Court Opinion

ID: 9661130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:30:04.007067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:47.835276
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge
(concurring).
I think the defendant is liable for the rates fixed by the Kentucky law and regulations, and that we have jurisdiction to render judgment accordingly.
The contracting officer for the Department of the Army had authority to enter into a contract for the carriage of this ammunition, and at rates fixed by State law. Indeed, the extent of his authority in agreeing on rates for the transportation was to pay the rates fixed by State law, no more and no less, for it cannot be presumed that he was authorized to violate the law, Federal or State. Nor was the carrier empowered to enter into a contract to carry the goods at a lesser rate, without consent of the State.
The contract actually entered into was unauthorized; it was entered into in ignorance of the State law and not with the purpose of disregarding it. We must, therefore, impute an intention to the parties to enter into the only contract for rates they were authorized to •enter into.
Whether this be denominated a contract implied in fact or in law, it is one upon which the United States can be held liable under the Tucker Act. There is nothing in that Act that prohibits it, and in no case involving facts similar to those of this case do we find such a prohibition.
The cases cited in the majority opinion deal with unauthorized contracts or cases where it is sought to spell out a contract from a tortious act, or where the facts negative an intention to enter into the contract sought to be enforced. This case falls into no one of these classes. In all the cases in which the Supreme Court has said that we have no jurisdiction to enter a judgment on a contract implied in law, there was either a negation of the contract asserted or lack of authority or a tort.
Here we are presented with a different problem: the question of our authority to set aside an unauthorized, indeed, an illegal, contract and to enforce the only contract which the law authorized. This, I think, we have the power to do.
Certainly we have no less power to do this than we have to set aside a contract for mutual mistake of fact, and to enforce the contract which we find the parties would have made had they known the facts. Our authority to do this is well recognized. Sutcliffe Storage & Warehouse Co., Inc. v. United States, 112 F.Supp. 590, 125 Ct.Cl. 297, 304, and cases there cited; Harrison Engineering & Construction Corp. v. United States, 68 F.Supp. 350, 107 Ct.Cl. 205; Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co., v. United States, 74 F.Supp. 165, 109 Ct.Cl. 517; Poirier & McLane Corp. v. United States, Ct.Cl., 120 F.Supp. 209.
We have held that it is an implied condition of contracts that “neither party to the contract will do anything to prevent performance thereof by the other party or that will hinder or delay him in its performance.” George A. Fuller Co. v. United States, 69 F.Supp 409, 411, 108 Ct.Cl. 70, 94.
*238The Supreme Court has held that there is an implied contract to keep leased premises in repair, although there is no such covenant in the lease. United States v. Bostwick, 94 U.S. 53, 24 L.Ed. 65. It held in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 267 U.S. 76, 45 S.Ct. 211, 69 L.Ed. 519, that there was an implied contract to pay interest on War Risk Insurance policies, where the policies did not expressly so provide. Many other cases of enforcement of implied contracts might be cited in which the law imputes the contract, not the language or the acts of the parties.
In this case we must set aside the contract entered into because it was unlawful; then, having no express contract before us, we must imply that the parties would have entered into a lawful contract had they known what the law was, and render judgment on that contract.
For the reasons stated, I concur.