Case Name: PRIESTLY E. PARKER v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1887-02-14
Citations: 22 Ct. Cl. 100
Docket Number: No. 14961
Parties: PRIESTLY E. PARKER v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 22
Pages: 100–104

Head Matter:
PRIESTLY E. PARKER v. THE UNITED STATES.
[No. 14961.
Decided February 14, 1887.]
On the Proofs.
Tlie claimant is sued as surety by tlie United States and judgment recovered. Execration is issued and $1,793 made thereon is paid into the Treasury. Subsequently an act is passed releasing the sureties “from all liability.” The claimant seeks to recover back the money in the Treasury.
I. The Act of 1881, eh. 186 (ál Stat. L., 650), which provides that certain persons be “ released from all liabilily as sureties of Frarilclin Travis, as collector of internal revenue, whether the said liability may have been fixed by judgment or be upon the bond executed by them,” does not authorize a suit to rocover back money made upon an execution against the bondsmen.
II. The controlling word of the statute is “ released.” A release is a setting free, a relinquishment, a discharge; it does not import an intent to return money already collected.
The Reporters’ statement of the case:
The following are the facts of this case as found by the court r
I. Franklin Travis was appointed collector of internal revenue for the seventh collection district of Tennessee, under an act entitled “An act to provide internal revenue to support the Government, to pay interest on the public debt, and for other purposes” (13 Stat. L., 223), and entered into bond on the 9th day of May, 1867, with claimant Parker, Jasper N. Ballew, Joseph W. McCall, and Henry McCall, for whose use this suit is brought, and three others, as his sureties.
II. The condition of that bond was, after reciting the appointment of Travis under the act aforesaid, “if the said Franklin Travis shall truly and faithfully execute the duties of the said office accordin g to law, and shall j ustly and faithfully account for and pay over to the United States, in compliance with the order or regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury, all public moneys, which may come into his hands or possession, and if each and every deputy collector, appointed by said collector, shall truly and faithfully execute and discharge all the duties of such deputy collector according to law, then the above obligation to be void,” &c.
III. Travis defaulted iu the sum of $27,038.69 for the nominal value of stamps for distilled spirits, manufactured tobacco, and cigars, placed iu his hands under the provisions of the act of J uly 20, 1868, entitled “An act imposing taxes on distilled spirits and tobacco, and for other purposes” (15 Stat. L., 125), and the United States brought suit in the United States Circuit Court for the western district of Tennessee, and obtained judgment against all the sureties on the bond, Travis having absconded.
IV.. The defense of the sureties was that they were not liable on the bond for the value of these stamps as said act, being subsequent to the date of the bond, made such a change and alteration in the duties imposed upon the collector, if made without their consent, as absolved and discharged them from all liability on the bond.
V. On execution issued March 23,1866, a levy was made on
the goods of the claimant, Parker, and the sum of $2,366.95 was realized May 23, 1876, from which was paid the marshal’s fees in the suit, $87.20, also his fees and expenses of sale, $415.60, and district attorney’s commissions, $47.33; a total, $550.13, leaving a balance of $1,816.82, which was paid into court, and was afterwards paid to E. F. Patterson, internal-revenue collector, who deposited in the Treasury $1,793.16 thereof. --
VI. On June 15, 1881, the claimant brought suit in the equity court of Carroll County, Tennessee, against the other sureties or their legal representatives on this bond to compel contribution, and, on appeal to the supreme court of the State, obtained a decree against the solvent sureties, as follows: J. W. McCall, J. N. Belew, and G. T. McCall, as administrator of Henry McCall, in the sum of $591.73 each, as principal, and $281.85 each, as interest, from the 24th May, 1876, making a total of $873.58 recovered from each, which judgments have been paid and satisfied.
Mr. G. A. Jordan for the claimant:
• 1. The claimant is entitled to recover in this action on the theory that Congress, in the exercise of its legislative power, relieved these sureties from every obligation under the bond and judgment, and that the money collected on execution is retained in the Treasury without right, and therefrom springs an implied contract to repay that which “the Government in equity and good conscience cannot retain.” (Johnson’s Oase, IT C. Gis. B., 157: Thayer’s Case, id., 137.)
2. The claimant is entitled to recover on the act of Congress, declared upon in the petition, which directs, not only that these solvent sureties, but tty at all the sureties on this bond be released from all liability as sureties, “whether the said liability may have been fixed by judgment or be upon said bond executed,” &c.
