UNITED STATES v. JONES. UNITED STATES v. TAUBENHEIMER. UNITED STATES v. MONTGOMERY.
Nos. 1103, 1102, 1482
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Decided May 13, 1889
131 U.S. 1
Argued January 28, 29, 1889. APPEALS FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON.
The act of March 3, 1887, “to provide for the bringing of suits against the government of the United States,”
THESE cases were suits in equity brought against the United States under the recent act of
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Howard for plaintiff in error.
Mr. James K. Kelly for Jones, defendant in error.
Mr. James C. Carter for Jones, defendant in error.
Jurisdiction to hear and determine a claim for a conveyance of public land was conferred upon the court below by the act of
It would be to no purpose to say that this act should be strictly construed. As already observed, no case for interpretation is presented; and no rule, even of the most rigid con-
Whoever undertakes to exclude this claim from the class defined by the act must start with an assumption as broad as the following, namely: That the proposition that a court should be permitted to hear and determine a claim against the United States for equitable relief, such as the execution of a conveyance of lands, is of such an extraordinary character, and so doubtful in point of expediency, that Congress must be presumed not to have authorized such action by any general language, however clearly that language may embrace it, and that the authority can be held to have been given only when conferred by express language specifically describing such relief. It is respectfully submitted that such an assumption would be an error too gross for any indulgence.
On the contrary, the just method of treating this act is to view it as one calling (if that were at all necessary) for a liberal interpretation.
An obvious distinction should be noticed between declaring justice and enforcing it. In suits between private persons both these functions are discharged by the court, but the first only is its true and proper one. The second is an executive or administrative office, being the exercise of mere power, and might well enough be performed by independent officers. Reasons of convenience have led to the placing of such officers under the authority of the court. “The judiciary has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or the wealth of society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment, and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm for the efficacious exercise even of its judgments.” The Federalist, No. 78 (Hamilton); Story Const., § 1600.
The circumstance that these two functions have, in the practice of governments, been intrusted to the same hands has led to the rule, in cases between individuals, that a court will not assume jurisdiction where it has not the power to enforce its decrees. The offices of declaring and enforcing justice are
In the case of the sovereign, whether under democratic or monarchical rule, justice cannot be enforced against him, “for who shall command the king?” And there is precisely the same difficulty in commanding the head of a democratic State. The freedom of his person and action is essential to the existence of the State. No compulsion can be employed against him, except to depose him and seat another in his place. The same reasons go far towards precluding the exercise of force at the instance of a citizen, to compel the principal officers of State to submit to the compulsion of a court. The immortal judgment of Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, stopped with the declaration that a writ of mandamus might go against a cabinet officer to compel the performance of a mere ministerial duty imposed by law.
It follows as a consequence that whenever the citizen seeks redress for an injury proceeding from the State, the office of declaring justice must, in general at least, be exercised independently, for the office of enforcing it does not exist. This, however, furnishes no reason why justice in such cases should not be ascertained and declared; for we cannot, or should not, suppose any necessity for enforcing it. To know what justice requires from the State to one of its citizens is all that is requisite. That it will be done no doubt should be entertained. The law “presumes that to know of any injury and to redress it are inseparable in the royal breast.” 3 Bl. Com. 255.
The act under consideration, and indeed, all prior legislation, conferring jurisdiction and power upon the Court of Claims, are based upon a recognition of the foregoing views. Nowhere is any attempt made to render the judgments of that tribunal judicially enforceable. An independent discharge of the function of declaring justice is alone provided for. Performance of the decree is left to the legislative and executive departments. To give the judiciary the power of
It is true that the seventh section of the act of March 3d, 1863, directs that judgments of the Court of Claims “shall be paid out of any general appropriation made by law, for the satisfaction of private claims;” and the obligation to make such payment is imposed upon the Secretary of the Treasury; but this obligation is imposed upon him by Congress, not by the court. The court has no authority to adjudge that it be so paid, still less, any authority to enforce such payment by compulsory process. The legislation in this respect simply consists of an appropriation by Congress to pay such claims as the Court of Claims may allow.
Nor is the decision of this court in the case of Gordon v. The United States, 2 Wall. 561, opposed in any degree to this view. The decision in that case did not proceed upon the ground that the determination by a tribunal of a controversy, when it had no power to execute its determination, was not an exercise of judicial power, but upon the ground that when it was still left to an executive department to review the determination of the Supreme Court (as the act of 1863 did leave it), such determination, although an exercise of judicial power, was not a final one, and, therefore, not of the character which marks the jurisdiction of this court. See United States v. Alire, 6 Wall. 577; United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, 144; United States v. O‘Grady, 22 Wall. 641, 647.
