157 Mass. 144 | Mass. | 1892
It appears that Crowell Hatch, late of Roxbury in this Commonwealth, died in the year 1805, leaving three
The difficulty of determining the distribution to be made of the money received from the United States arises from the last paragraph of the statute of the United States of March 3,1891, which is in these words: “ Provided that in all cases where the original sufferers were adjudicated bankrupts the awards shall be made on behalf of the next of kin instead of to assignees in bankruptcy, and the awards in the cases of individual claimants shall not be paid until the Court of Claims shall certify to the Secretary of the Treasury that the personal representatives on whose behalf the award is made represents [sfc] the next of kin, and the courts which granted the administrations respectively shall have certified that the legal representatives have given adequate security for the legal disbursement of the awards.”
The statute of the United States of January 20, 1885, in § 1, provided: “That such citizens of the United States, or their legal representatives, as had valid claims to indemnity upon the
Under this act the Court of Claims proceeded to examine the claims presented, and its decisions of some of the questions arising before that court are found in Gray v. United States, 21 Ct. of Cl. 340; Holbrook v. United States, 21 Ct. of Cl. 434; Cushing v. United States, 22 Ct. of Cl. 1, 28; Hooper v. United States, 22 Ct. of Cl. 408; The Ship Betsey, 23 Ct. of Cl. 277; The Brig Hiram, 23 Ct. of Cl. 431, and 24 Ct. of Cl. 31; The Ship Jane, 24 Ct. of Cl. 74; The Ship Ganges, 25 Ct. of Cl. 110.
The decisions of that court upon the persons who should be petitioners, and upon the effect of the findings of that court, are shown by an extract from the opinion in The Ship Jane, 24 Ct. of Cl. 74, 80, which is as follows:
“ The youngest of these claims are now more than eighty-eight years old. The original claimants were merchants, shipowners, underwriters, partners in trade, joint stock associations, and incorporated insurance companies. Only three of the original claimants have thus far appeared, and they, it is needless*147 to say, are bodies corporate. The individuals who lost by ■French spoliatibns were generally men of mature years. Some transferred their claims; others became insolvent, and their assets passed to assignees in bankruptcy or became subject to the operation of divers State insolvent laws; some bequeathed their claims by will; some died intestate of them ; all have long since passed away. Those claims which passed to assignees in bankruptcy have not remained in the hands of living witnesses, for those assignees have died, and their claims have passed to their administrators, who have, in many cases, likewise died, and such claims have again changed hands and passed to the administrators of the administrators. The partnerships were long ago dissolved, leaving the assets in the custody of the surviving partners, and they have long since died, leaving their administrators to represent both their own next of kin and the next of kin of the other partners. The joint stock associations have been wound up or merged in incorporated companies, leaving behind them obscure questions as to whether the claims passed to the new companies, or reverted to the original shareholders, or vested in the survivor of them for the benefit of all. A majority of the incorporated companies have likewise ceased to exist, and their claims are in the hands of receivers either for the benefit of creditors or of stockholders. Then again, many, if not all, of such creditors and stockholders have died or become insolvent and their interests have passed into the hands of other administrators and assignees in bankruptcy.
“ Into this labyrinth of unknown and unascertainable rights and equities the court has not attempted to enter. What it has endeavored to do is to ascertain the person in whom the legal title and custody exist; that is to say, the legal representative who in an ordinary suit at law or proceeding in equity would be deemed the proper party to maintain an action for the recovery of similar assets of the original claimants. In the cases of individual owners or underwriters the court has required a present claimant to file his letters of administration and prove to the satisfaction of the court that the decedent whose estate he has administered was the same person who suffered loss through the capture of a vessel. The Ship Betsey, 28 Ct. of Cl. 277. In cases of partnership the court has required evidence of survivorship, and has allowed only the administrator of the survivor to prose*148 cute the claim. In cases of bankruptcy, it has held, under the decisions of the Supreme Court, that the claim passed to the assignee, and that on his death it passed to his administrator (Erwin's case, 97 U. S. 392; Richards v. Maryland Ins. Co. 8 Cranch, 84), and where the evidence has shown the bankrupt estate to be still unsettled, the court has held the legal title to be still vested in the assignee. In cases of incorporated companies no longer in existence, the court has required only the decree of a court of competent jurisdiction transferring their rights of action to the hands of a receiver.
