In order to make a claim against the United States one arising
out of a treaty within the meaning of Rev.Stat. § 1066, excluding
it from the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims, the right itself,
which the petition makes to be the foundation of the claim, must
derive its life and existence from some treaty stipulation.
A claim against the United States made under the provisions of
the Act of June 5, 1882, 22 Stat. 98, c.195, "reestablishing the
Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims and for the distribution
of unappropriated moneys of the Geneva Award," is not a claim
growing out of the treaty of Washington within the sense of the
word "treaty" as used in Rev.Stat. § 1066.
The payment of the expenses of the Geneva Arbitration has not
been charged by Congress upon the fund received under the award
made there.
The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE LAMAR delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from the Court of Claims. The suit was brought
in that court by the appellees, who were plaintiffs below, to
recover from the United States the sum of $5,306.71, which sum they
alleged was an unsatisfied part of a judgment recovered by them in
the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims that had been
improperly and illegally withheld from them by the Secretary of the
Treasury of the United States and the accounting officers of that
department.
The petition was filed October 4, 1887, and sets forth that on
the 24th of October, 1883, the appellees recovered a judgment
Page 127 U. S. 52
in the Court of Commissioners of Alabama claims, including
interest, for the sum of $346,982.46, the case in which the said
judgment was rendered being one of the second class, of which the
said court was given jurisdiction by the Act of Congress approved
June 5, 1882, 22 Stat. 98, entitled "An act reestablishing the
Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, and for the distribution
of unappropriated moneys of the Geneva award;" that the aggregate
amount of judgments of the second class rendered by said court
under the said Act of June 5, 1882, including interest, was
$16,292,607.26, and of judgments of the first class, including
interest, was $3,350,947.51; that under and in pursuance of the
provisions of the act approved June 2, 1886, entitled "An act to
provide for closing up the business and paying the expenses of the
Court of Commissioners of Alabama claims, and for other purposes,"
after crediting to the amount of the said Geneva award fund named
in § 5 of said act, to-wit, $10,089,004.96, the amounts authorized
by said act, charging it with the amounts in said act directed and
specified, and deducting from it the amount of the judgments on
claims of the first class, to-wit, $3,350,947.51, as aforesaid,
there remained to satisfy
pro rata the judgments on claims
of the second class the sum of $5,988,663.82; that instead of
distributing said last-named sum
pro rata among the
judgment creditors of the second class, as they were required to do
under the said Act of June 2, 1886, the Secretary of the Treasury
and the accounting officers of his department wrongfully and in
violation of said statute first deducted therefrom the sum of
$249,168.48, which sum was claimed by them to be available under
the act for the purpose of reimbursing the United States for the
expenses of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva, which
expenditures had been already paid by the United States under and
in pursuance of an act of Congress approved December 21, 1871,
entitled
"An act to make appropriations for expenses that may be incurred
under articles 1 to 9, inclusive, of the said treaty between the
United States and Great Britain, concluded at Washington, May 8,
1871,"
17 Stat. 24, c. 3, and only distributed among said judgment
Page 127 U. S. 53
creditors the sum of $5,739,495.41; that by reason of such
deduction, the said claimants have been deprived of their
proportionate share of the said sum of $249,168.41, to-wit, the sum
of $5,306.71, and that no assignment or transfer of said claim, or
any part thereof, or interest therein, has been made by claimants,
and that they are justly entitled to the said sum of $5,306.71,
after allowing all just credits and set-offs, for which said sum
they demand judgment.
The answer of the United States consisted of a general denial of
all the material allegations in claimant's petition, and, the case
having been heard before the Court of Claims, the court, upon the
evidence, found the facts to be substantially as follows:
(1) October 24, 1883, the plaintiffs recovered judgment in the
Court of Commissioners of Alabama claims for $229,637.63, together
with interest, aggregating the sum of $346,982.46, such judgment
being one of the second class named in the act of Congress,
entitled
"An act reestablishing the Court of Commissioners of Alabama
claims, and for the distribution of the unappropriated moneys of
the Geneva award, approved June 5, 1882,"
22 Stat. 98, and duly certified and transmitted to the Secretary
of the Treasury, as provided by said act.