Under this act money collected must be refunded, or the act has not accomplished what it directly, pointedly, and by the use of the strongest possible language directs shall be done.
To interpret this act in any other way would attribute the intent to Congress to keep what had been collected from one surety and relieve the others, an interpretation repugnant to the principles of suretyship and which the supreme court of Tennessee refused to sustain in the suit for contribution.
3. If the court, in construing this act, are not satisfied as to the reason which moved Congress to pass it, and place it upon a simple act of legislative grace, this claimant is entitled to recover as in case of a rebated tax, where the tax has been legally assessed and collected. Its rebate gives the tax-payer the right to have the amount paid refunded. (Johnson’s Case,. supra.)
So we may admit the legality of the judgment and the regularity of the execution and sale, and rely upon the act itself, which takes away the right of action on which the judgment rests.
Mr. Sober J. May (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Sowar A) for the defendants:
The release is a present one from an existing indebtedness, which had been previously fixed by a bond or a judgment obtained upon such bond. The object of the act is, therefore, to expressly explain the origin of the obligation of such sureties,, and to release them from all further and future liability thereon. If Congress had intended the claimant to recover back the amount collected by execution on the judgment, how easily it could have expressed such intention in the act.
The rule of strict construction must apply. ’ The presump tion is against a retrospective construction. It is a principle of universal jurisprudence that laws, civil or criminal, must be prospective and cannot have a retroactive eifect. Retrospective laws are odious. (9 Op., 437; 15 -id., 222; 16 id., 378; Dash v. Van KleecJc, 7 Johnson’s R , 477; Cooley’s Const. Lim., 5th ed., p. 76; Sayre v. Wisner, 8 Wendell’s R., 661,663; Underwood v. Lilly, 10 Serg. & Rawle’s R., 101.)
The claim presented by the petition has hot been recognized and affirmed by Congress, as was done in RuküVs Case (16 C. Cls. R., 562). Nor is the claim one which is founded upon a law of Congress, as in that case.

Opinion:
Davis, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
Claimant in this case was one of several sureties on the bond of a collector of internal revenue who defaulted and absconded. Suit was brought by the Government against the bondsmen, who plead in defense that a change in the duties of the collector made subsequent to the bond freed them from liability. Judgment against them was recovered, and upon execution and levy certain of the claimant's property was sold and the major part of the proceeds turned into the Treasury. Suit being brought by him against some of the co-sureties, he recovered and was paid their share of the sum collected from him, which was about one-twelfth of the total j udgment against the bondsmen. Prior to the recovery by the claimant against the co-sureties the following statute had been enacted:
"That Joseph W. McCall, Young W. Allen, Wilburn H. Graves, Eli T. McGill, Priestley E. Parker, Henry McCall, and Jasper Bellew be, and they are hereby, released from all liability as sureties of the said Franklin Travis, as collector of internal revenue, whether the said liability may have been fixed by judgment orbe upon said bond executed by them on the ninth day of May, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven." (21 Stat. L., 650.)
The action here proceeds upon the theory that this statute permits the claimant, in his own behalf and in behalf of the contributing sureties, to recover from the United States the money paid by him under execution. No rights against the Government exist other than those given by the special act and upon the construction of this act alone does this case turn. At the time of its passage the claimant had paid some $2,300, which sum, less some few hundred dollars absorbed by fees and ex penses on the road from the marshal to the Treasury, is in the hands of the Government. Congress being in possession of all the facts, knowing that of a judgment for twenty-seven thousand odd dollars, something over $2,300 had been collected, while nearly $25,000 was still outstanding, passed the relief act without mention of the collected moneys and without any language having direct reference to them.
The controlling word of the statute is the word "released"; claimants are by it " released " from all liability as sureties of the collector, and they are "released" from that liability whether it be " fixed by judgment" or whether it spring directly from the bond itself. A release is a setting free, a deliverance, a liberation, a relinquishment, a discharge; it is a word whose operative effect is from the present on, and it is without retroactive intent. * Had Congress wished to repay the very small portion of the judgment already collected, and now in the Treasury, what more easy than to have said so by an explicit direction that the money be refunded, or by the use of other apt language, indicating an intention to compensate the claimant for past hardship as well as to free him from continuing liability. Nothing tending to show such a purpose appears in the act; on the contrary, the operative word seems carefully selected, and it is one which wipes out the debt so far as it remains uncollected, but it is not one which authorizes a return of the money already collected. In effect, the statute directs a satisfaction of judgment after part payment.
Petition dismissed.