In the opinion of Mr. Justice Nelson, in the case of United States v. Alire, supra, an observation is found which may tend to create misapprehension. The court, in that case, held that the Court of Claims had no jurisdiction; and in assigning the reasons, the learned judge said: “We find no provision in any of the statutes requiring a judgment of this character to be obeyed or satisfied.” But, certainly, this could be no just ground for the inference that no power was conferred to render such a judgment. For the reasons already indicated, no power could be conferred upon the court, to compel obedience to or satisfaction of its judgments; nor was it necessary, in
The other reason assigned by the learned judge for the decision, was the true ground upon which the court proceeded, namely, that inasmuch as the statute had made provision, in pursuance of which payment or satisfaction of some of its judgments might be obtained (not indeed, by process of the court, but by congressional appropriation), and had made no such provision for judgments awarding equitable relief, the inference was justified, that power to render judgments of the latter description was not intended to be conferred. Nothing is said concerning the soundness of this inference.
It is unnecessary to argue that injuries proceeding from the State should be redressed as certainly and promptly as those inflicted by private persons. Justice is no respecter of persons. Its obligations are universal and absolute. The ancient maxim that “the king can do no wrong” was never really effective to defeat justice, except in the case where a wrong could not be imputed to ministers or officers, and then only for the purpose of guarding the person of the sovereign.
The government in the transaction in question was exercising no function of sovereignty, but simply engaging in the ordinary business of selling property, of which it was the owner. It simply made a contract with one of its citizens. It cannot do this without consenting to be bound by the ordinary rules which govern the conduct of individuals in such transactions. Were it necessary for the government to enforce such contract, it could enter the courts and have the agreement ascertained and declared by judicial methods. To deny the same privilege to the party with whom it deals is a plain denial of justice. How would this comport with the ”nulli negabimus justitiam” of the Great Charter? “When a government enters into a contract with an individual, it deposes, as to the matter of the contract, its constitutional authority, and exchanges the character of legislator for that of
Nor is the practical recognition of the obligation of the State to redress the injuries it may inflict on its citizens, a recent development of civilization. Centuries ago in England the law had provided a forum and a procedure well calculated to afford redress in all cases which were likely to arise. The petition of right (petition de droit) and the plea of right (monstrans de droit) were modes of redress at common law always open to the subject, and which could be prosecuted in the court of chancery on its common law side, or in the Court of Exchequer. 3 Bl. Com. 256. The procedure in such cases has, by legislation in recent times, been assimilated to that in cases between subject and subject (
It was, indeed, for a long time the reproach of the government of the United States, and still is, if the contention of the appellant is well founded, that it furnished its citizens with no judicial methods by which they could assert just claims against it, and left them with no other means of redress than supplication to executive or legislative power, neither of these agencies having the time, the knowledge, or the means to prosecute the inquiries necessary in order to ascertain justice, and too apt to be moved by caprice or favor.
To support the necessity or propriety of the jurisdiction for which we are contending by an appeal to prudential considerations seems almost a surrender of the high ground of positive right upon which the argument more properly rests. Such considerations, however, would of themselves suffice to sustain the views for which we are contending.
When courts in which a citizen can assert his claims against the government are denied, and Congress entertains his petition for redress, the nature of the task which has to be performed
We must add to this catalogue of mischiefs the others not less flagrant which arise from the neglect of proper legislative duties. The true business of legislation will never be successfully performed, when the time and talents of the legislators are devoted to attention to private claims. This latter consideration was undoubtedly the most influential one which led to the original establishment of the Court of Claims.
Seeing, therefore, that the purely judicial function of ascertaining facts and pronouncing the law thereon is separable and independent from the office of enforcing justice; that whatever of theoretical or practical difficulty which would arise from allowing compulsory process is attached only to the latter function, and not to the former; seeing that the exercise of the former is the plain duty of every civilized State; that it has been clearly recognized from an early period, and provision made for it; that our own government was long under the just reproach of neglect and failure in the performance of this necessary duty; that the practical mischiefs resulting therefrom had become so flagrant as to move Congress to an endeavor to provide a remedy by establishing the Court of Claims; and that the act under consideration is an obvious effort to enlarge that remedy and make it more effective, we need no longer delay the conclusion that this act should be construed, should any occasion for construction be found, not
In a celebrated case in the British courts concerning the extent of the remedial power which could be exercised under the ancient proceeding of the Petition of Right, the objection was taken that, although relief could be had in cases of dispute concerning lands or chattels, recoveries of money in cases ex contractu could not be adjudged. The court, by placing its decision upon another ground, avoided this objection; but it gave a worthy expression to the spirit of exposition in which such a question should be approached. “We may observe that there is nothing to secure the crown against committing the same species of wrong, unconscious and involuntary wrong, in respect of money, which founds the subject‘s right to sue out his petition when committed in respect to lands, or specific chattels; and there is an unconquerable repugnance to the suggestion that the door ought to be closed against all redress or remedy for such a wrong.” Baron de Bode‘s Case, 8 Q. B. 208, 273. In the light of this rule of interpretation some objections which the appellants may raise are to be briefly considered.
