Court Opinion

ID: 9702497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:14:06.717609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:38.062639
License: Public Domain

LARAMORE, Judge.
I concur in the result of the majority opinion of this court. However, I believe the basic question in this ease is one of jurisdiction. The claim rested upon payments alleged to have been made under duress because of the wrongful acts of officials of the United States Government acting without authority in law in coercing the claimant to pay the sums demanded. The exactions, when paid under duress and involuntarily, resulted from illegal, wrongful, and tortious acts of the defendant. Thus plaintiff’s case and the case of United States v. Holland-America Line, 254 U.S. 148, 41 S.Ct. 72, 65 L.Ed. 193, are in all substantial respects parallel.
The apparent hardship of this case presents a strong appeal to me to indemnify the suffering individual at the expense of the United States. However, regardless of which direction you turn the cold fact that the Government agents were wrong in collecting the exactions meets the eye. If the acts of the Government were wrong, this action would sound in tort, and I reluctantly hold that under such circumstances this court would not have jurisdiction and the plaintiff could not recover under the decision of the Holland-America case, supra.
I believe plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment should be overruled and de*687fendant’s motion for summary judgment sustained.