The account of a delinquent revenue officer or other person
accountable for public money, as finally adjusted by the proper
officers of the Treasury Department, is not admissible as evidence
under sec. 886, Rev. Stat., unless it be certified and
authenticated to be a transcript from the books and proceedings of
that department. A certificate, therefore, which states that the
transcript, to which it is annexed, is a copy of the original on
file is not sufficient, that being the form used in reference to
mere copies of bonds, contracts, or other papers connected with the
final adjustment.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action against the executrix of one of several
sureties on the official bond, executed April 9, 1858, of Miles H.
Morris, formerly a purser in the navy. The government claims that
deceased failed to account for certain clothing
Page 102 U. S. 549
received by him as purser on board the ship
Vandalia,
and for a large amount of public money received by him as purser
and disbursing officer on board the ship
Seminole.
The bill of exceptions states that the district attorney, after
reading in evidence a certified copy of the bond of Morris, as
purser in the navy, offered to read to the jury, as evidence in
behalf of the United States, "the account of Miles H. Morris, as
purser in the United States Navy, as certified by the Treasury
Department." The account, thus offered, is made up of several
distinct papers, as follows: Brief to accompany the account of
Miles H. Morris, late paymaster U.S. Navy; abstract of expenditures
of Miles H. Morris, paymaster U.S.S.
Vandalia; abstract of
clothing and small stores; abstract of expenditures of Miles H.
Morris, paymaster U.S.S.
Seminole; statement of the
account of Miles H. Morris, a purser U.S.S.
Vandalia, from
May 19, 1858, to Jan. 6, 1860; statement of the account of Miles H.
Morris, paymaster U.S.S.
Seminole, from May 1, 1860, to
March 12, 1861, report 4,805; statement of the account of M. H.
Morris, late paymaster U.S. Navy, supplementary to report 4,805;
statement of the account of M. H. Morris, late paymaster U.S. Navy,
supplementary to report 161A.
To these abstracts and statements is appended a certificate or
communication by the Fourth Auditor in the Treasury Department,
under date of Jan. 19, 1874, addressed to the Second Comptroller of
the Treasury, stating that he had examined and adjusted the account
of Morris, late paymaster United States Navy, supplementary to his
account of
Seminole report 161A, and found that there was
due from him to the United States the sum of $5,922.60 under
certain heads of appropriations which are specified, and also that
the statements and accounts showing such balance were therewith
transmitted to the Second Comptroller for his decision thereon.
There is also appended a statement by the Second Comptroller, under
date of Jan. 20, 1874, to the effect that he admitted and certified
the balance reported by the Fourth Auditor.
Prefixed to the foregoing papers is the certificate of the
Secretary of the Treasury, under the seal of that department, to
the effect that William B. Moore, who certified the
Page 102 U. S. 550
"annexed transcript," was then, and at the time of doing so was,
deputy Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, and that full faith and
credit were due to his official attestations.
Following that of the Secretary was a certificate in these
words:
"TREASURY DEPARTMENT, FOURTH AUDITOR'S OFFICE"
"July 23, 1875"
"Pursuant to an Act of Congress to provide for the prompt
settlement of public accounts approved 3d of March, 1817, I,
William B. Moore, deputy Fourth Auditor of the Treasury Department,
do hereby certify that the annexed transcripts are true copies of
the originals on file in this office."
"WM. B. MOORE"
To the reading of the foregoing "account" or "transcript" the
defendant objected, and the objection was sustained, to which
ruling an exception was taken by the government. Under instructions
from the court, a verdict was then returned for the defendant.
Whether the papers offered in evidence by the government are
competent evidence in support of its claim, is the general question
presented for our determination.
By the law as it has long existed, it is the duty of the Fourth
Auditor of the Treasury Department to receive and examine all
accounts accruing in the Navy Department, or relating thereto, and
after such examination to certify the balances, transmitting such
accounts, with the vouchers and certificates, to the Second
Comptroller for his decision thereon. Rev.Stat., sec. 277. Upon
their examination by the latter officer, it becomes his duty to
certify the balance arising thereon to the Secretary of the Navy.
Id., sec. 273. The statute also provides that
"The auditors charged with the examination of the accounts of
the departments of war and of the navy shall keep all accounts of
the receipts and expenditures of the public money in regard to
those departments, and of all debts due to the United States or
moneys advanced relative to those departments; shall receive from
the Second Comptroller the accounts which shall have been finally
adjusted, and shall preserve such accounts, with their vouchers and
certificates; and record all requisitions drawn by the secretaries
of those departments,
Page 102 U. S. 551
the examination of the accounts of which has been assigned to
them.
Id., sec. 283."
When an account has thus been examined, passed upon, and the
balance certified, it is adjusted, as well within the meaning of
the section last quoted, as of sec. 957 of the Revised Statutes.