(a) It will not, of course, be now insisted that jurisdiction is not conferred upon the courts named in the act over claims founded upon equitable considerations. That view was taken by this court in interpreting the original act establishing the Court of Claims. Bonner v. United States, 9 Wall. 156. In the opinion in this case the observation is made in respect to rights in equity that “Congress wisely reserved to itself the power to dispose of them.” The justice of this observation is (with deference) not fully perceived. If it be proper that justice should be ascertained and declared by judicial methods in respect to legal claims against the government, why is it
But whatever may have been the propriety of such an observation in relation to the original act creating the Court of Claims, it is certainly not applicable to the legislation under notice. After the decision above referred to had been made, Congress reforms the phraseology of the first section of its original act, and exhausts the language of extension so as to make the jurisdiction broad enough to embrace every claim against the United States which can be made the subject of judicial cognizance, with the express and sole exception of pensions. It seems impossible to resist the conclusion that it was the intent of the later act to remove the objection which the courts had allowed in respect to the earlier one, and to make the discharge of governmental duty in this respect coextensive with governmental obligation.
(b) It may be urged that suits in equity frequently require that several parties be made defendants, and that the act makes no provision for this. But this objection has no application to equitable claims against the government alone, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make provision for the joining of other defendants in the Court of Claims. It is but a limited jurisdiction which is conferred upon other tribunals. But this obstacle, in most cases at least, is not of great magnitude. The courts upon which jurisdiction is conferred may separately determine what equitable duty the government owes to the party before the court, leaving the rights of that and other parties, as between themselves, to be determined by other tribunals. The case in which some proper defendants cannot be brought into court is familiar to Courts of Equity, and it often proceeds in the absence of such defendants.
(c) In a case already referred to (United States v. Alire, 6 Wall. 573) an appeal was taken from a determination of the
It may be urged that under the act of 1887 there is no express power to render other judgments than for money, and that the provisions in the act last referred to, relating to interest on judgments, apparently assume that all judgments are to be for money, and consequently that it must still be held that the power of the court is limited to the rendition of judgments of that character. Although it is not at all necessary, in answer to this argument, to draw in question the decision in that case, yet it may be suggested whether the rule of construction adopted was not somewhat too rigid. The act of 1863 confirmed and enlarged the jurisdiction created by the act of 1855; and that described a certain class of claims, and authorized the court “to hear and determine” them. If the claim was for relief equitable in its nature, the determination of it authorized by the act, authorized a judgment allowing the claim if the title to such relief was otherwise made out. How can a claim for equitable relief be heard and determined unless it be possible to declare that the claimant is entitled to it? And where general jurisdiction to hear and determine is given, it would seem that authority must necessarily be deemed to have been given, to render such judgment as the law requires, unless, by some express and unequivocal language, the court is limited in its award of relief. It would seem as if in the case referred to, the court first by implication alone reached the conclusion that relief was limited, and then employed that implication to qualify the otherwise unqualified grant of power.
(d) But the act we are now interpreting is of a wholly different character. The terms of the grant of jurisdiction are as broad and emphatic as they can be made. It is impossible not to believe that it proceeded upon the full recognition of the truth that the furnishing of redress by the government in cases of just claims upon it by individuals was a plain governmental obligation, which could not be discharged except by providing judicial methods by which justice should be ascer-
If these were the views which induced the adoption of the measure, how is it possible by distant and doubtful implication to limit the jurisdiction by the line which separates judgments for money from those for other relief? Is the obligation to furnish other relief, when the case requires it, less strong? Is Congress better fitted to mould and shape equitable relief than it is to reckon how much money is due? Is the work of determining equitable relief a less inappropriate or burdensome office for the legislative power to perform? Is it accompanied with any greater hazards to the interests of the government? The proper answer to all these questions is wrapped up in the just proposition that when Congress has conferred authority upon the Court of Claims “to hear and determine . . . all claims founded upon the Constitution of the United States, or any law of Congress except for pensions, or upon any regulation of an executive department, or upon any contract, expressed or implied with the government of the United States, or for damages, liquidated or unliquidated, in cases not sounding in tort, in respect of which claims the party would be entitled to redress against the United States either in a court of law, equity, or admiralty, if the United States were suable;” the plain intention is to render justice in all cases, save the few excepted ones, by judicial methods and in the ordinary judicial forms, and that where the government would be bound to furnish redress to an individual, if the government were suable, it shall be at least declared that it is bound to furnish that same redress whatever the nature of it may be.
