessions. The legislation was adopted, no doubt, with reference to the termination of hostilities with Spain and the increased travel across the sea rendered necessary by new conditions growing out of the permanency of our new possessions without reference to the knowledge or want of knowledge of the changes made by the act on the part of officers in the islands being then relieved from duty or soon thereafter to be ordered home. The proviso, in our opinion, became effective with the approval of the act which antedated the travel of this officer.-
The real question is presented where travel is performed to or from the islands and part of the journey becomes an inland journey. Shall an officer in such case have mileage for the land travel or does the restriction, certainly applicable to ocean travel, continue to be applied for travel on land?
.Referring to the discrimination made between the different kinds of travel, this court, speaking through the present Chief Justice, in the case of Hutchins v. United States (27 C. Cls. R., 137), said:
"The legislation on this subject must not be regarded as arbitrary, but as founded on some just and rational principle. Travel abroad ordinarily involves long ocean voyages, where mileage ceases to be reimbursement and becomes emolument. Travel at home is usually for shorter distances, and involves innumerable petty disbursements, running down to 10 cents for a street car or 35 cents for a dinner, as may be seen in the annual reports of the Attorney-General. The purpose of the statutes undoubtedly is that the reimbursement for traveling expenses abroad shall be the actual outlay of the officer, and for traveling expenses at home shall be commuted in the form of mileage."
On appeal to the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Brown said:
" Why officers are allowed by Congress mileage in one case and not in the other is not altogether clear, but probably the view suggested by the court below is correct, viz, that traveling at home is ordinarily for such short distances, and the disbursements therefor are generally for such petty amounts, that to save the necessity of the officer keeping a minute account of each outlay, and the accounting officers of the Treasury passing upon the reasonableness of every small item, it was thought better to allow the officer a fixed mileage by the shortest traveled route, leaving him at liberty, under certain circumstances, and where his orders were not to proceed by a particular route, to choose his own." (151 U. S., 542.)
The decision in the Hutchins case, though cited bjT counsel for the plaintiff, does not settle the issue here. There the question was whether, under á statute providing mileage for an officer while traveling tinder orders in the United States, but limiting him to actual traveling expenses while traveling abroad, the officer was to be considered as traveling in the United States, measured by the nearest traveled route when the travel was performed, under orders from San Francisco to New York by way of the Isthmus of Panama. In the conclusion reached by this court that travel abroad or within the United States should be determined by the termini of the journey rather than by the route actually taken, the Supreme Court concurred and the judgment was affirmed.
In the enactment under which the present claim is made the principle of reimbursement for actual outlay is applied to ocean travel to and from the island possessions of the United States. In qualifying the compensation to actual expenditures for a journey to or from the islands the proviso is not stated in language that admits of an interpretation which will justify payment of mileage for one part of a journej^ and actual expenses for another part of the same journejL The statute does not so divide up the travel as to convey the intention of Congress to provide actual expenses at sea and more than actual expensed on land. The whole subject seems to have been reimbursement from start to finish. Certainly if an officer is ordered from his post of duty in Washington to Guam, and he makes the journey pursuant to orders, he is traveling to one of our island possessions the moment he begins the trip. If he leaves Manila for Mount Vernon, Ill., as this officer did, the entire travel is a single journey, not to be broken by unnecessary delays, for the expenses of which the officer must be reimbursed, but not compensated beyond the amount necessarily expended. The officer undertaking such a journey does so under orders to leave a particular point in the islands and come to a special place here, or vice verm. With knowledge that all the journey for which the officer could be paid must be undertaken under and pursuant to orders, Congress made no discrimination in the method of compensation for the two kinds of travel required when the journey was to or from the islands. That body might well have made the discrimination in view of the reason set forth in the decision of the court in Hutchins (supra), if it was desired to give the officer the difference between what he would be obliged to expend and Y cents per mile, from which he might save something. No doubt the reason stated in the decision influenced Congress to continue the policy of mileage. for ordinary travel on land. But it seems clear to us that the distinction was not continued for travel like that under consideration. It is not for the court to interpolate a meaning which the framers did not express. For us to differentiate a journey to or from the islands into inland travel and ocean travel, and measure out emolument for the one and-reimbursement for the other, would be to make the law and not to construe it.
Petition dismissed.