(2) The aggregate amount of judgments of the second class
rendered by said court, reestablished by said act, including
interest, was $16,292,607.26, and the aggregate amount of judgments
of the first class, including interest, was $3,350,947.51.
(3) The Secretary of State, in pursuance of the provisions of
the fourth section of the Act of June 2, 1886, entitled "An act to
provide for closing up the business and paying the expenses of the
Court of Commissioners of Alabama claims, and for other purposes,"
24 Stat. 77, found and estimated the value of the furniture named
in said section to be $800, and the same was credited to the fund
to be distributed under said act, and the Secretary of State, with
the assistance of the clerk of said court, under the provisions of
said section 4 of said act, estimated the cost and expenses therein
mentioned at $15,000, and the same was charged to said fund.
Page 127 U. S. 54
(4) Under the provisions of section 4 of said act of 1886, the
accounting officers of the Treasury, for the purpose of making
distribution of the balance of the Geneva award fund to the
judgment creditors as therein required, stated the account,
allowing the proper credits and charging the fund with the amounts
directed and specified therein, including therein as chargeable to
said fund and deducting therefrom the "expenses of the tribunal of
arbitration at Geneva," ($249,168.41).
(5) The claimants were paid their proportion of said balance as
so stated by the accounting officers, being 35.22760549 percent of
their said judgment, but have received no part of that portion of
said fund which was so retained to reimburse the expenses of the
tribunal of arbitration at Geneva, $249,168.40. If said last-named
sum is not legally chargeable to said fund, the claimants'
proportion thereof would be $5,306.53, which the defendants have
not paid and which they refuse to pay. The court thereupon decided
as a conclusion of law that the claimants were entitled to recover
the sum of $5,306.53, and rendered judgment accordingly.
The main question in this case is a jurisdictional one. On
behalf of the United States, it is claimed that this is a case
growing out of, and dependent upon, the Treaty of Washington,
concluded May 8, 1871, between the United States and Great Britain,
and proclaimed July 4, 1871, 17 Stat. 863, and that therefore, by
the express provisions of § 1066, Revised Statutes of the United
States, the Court of Claims was prohibited from taking jurisdiction
of it. On behalf of the appellees, it is contended that this case
is not embraced within the class of cases of which the Court of
Claims is prohibited by § 1066, Rev.Stat., from taking
jurisdiction; but if that contention cannot be sustained, then it
is insisted by appellees that said § 1066 has been repealed by the
Act of Congress approved March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, c. 359, and
is no longer law.
There is no dispute, apparently, as to the correctness of the
finding of the court below on the facts in the case; neither is
Page 127 U. S. 55
there any very great contention as to the correctness of the
judgment below if it be found that the court had jurisdiction.
To sustain the view of the case contended for on behalf of the
United States, much reliance is placed on the decisions of this
Court in
Great Western Insurance Company v. United States,
112 U. S. 193, and
Alling v. United States, 114 U. S. 562. We
are of opinion, however, that a very broad distinction exists
between those cases and this one. In the first case cited, by the
allegations of the petition itself, the claim was declared to grow
directly out of the treaty, and was thus clearly dependent upon it.
The petition based the right of recovery on the provisions of the
treaty itself. No statute was invoked, nor was it charged that the
United States was directly and primarily liable on the claim. In
the language of the court below, which we approve:
"In that case, the claimant corporation was not seeking to
recover under any law of Congress, but was attempting to enforce an
alleged implied assumpsit on the part of United States growing out
of and dependent upon the Treaty of Washington, notwithstanding the
laws of Congress, which expressly excluded its claim from
consideration and from payment out of the fund in controversy.
Instead of founding its claim on any law of Congress, as do the
present claimants, the company invoked the jurisdiction of this
Court to set aside and annul the statute provisions."