But in the resort to interpretation and construction, were this allowable, it will be found that the above conclusion will only be supported and confirmed. (a) The broad signifi-
In the face of these indications of intent, the single circumstance that money judgments only are directly mentioned is of no significance. It was necessary to mention these for the purpose of securing to claimants the right to interest. This does not follow as of course in the case of government claims. It was wholly unnecessary to mention other judgments, or to point out any way in which they should be obeyed or satisfied. In the case of a money judgment the function of the court was fully performed when it was rendered. It could not be paid without the action of Congress in making an appropriation. No executive officer could otherwise apply a dollar of the public money to its satisfaction. The raising and appropriation of money is the exclusive function of Congress.
Thus there is ground for the particular mention of money judgments, while there is silence in respect to others. Obedience to the latter is an immediate duty of the executive departments, without any intervention of Congress; but there is no duty to obey the former until an appropriation is made by Congress. Where such an appropriation is made, money judgments stand precisely like the others. The execution of both are alike an executive duty; but the execution of neither can be enforced.
Mr. John Paul Jones, by permission of court, filed a brief for all the appellees.
Mr. Solicitor General closed for appellants.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court.
The question involved is, whether the act of
By the first section of the act of
Turning now to the act of March 3d, 1887, which reënacted
“The Court of Claims shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine the following matters:
“First. All claims founded upon the Constitution of the United States or any law of Congress, except for pensions, or upon any regulation of an executive department, or upon any contract, expressed or implied, with the government of the United States, or for damages, liquidated or unliquidated, in cases not sounding in tort, in respect of which claims the party would be entitled to redress against the United States either in a court of law, equity, or admiralty, if the United States were suable.”
“Second. All set-offs, counter-claims, claims for damages, whether liquidated or unliquidated, or other demands whatsoever on the part of the government of the United States against any claimant against the government in said court.”
“SEC. 2. That the district courts of the United States shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the court of claims as to all matters named in the preceding section where the amount of the claim does not exceed one thousand dollars, and the circuit courts of the United States shall have such concurrent jurisdiction in all cases where the amount of such claim exceeds one thousand dollars and does not exceed ten thousand dollars.”
The jurisdiction here given to the Court of Claims is precisely the same as that given in the acts of 1855 and 1863, with the addition that it is extended to “damages . . . in cases not sounding in tort” and to claims for which redress may be had “either in a court of law, equity, or admiralty.”
“Damages in cases not sounding in tort” - that is to say, damages for breach of contract - had already been held to be recoverable against the government under the former acts. United States v. Behan, 110 U. S. 338; United States v. Great Falls Manufacturing Co., 112 U. S. 645; Hollister v. Benedict & Burnham Manfg. Co., 113 U. S. 59, 67.
“Claims” redressible “in a court of law, equity, or admi-
The sections of the act of 1863 referred to in this opinion are
We cannot yield to the suggestion that any broader jurisdiction as to subject matter is given to the Circuit and District Courts than that which is given to the Court of Claims. It is clearly the same jurisdiction - “concurrent jurisdiction” only - within certain limits as to amount; and the language in which those limits are expressed furnishes an additional argument in favor of the conclusion which we have reached. It is declared “that the District Courts of the United States shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Claims where the amount of the claim does not exceed $1000,” etc. This language is properly applicable only to a money claim. Had anything but money been in the legislative mind the language would have been, “where the amount or value of the thing claimed does not exceed $1000,” etc.
Of course, our province is construction only; the policy of the law is the prerogative of the legislative department. But notwithstanding the glowing terms in which able jurists have spoken of the progress of civilization and enlightened government as exhibited in subjecting government itself, equally with individuals, to the jurisdiction of its own courts, we should have been somewhat surprised to find that the administration of vast public interests, like that of the public lands, which belongs so appropriately to the political department, had been cast upon the courts - which it surely would have been, if such a wide door had been opened for suing the government to obtain patents and establish land claims, as the counsel for the appellees in these cases seems to imagine. We are satisfied that the door has not yet been thrown open thus wide.
The decrees of the court are reversed in all the cases, and the causes are respectively remanded with instructions to dismiss the original petitions or bills.
I find myself unable to concur with the majority of the court in the construction given by it, in the opinion just read, to the provisions of the act of
The manifest purpose of this new act was to confer power which the Court of Claims did not previously have, and to authorize it to take jurisdiction of a class of cases of which it had not cognizance before. To say that under such circumstances the new statute is to be crippled and rendered ineffectual in the only new feature which it has, in regard to the jurisdiction of that court, is in my mind a refusal to obey the law as made by Congress in the matter in which its power is undisputed.
It is clear to me that Congress intended by this act to enlarge very materially the right of suit against the United States, to facilitate this right by allowing suits to be brought in the Circuit and District Courts where the parties resided, and that it also designed to enlarge the remedy in the Court of Claims to meet all such cases in law, equity, and admiralty, against the United States, as would be cognizable in such courts against individuals.
I am authorized to say that MR. JUSTICE FIELD agrees with me in this dissent.