The latter section, in part, provides that
"When suit is brought by the United States against any revenue
officer or other person accountable for public money who neglects
or refuses to pay into the Treasury the sum or balance reported to
be due to the United States upon the adjustment of his account, it
shall be the duty of the court to grant judgment at the return
term, upon motion, unless the defendant in open court (the United
States attorney being present) makes and subscribes an oath that he
is equitably entitled to credits which had been, previous to the
commencement of the suit, submitted to the accounting officers of
the Treasury and rejected, specifying in the affidavit each
particular claim so rejected, and that he cannot then safely come
to trial. If the court, when such oath is made, subscribed, and
filed, is thereupon satisfied, a continuance until the next
succeeding term may be granted."
This section is referred to for the purpose of showing as well
the importance attached to the final adjustment of accounts by the
proper officers of the Treasury, as the difficulty in going behind
or disputing the correctness of such adjustment when made the basis
of a suit instituted to recover the balance reported to be due the
government.
We come now to sec. 886 of the Revised Statutes, upon the
construction of which depends the solution of the question to which
we have already referred. That section declares that
"When suit is brought in any case of delinquency of a revenue
officer, or other person accountable for public money, a transcript
from the books and proceedings of the Treasury Department,
certified by the register, and authenticated under the seal of the
department, or, when the suit involves the accounts of the War or
Navy Departments, certified by the auditors respectively charged
with the examination of those accounts, and authenticated under the
seal of the Treasury Department, shall be admitted as evidence, and
the court trying the cause shall be authorized to grant judgment
and award execution
Page 102 U. S. 552
accordingly. And all copies of bonds, contracts, or other papers
relating to or connected with the settlement of any account between
the United States and an individual, when certified by the
register, or by such auditor, as the case may be, to be true copies
of the originals on file, and authenticated under the seal of the
department, may be annexed to such transcripts, and shall have
equal validity and be entitled to the same degree of credit which
would be due to the original papers, if produced and authenticated
in court,
provided that where suit is brought upon a bond
or other sealed instrument, and the defendant pleads
non est
factum, or makes his motion to the court, verifying such plea
or motion by his oath, the court may take the same into
consideration, and, if it appears to be necessary for the
attainment of justice, may require the production of the original
bond, contract, or other paper specified in such affidavit."
This section embodies the provisions found in the second section
of the act of March 3, 1797, 1 Stat. 512, providing more
effectually for the settlement of accounts between the United
States and receivers of public money, and the eleventh section of
the act of March 3, 1817, relating to the prompt settlement of
public accounts. 3
id. 367.
It will be observed that sec. 886 refers to "transcripts from
the books and proceedings of the Treasury Department," as well as
to "copies of bonds, contracts, or other papers relating to or
connected with the settlement of any account between the United
States and an individual." The former, certified and authenticated
as required by the statute, "shall be admitted as evidence," while
the latter, certified and authenticated in like manner, "may be
annexed to such transcript," and have "equal validity, and be
entitled to the same degree of credit which would be due to the
original papers, if produced and authenticated in court."
Commenting upon similar language in the Act of March 3, 1817, this
court, in
Smith v. United
States, 5 Pet. 300, which was a suit against a
paymaster in the army for a balance alleged to be due to the
government, said, that under the head of "a transcript from the
books and proceedings of the Treasury Department" were included
"charges of money advanced or paid by the department to the agent,
and claims
Page 102 U. S. 553
suspended, rejected, or placed to his credit." These all appear,
said the court, upon the "books" of the department; and the
decision on the vouchers exhibited, and the statement of the amount
due, constitute, in part, the "proceedings" of the Treasury. The
court, in that case, recognizes the transcript from the books and
proceedings of the department as a document which shows the account
of the government debtor, as finally adjusted by the proper
officers, and as it appears upon the records of the department.
Such adjusted accounts, says Mr. Chief Justice Taney, necessarily
show the charges against as well as the credits of the disbursing
officer. They "could not," said he,
"be adjusted on the books in any other manner, and the
transcript, or, in other words, the copy of the entire account, as
it stands on the books (which must include debits as well as
credits), are made evidence by the law. Nor do we see any reason
for restricting the words of the act of Congress within narrower
limits than the words plainly imply. The accounts are adjusted by
public sworn officers, bound to do equal justice to the government
and the individual. They are records of the proper departments, and
are always open to inspection of the party interested."
Bruce v. United
States, 17 How. 437.
Unless, therefore, the transcript offered, as evidence, upon the
trial below is certified by the proper officer, and authenticated
under the department seal, to be "a transcript from the books and
proceedings of the Treasury Department," it is not such a
transcript as the statute makes evidence.
