Case Name: THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1907-03-04
Citations: 42 Ct. Cl. 234
Docket Number: No. 27767
Parties: THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 42
Pages: 234–239

Head Matter:
THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
(No. 27767.
Decided March 4, 1907.)
On the Proofs.
A land-grant road rents a part of a nonlandgrant road, and thereby shortens its route, but continues to operate for freight purposes the whole of its land-grant route. Passengers and mails are conveyed over the shorter route, the rented portion of the nonaided road. The question in the case is whether the road is entitled to be paid full railroad transportation rates for carrying the mail over the nonland-grant portion of the route.
I. Where a railroad company carried the mails over a nonland-grant portion of its road and accepted pay therefor at land-grant rates and withput protest, no estoppel arises.
II. Estoppel in pais is a right arising from acts, admissions, or conduct which have induced a change of action or position on the other party. But where silence of the one party has worked no injury to the other and caused no change of action or position, an estoppel can not be set up.
The Reporters’’ statement of the case:
The following are the facts of the case, as found by the court:
I. The St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company was aided in its construction with lands granted by the United States under the acts of March 3, 1857, and March 3, 1865 (11 Stat. L., 195, and 13 Stat. L., 526). That part of the road so aided in its construction, extending from University Switch to the Union Depot at Minneapolis, is 3.163 miles.,
The Minneapolis Union Railway Company's road between St. Paul and Minneapolis; via University Switch, was constructed without the aid of lands from the United States, and the distance over said road from said University Switch to the Union Depot at Minneapolis is 2.18 miles, or nearly a mile less between said two points than it is over the land-aided portion of said St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company’s track.
II. The claimant, a corporation existing under the laws of the State of Minnesota, under contracts of leases therefor, operates, and has operated for twenty years or more, its trains over the lines of the said St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba and the Minneapolis Union Railway companies, about which there is no controversy.
III. The track between University Switch and the Union Depot at Minneapolis over the land-aided road aforesaid is used exclusively for freight trains, and has been so used since 1883, prior to which time passenger, as well as freight, trains were operated over said track. Passenger trains are now operated exclusively over the lines of the Minneapolis Union Railway from said University Switch to the Union Depot at Minneapolis, and the United States mails are carried by the claimant company between St. Paul and Minneapolis exclusively on passenger trains.
IY. The full rate for carrying the mails over that portion of the line between University Switch and the Minneapolis Union Depot over said nonland-grant road, about which there is no controversy, would have been as follows:
April 1 to June 30, 1800_ $123.48
July 1, 1800, to June 30, 1003_ 3, 653. 24
July 1, 1003, to March 31, 1005_ 1, 777. 60
Total_ 5,554.38
Whereas the actual amount paid the claimant for said services, after making the land-grant deductions, was $4,443.51, leaving due and unpaid the sum of $1,110.37.
Y. Prior to the time of filing the present claim and instituting the present suit, and for upward of twenty years prior thereto, the claimant company made quarterly settlements with the Post-Office Department and received .pay for the services rendered by said road in connection with the transportation of the United States mails between the points involved on the basis of land grant for the entire distance between such points of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and at the time of said settlements receipted in full to the United States therefor, and at no time up to the filing of this claim before this court ever formally demanded of the Post-Office Department any additional compensation for said services.
Messrs. Milan and Smith, for the claimant.
Mr. Franklin W. Collins (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Van Orsdel) for the defendants:
The law presumes settlements of this character to be final and that they were intended by the parties thereto to be final, and hence places the burden upon the complaining party to show that they were not so intended. It is submitted that in the case presented the proofs are insufficient to overturn the validity and binding force of these settlements, and in the absence of such proofs, competent and sufficient in their nature, the court must construe said settlements literally, and the complainants are concluded thereby. These propositions of law are elementary and the citation of authorities in support thereof would seem to be almost unnecessary. (Martin’s case, 10 C. Cls. R., 276; Comstock’s case, 9 C. Cls. R., 141; United States v. Wilson, 168 U. S., 451; O’Brien v. Whee-ioclc, 184 U- S., 451.)
The decisions of the English courts are equally instructive and decisive. (Knibbs v. Hall, 1 Esp. N. P. Cas., 83; Brown v. EinnaTly, 1 Esp. N. P. Cas., 279; Marriott v. Hampton, 2 Esp. N. P. Cas., 547; Bilby v. Lumley, 2 East., 469; Bris-brain v. Dacres, 5 Taunt., 144.)
In the latter case Mr. Justice Gibbs thus tersely states the law:
“ When a man demands money from another as a matter of right, and he pays it with a full knowledge of the facts upon which the demand is founded, he can never recover back the sum he has so voluntarily paid.
“ He who receives it has a right to consider it as his without dispute, and it would be most mischievous and unjust if he who had acquiesced in the right by such voluntary pay ment should have liberty at any time to rip the matter up and recover back the money.”