The
Alling case is in principal the same as the
Great Western Insurance case. In that case, the claim on
which the suit was based was alleged in the petition to be founded
on a treaty stipulation. It had been submitted to the commission
authorized and created in accordance with the provisions of the
treaty of July 4, 1868, between the United States and Mexico, 15
Stat. 679, for the adjustment of claims of the citizens of the
respective countries against the government of the other for
injuries to persons and property, and the award of that commission
was that the Mexican government should pay to the United States on
account of the claim a specific sum of money out of which the
United States Might retain a certain amount
Page 127 U. S. 56
on account of certain duties originally paid by claimants but
subsequently refunded to them by the United States. The claimants
having received the sum specifically awarded to them by the
commission, and having been refused the sum retained by the United
States, on account of the duties aforesaid, by the Secretary of the
Treasury, brought an action in the Court of Claims to recover the
amount of said duties. This Court held that the Court of Claims had
no jurisdiction to entertain such a suit, and ordered the dismissal
of the petition because the claim was founded on and grew out of
the treaty with Mexico, and was therefore clearly within the
provisions of § 1066, Rev.Stat. The reason of the ruling by this
Court in that decision is plain. The claim there in controversy was
expressly recognized as a specific claim by the commission
organized under the provisions of the treaty with Mexico, and was
therefore dependent upon the treaty and grew directly out of
it.
In this case, the reverse is true. The treaty of Washington did
not recognize this claim as a specific claim. The award of
$15,500,000 directed to be paid by Great Britain was to the United
States as a nation. The text of the treaty itself speaks of the
"claims on the part of the United States," and in Article 7, the
gross sum was "to be paid by Great Britain to the United States."
It is not necessary to discuss whether, in the absence of any
action by Congress as to the distribution of this fund, there could
have been any legal or equitable right in any person or corporation
to any portion of it. The fact that the Congress of the United
States undertook to dispose of this fund, and to administer upon it
in accordance with its own conceptions of justice and equality,
precludes, at least for the purposes of this decision, judicial
inquiry into such questions. The claimants had to rely upon the
justice of the government, in some of its departments, for
compensation in satisfaction of their respective claims, and this
compensation the various acts of Congress heretofore mentioned
provided. The claimant in this case does not seek to recover upon
any supposed obligation created by the treaty of Washington, but
upon the specific appropriation made in the Act of
Page 127 U. S. 57
June 2, 1886. It is under this act that a means of satisfaction
of this claim was provided. The claim may therefore be said to be
"founded upon a law of Congress" within the meaning of § 1059,
Rev.Stat., and therefore clearly one of which the Court of Claims
could take jurisdiction.
It may be said in opposition to this view of the case that had
there been no Treaty of Washington, there would have been no fund
of $15,500,000 to distribute, the Act of June 5, 1882, would never
have been passed, and therefore that the treaty is the basis of all
the subsequent legislation, and consequently the basis of this
claim -- in other words, that therefore this claim is "dependent
upon and grows out of" the treaty of Washington.
We are of opinion, however, that such a
dependency upon
or
growing out of is too remote to come within the meaning
of § 1066, Rev.Stat. In our view of the case, the statute
contemplates a
direct and
proximate connection
between the treaty and the claim, in order to bring such claim
within the class excluded from the jurisdiction of the Court of
Claims by § 1066, Rev.Stat. In order to make the claim one arising
out of a treaty within the meaning of § 1066, Rev.Stat., the right
itself, which the petition makes to be the foundation of the claim,
must have its origin -- derive its life and existence -- from some
treaty stipulation. This ruling is analogous to that of the ancient
and universal rule relating to damages in common law actions --
namely that a wrongdoer shall be held responsible only for the
proximate, and not for the
remote, consequences
of his actions.
This disposition of this question renders it unnecessary to
consider whether § 1066 has been repealed by the subsequent Act of
Congress approved March 3, 1887,
supra, since if there has
been such repeal, it is admitted on all hands that the Court of
Claims would have jurisdiction of the case.
On the merits of the case, we think there can be no doubt that
the accounting officers of the Treasury Department were in error in
charging to and deducting from the fund the expenses of the
tribunal of arbitration at Geneva. The payment of those expenses
had already been provided for by
Page 127 U. S. 58
Congress by the Act of December 21, 1871, 17 Stat. 24, and were
never chargeable to this fund.
In the language of the court below,
"Section five of the Act of June 2, 1886 (
supra) fixes
the amount of the fund, and specifies exactly what shall be
deducted from it, and provides that the balance shall be
distributed to the judgment creditors. The item thus deducted was
not among those thus specified."
We are of the opinion that the claimants are entitled to their
share of the amount thus improperly deducted, and the decision of
the Court of Claims is therefore
Affirmed.