United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Collier v. United States, 173 U.S. 79 (1899)

Collier v. United States

No. 252

Submitted January 9, 1899

Decided February 20, 1899

173 U.S. 79

Syllabus

There is nothing in this case to take it out of the settled rule that the findings of the Court of Claims in an action at law determine all matters of fact.

Marks v. United States, 164 U. S. 297, followed to the point that when a petition filed in the Court of Claims alleges that a depredation was committed by an Indian or Indians belonging to a tribe in amity with the

Page 173 U. S. 80

United States, it becomes the duty of that court to inquire as to the truth of that allegation, and if it appears that the tribe, as a tribe, was engaged in actual hostilities with the United States, the judgment of the Court of Claims must be that the allegation of the petition is not sustained, and that the claim is not one within its province to adjudicate.

It was the manifest purpose of Congress, in the Act of March 3, 1891, c. 638, to empower the Court of Claims to receive and consider any document on file in the departments of the government or in the courts having a bearing upon any material question arising in the consideration of any particular claim for compensation for Indian depredation, the court to allow the documents such weight as they were entitled to have.

The case is stated in the opinion.