We are of opinion that the transcript offered is not certified
and authenticated to be of that character which the statute
declares shall be admitted as, in itself, evidence. The certificate
of the deputy Fourth Auditor is that the "transcript" thereto
annexed -- that is, the statement and abstracts heretofore
described, are "true copies of the originals on file" in his
office. That is precisely such a certificate as the officer would
make in reference to mere copies of bonds, contracts, or other
papers relating to or connected with the final adjustment of the
account, for the purpose of giving to such copies the same effect
as would be accorded to the originals if produced and authenticated
in court. If the papers offered, and excluded by the court below,
constitute in fact the final adjustment of
Page 102 U. S. 554
Morris's accounts, the certificates should not have described
them as copies of originals on file, but as transcripts of the
books and proceedings of the department. The statute, for the
convenience of the government in a certain class of suits against
delinquent public officers, makes an alteration of the established
laws of evidence. The government, by a statutory rule which the
courts must enforce, denies to defendants in such suits the benefit
of the recognized principles which, at common law, govern the proof
of essential facts in issue, and it should not be permitted to
claim an exemption from the fair and legitimate operation of that
rule. It may be true, as the certificate of the deputy Fourth
Auditor states, that the papers offered are true copies of some
originals on the files of his office; for instance, of the original
drafts of settlement. But it does not necessarily follow that they
present an accurate or correct statement of the final settlement or
adjustment of the accounts as shown on the books and in the record
of the proceedings of the department. Such originals may never have
become a part of the books and proceedings of the department, in
the sense of the law, or within the meaning of our former
decisions.
United States v.
Buford, 3 Pet. 12;
Smith v.
United States, 5 Pet. 292;
Cox v.
United States, 6 Pet. 172;
United
States v. Jones, 8 Pet. 375;
Gratiot v.
United States, 15 Pet. 336;
Hoyt v.
United States, 10 How. 109;
Bruce v.
United States, 17 How. 437. That the abstracts or
statements offered and excluded may, upon their examination, seem
to the court to be the final adjustment of Morris's accounts is not
sufficient. Upon that question the court might be mistaken in any
conclusion it should reach, or it may err in the inferences drawn
from the items of the accounts. What the statute meant was that the
official certificate of the officer, charged with the examination
of the accounts, should be of such character as to give the court,
as well as the parties, an assurance that the transcript offered as
evidence to support the claim of the government exhibits, in fact,
the final adjustment of the accounts of the delinquent officer, as
shown, not by mere copies of original papers on the files, but upon
the books and records of the department.
This question, in a somewhat different form, arose in
Smith
Page 102 U. S. 555
v. United States, supra. There, as here, the auditor
certified that the transcripts offered in evidence were "true
copies of the originals on file" in his office, and, in that form,
the certificate narrowly escaped condemnation. The majority of the
Court, evidently with some hesitation, held the transcripts
admissible in evidence upon the ground that the bill of exceptions
stated that the documents, offered as evidence and excluded,
purported to be transcripts "from the books and proceedings of the
Treasury Department." Upon that point three of the judges
dissented. The grounds of the dissent are stated in the opinion of
the court. The minority held that the certificate could be regarded
as referring only to papers the originals of which were on file;
that the books of the department could not be said to be on file,
nor were copies from them copies from originals within the meaning
of the statute; that it was a copy from the books and proceedings
in the Treasury Department which was made evidence, and not mere
copies of papers, though on the files, on which the rough draft of
settlement may have been entered.
The bill of exceptions does not bring the present case, upon
this particular point, within the ruling in
Smith v. United
States. There is no statement in the bill here that the papers
offered and excluded were transcripts from the books and
proceedings in the Treasury, but only that they constituted the
"account of Miles H. Morris, as purser of the United States Navy,
as certified by the Treasury Department." This language is not
equivalent to that which the statute requires in order to make the
transcript evidence, and we are not disposed to extend the rule
announced in
Smith v. United States. The statute is
founded in justice as well as in the necessities of the government
when compelled to institute suits against delinquent public
officers. Its provisions are easily understood, and it is not at
all difficult to meet the manifest object Congress had in enacting
them. When the government desires, in suits against a delinquent
officer accountable for public money, to use the final adjustment
of his accounts as evidence, the certificate of the officer should
show, not necessarily in the very words of the statute, but plainly
and not by mere inference, that the transcript offered is from the
books and proceedings of the
Page 102 U. S. 556
department -- in other words, that such transcript presents the
account of the delinquent as finally adjusted by the proper
officers of the government, and spread upon the records of the
department.
Without stopping to consider other points raised by counsel in
support of the ruling below, it is sufficient to say that, for the
reasons given, the court below did not err in excluding from the
jury the transcripts offered by the government.
Judgment affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE and MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY dissented.