“ In none of these cases has the court assumed to determine who were the next of kin of a deceased claimant; nor whether there are any; nor in what proportion were the several interests of partnership owners ; nor whether creditor? or descendants have the superior equity; nor whether the children of a bankrupt are entitled to a residue of his estate; nor whether the receiver of a defunct corporation represents creditors or stockholders. In other words, the court has not assumed to determine what persons are legally or equitably entitled to receive the money which Congress may hereafter appropriate for the discharge of these claims.”
The Court of Claims from time to time reported its findings to Congress. With reference to the Appropriation Act of March 3, 1891, there are reported the following decisions of that court: Adams v. United States, 26 Ct. of Cl. 249; Eldridge v. United States, 26 Ct. of Cl. 253; Adams v. United States, 26 Ct. of Cl. 290; Henry v. United States, 27 Ct. of Cl. 142, 145.
In this last case the court say:
“ In pursuance of this act,” — that is, the original act, — “the court proceeded to investigate such cases as were brought before it and reported to Congress their conclusions of fact and of law in each case. Among the claimants were several assignees, or representatives of assignees, of original sufferers who had been declared bankrupts, and the court reported in those cases that the assignees, or representatives of the assignees, were entitled to receive from the United States the sum found to be the amount of the losses.
“ In Congress an appropriation bill was drawn and printed containing appropriations for all the persons named in the reports of the Court of Claims. From that bill were stricken out all*149 appropriations to assignees in bankruptcy so far as their representative character appeared in the language of the act. This is a decided indication that Congress did not intend to pay assignees in bankruptcy.
“ To provide for future cases of like kind they added the proviso now under consideration. It was quite natural that they should designate the findings of the Court of Claims as 6 awards.’ The reports in spoliation cases are not judgments, and are to be taken to be merely advisory as ‘ to the law and facts found.’ This is so by reason of the express provision of the spoliation act, and is not applicable to cases under the general jurisdiction of the court. The findings in spoliation cases are in the nature of awards and may be properly so designated. To them the word applies with more propriety than to anything in the act itself.
“We hold that the proviso means that in all future reports to Congress the court shall regard the administrator of the original sufferer, representing the next of kin, as entitled to the amounts found due instead of the assignees in bankruptcy wherever the original sufferers were declared bankrupts.
“ The court will, however, find the fact of adjudication in bankruptcy and the appointment of assignees, and will report the same for the information of Congress.
“ If the administrator obtains the consent of the assignee in bankruptcy in this and other cases now pending, he may come in on motion, and be substituted as claimant.”
In examining the Appropriation Act of March 3, 1891, (26 U. S. Sts. at Large, 897-908,) it will be found that, with few exceptions, the persons to whom the sums are appropriated are the administrators of the estates of the original sufferers, or of the estates of assignees of the original sufferers, when the assignees were in fact assignees for value, or of the surviving partners of the original sufferers when they were a partnership. Some are executors or surviving executors of the wills of original sufferers, and the administrators are often designated as administrators de bonis non, and sometimes with the will annexed. There are six instances in the act in which the appropriations are to corporations, and, in three of these, the corporations are described as administrators, viz.: On the schooner Mary, “ The Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, three thousand three
It is plain that the persons named in the act are to be paid the sums of money therein appropriated, if they bring themselves within the terms of the proviso. The substantial difference between the Appropriation Act and the reports of the Court of Claims, which were then before Congress, is that all adjudications to assignees in bankruptcy were stricken out of the Appropriation Bill, “ so far as their representative character appeared in the language of the act.” The proviso may well be taken to mean that, if in fact the persons to whom the money is appropriated are assignees in bankruptcy of the original sufferers, they shall not receive it, but it shall go to the next of kin, and that in the future the Court of Claims shall make •no awards in favor of the assignees of bankrupts when the original sufferers had become bankrupt, but the proviso does 'not deal with the bankruptcy of other persons than the original sufferers. The act itself regards the administrators or executors of the estates of the original sufferers as the persons to whom the money should be paid when the individual claimant is a natural person in distinction from a corporation, and the proviso1 applies in terms to such cases. The Court of Claims had decided that an insurer who. l\ad paid a loss was an original sufferer to
Decree affirmed.