Case: Orrin R. Smith v. The United States
Abbreviation: Smith v. United States
Decision Date: 1880-12
Docket Number: 
Citation: 16 Ct. Cl. 1
Volume: 16
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Parties: Orrin R. Smith v. The United States.
Judges: 
Pages: 1–2

Head Matter:
Orrin R. Smith v. The United States.
On the Proofs.
The claimant proves the seizure of Ms cotton and traces it to a mass of 2,500 hales in the custody of a Treasury agent; he also shows a fund in the Treasmy paid in hy the same agent. The defendants shoiv that fhisfvmd, though unclaimed hy any person, was derived from other sources than the mass of 2,500 hales.
"When the x>roof shows that a claimant’s cotton did not contribute to an abandoned and cax>tured property fund in the Treasury, he cannot recover out of that fund. The fact that his cotton is traced to a mass (where its identity was lost), and that the mass was in the custody of the same agent who paid in the fund, will not bring the case within the rule of the Intermingled Cotton Cases (92 U- S. R., 651).
The Reporters statement of the case:
The claimant here sought to recover the proceeds of 298 bales of cotton, which the petition alleged amounted to $74,500. He contended that he had traced his cotton into a mass of 2,500 bales wliidi was in the official custody of one Treasury Agent G-arrard $ that the mass was shipped on a steamboat down the Peedee to Charleston ; that a fund derived through the same agent from cotton captured in the same district, Marion, is in the Treasury; and that as no other owners having claims on that fund had appeared, he should recover the whole of the fund. On the part of the defendants it was contended that the fund in the Treasury was derived from only 40 bales of cotton; that the owners of those 40 bales were specifically reported, and that the mass of 2,500 bales, if ever in the custody of the agent, Garrard, was never accounted for, and could not have been intermingled with the 40 bales.
Mr. T. H. If. McPherson for the claimant.
Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Simons for the defendants.

Opinion:
Hunt, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
In the Intermingled Cotton Cases (92 U. S. R., 651) the Supreme Court, affirming the opinion of this court, said: " Each owner of property intermingled with other property of the same kind and value, and stored in a common mass, becomes the owner as tenant in common of an interest in the mass proportionate to his contribution." The claimant asked the application of this principle to the cotton the alleged proceeds of which are involved in this suit. But the proof shows conclusively that this cotton formed no part of the mass with which it was said to be intermingled, and that therefore its proceeds, if there were any, did not go into the Treasury with the proceeds of that mass. Finding against him on this material point we have not thought it necessary to go into the examination of the other disputed points as to the ownership and .amount of the cotton.
It is therefore ordered that the petition of the claimant be dismissed.