Likewise, in the case at bar, the claimant, after having-made repeated settlements with the United States, with “ full knowledge of the facts,” and having received the amounts due him under the provisions of his contract with the United States, and having- receited therefor in full in due form, and having made no protest whatever against the insufficiency of the amount paid, and making or filing no claim or demand for any additional sum alleged to be due him, the transaction being utterly destitute of either fraud or mistake, is estopped by every principle of law, equity, and good morals from “ ripping the matter up ” and recovering additional sums of money from the United States for which he made no claim either at the time the service was rendered or when the settlements were made or for so long a time thereafter. The law applicable to the case is manifestly so clear and unmistakable in its provisions that it must inevitably lead to the dismissal of the claimant’s petition.
It is true that this court has'held, in the case of Cape Ann Granite Company v. United States (20 C. Cls. R., p. 1), that “ estoppels are not favored defenses except when their technicality can be subordinated to equity.” Nevertheless, in a case of this character, where the appropriations for the Post-Office Department are limited in their nature, and where the Postmaster-General is inhibited by law from disbursing moneys in excess of the appropriation of Congress, certainly it is clear from a standpoint of both law, equity, and morals that where a party contracts with the Government on a certain basis and settles with the Government in pursuance of said contract, and this, too, rexieatedly, without protest or objection or the interposition of any additional claim, it is submitted that the Government has the right to rely upon the binding force of said settlements and to treat the matter as having been definitely and finally closed.
There should be an end to obligation and litigation, and the “ ripping up ” of settled transactions should be condemned by the courts.

Opinion:
AtkiNSON, J.,
delivered, the opinion of the court:
The plaintiff company, a corporation existing under the laws of the State of Minnesota, operates and has operated as lessee for more than twenty years the roadway of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company, which road was aided in its .construction by lands granted therefor by the United States to the State of Minnesota upon the conditions set forth in the granting acts of March 3, 1857, and March 3, 18G5 (11 Stat. L., 195, and 13 Stat. L., 526).
That part of the road so aided, extending from University Switch to the Minneapolis Union Depot, as set forth in the findings, is 3.163 miles. To shorten the route from said switch to said Union Depot the claimant company leased from the Minneapolis Union Railway Company its nonaided land-grant road between St. Paul and Minneapolis and that portion of said line from said switch to said Union Depot, a distance of 2.18 miles, over which shorter track the plaintiff company operated its passenger trains, transporting thereon its passengers and the United States mails.
For more than twenty years prior to the filing of the petition herein the plaintiff company, under contract with the United States through the Post-Office Department, carried the mails of the United States over its said leased lines of road, and settlements were made therefor quarterly with the Post-Office Department, in which settlements the Department treated the said line of road from University Switch to the Minneapolis Union Depot as a part of said land-grant road, and made the ordinary land-grant deductions for. carrying the mails over that portion of the road, Avhich amounted in the aggregate to $1,110.37, for the recovery of which the plaintiff instituted this suit.
The defendants concede that the plaintiff company has a " just and meritorious claim for judgment " for the sum stated, unless it has lost its right to recover therefor by reason of its own laches " and by reason of its failure to assert its rights at the proper time and in the proper manner."
The basis of the defendant's contention is set forth in the last finding, as follows:
" Prior to the time of filing the present claim and instituting the present suit, and for upwards of twenty years prior thereto, the claimant company made quarterly settlements with the Post-Office Department and received pay for the services rendered by said road in connection with the transportation of the United States mails between the points involved, on the basis of land grant for the entire distance between such points of St. Paul and Minneapolis; and at the time of said settlements receipted in full to the United States therefor, and at no time up to the filing of this claim before this court ever formally demanded of the Post-Office Department any additional compensation for said service."
The contention of the defendants, that the plaintiff company is estopped by its conduct in accepting the sums proffered by the Government in payment of its claim for mail service without a protest, needs but little comment. "Estoppel in pais may be defined to be a right arising from acts, admissions, or conduct which have induced a change of position in accordance with the real or apparent intention of the party against Avhom they are alleged." (Bigelow on Estoppel., 4th ed., 445; Henshaw v. Bissell, 18 Wall., 255; Brant v. Virginia Goal and Iron Company, 93 U. S., R., 326.)
It is needless to say that the record in this case contains nothing to show that the defendants were in any way misled to their injury by the conduct of the plaintiff. On the contrary, it appears that by the change in the route, so as to pass partly over the nonland-grant line, the Government paid less than it would have paid over the continuous land-grant road. Hence no change of position could possibly have been induced by the conduct of the plaintiff to the detriment of the defendants.
For these reasons the plaintiff is entitled to recover in the sum of $1,110.37, for which judgment is ordered to be entered.