Legal Tender Cases Knox v. Lee Parker v. Davis

• Decision Date: 01 December 1870
• Citation: 20 L.Ed. 287,79 U.S. 457,12 Wall. 457
• Parties: LEGAL TENDER CASES. KNOX v. LEE. PARKER v. DAVIS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

79 U.S. 457

20 L.Ed. 287

12 Wall. 457

LEGAL TENDER CASES.

KNOX

v. LEE.

PARKER

v. DAVIS.

December Term, 1870

THESE were two suits; the first a writ of error to the Circuit Court for the Western District of Texas, the second an appeal from a decree in equity in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

The case in the FIRST one, Knox v. Lee, was thus:

Before the rebellion, Mrs. Lee, a loyal citizen of the United States, resident in Pennsylvania, owned a flock of sheep in Texas, which, on the outbreak of the rebellion, she left there in charge of their shepherd. In March, 1863, the Confederate authorities, under certain statutes which they had passed in aid of the rebellion, confiscated and sold the sheep as the property of an 'alien enemy,' one Knox purchasing them at $10.87 1/2 apiece, 'Confederate money;' then worth but the third part of a like sum in coin. The rebellion being suppressed, Mrs. Lee brought trespass below against Knox for damages (laid at $15,000) for taking and converting the sheep. Knox pleaded in bar the confiscation and sale by the Confederate government; a plea which the court overruled. The case then coming on to be tried, it was proved that the flock consisted of 608 sheep, of which 30, 40, or perhaps 50, were bucks, about 140 or 150 wethers, and about 300 ewes; the witnesses varying both as to the number of sheep and the proportion of bucks, wethers, and ewes. It was also proved that in 1860 and 1861 the flock was worth $8 per head for ewes, and about $4 per head for wethers, and about from $20 to $25 per head for breeding bucks, in specie. The witnesses all testified that the sheep would not bring in March, 1863, the price that they would have brought in 1860 or 1861, though one witness testified that at the sale one party remarked, that if he could get a good title to the sheep he would give $10 or $12 a head for them. Whether he meant specie or Confederate paper was not testified to.

The ordinary money in use in the United States at the time of the sale and purchase being notes of the United States, commonly known as 'greenbacks'—notes whose issue was authorized by acts of Congress, and dated February 25th, 1862, July 11th, 1862, and March 3d, 1863,¹ and which the said acts declared should be a legal tender in the payment of all debts—the plaintiffs offered to prove what was the difference in value between gold and silver and this United States currency known as greenbacks, for the purpose of showing that gold and silver had a greater value than greenbacks, and for the purpose of allowing the jury to estimate the difference between the two, to which evidence the defendant, at the time it was offered, objected, on the ground that the United States currency was made a legal tender by law, and that there was no difference in value in law between the two. The court sustained the objection, and excluded all evidence as to the difference in value between specie and legal tender notes of the nited States, and no evidence was allowed to go to the jury on this point.

After having ruled as above, the court, on its own motion, at the conclusion of its charge, said as follows:

'In assessing damages, the jury will recollect that whatever amount they may give by their verdict can be discharged by the payment of such amount in legal tender notes of the United States.'

The jury found, June, 1867, for the plaintiff, $7368, and the defendant brought the case here, complaining, first, of the overruling of his plea, and second, of the above-quoted sentence in the charge; which he alleged had led the jury improperly to increase the damages.

There had been a previous trial, when, so far as the record showed, without any instruction of the sort complained of as increasing the damages, the jury found a verdict for $7376, an amount slightly greater than that given by the second verdict.

Messrs. Paschall, Sr. and Jr., for the plaintiff in error:

1. The plea was wrongly overruled. The Confederate government was a government de facto. It is easy now to say that it was not a government, but those who were within the scope of its action know that in point of fact it was a fearful reality. It had courts. It declared war; and long waged it. A title under its confiscations must therefore stand. Mauran v. The Insurance Company,² covers our case.

2. If this point is well taken, the court need not consider our objection to the last sentence of the charge. But if it is not well taken, our objection to it remains. Our objection is this: that in view of the facts that were proved before the jury, what the judge said to the jury at the conclusion of his charge, was equivalent to saying——

'The proof, as to the value of the sheep at the time of conversion, has been of their specie value. You will assess that value and add to it the known premium which it requires to buy that much gold with paper.'

Thus, in fact, while he recognized the principle that greenbacks might discharge the claim, he yet left the jury to infer that they can only be forced upon the creditor at the rate which they would bring in gold. This instruction was wrong, because, practically, it made a distinction between coin and paper tenders, in regard to a debt accruing after the passage of all the legal tender acts. Hepburn v. Griswold,³ does not require this. There the cause of action accrued prior to the passage of any of the legal tender acts; here it accrued subsequently to them all. Indeed, in Hepburn v. Griswold the court say that the decision is not meant to control cases where the cause of action arises subsequently to the passage of the legal tender acts. Parties under that condition of things contract in reference to them.

Mr. Wills, contra:

1. Though the rebel government must, in some cases, be regarded as a government de facto, it is going too far to say that a purchase, by a rebel resident, of the property of banished loyal citizens, under its laws 'in aid of the rebellion,' can stand. Such a purchaser takes with full notice of his questionable title; Texas v. White⁴ is in point.

2. The argument of the opposing counsel proceeds upon a misapprehension of what the court meant in its charge. He would make it directly in the face of its ruling a few moments before. That it was so is not to be easily inferred. The charge must be interpreted reasonably. In the ruling, the court refused to receive evidence to show that greenbacks and coin had different values. The plaintiff had offered evidence of the difference between the two. Objection was made by the defendant, and the point was ruled against the pla ntiff. Nothing was more natural, therefore, than that the court in charging the jury should advert to its rulings on the point—a very important one to be considered by the jury in making up its verdict—made at the defendant's instance, and to tell the jury to recollect it. That is what the court did do. The charge therefore means just the opposite of what counsel on the other side suppose. It means that greenbacks would discharge the debt, and that in considering the evidence given of the worth in gold of the sheep, the jury was not to add a premium for paper. This direction involves the question whether an obligation arising after the passage of the legal tender laws can be discharged in greenbacks; and the court charged that it could be. This may or may not have been within the ideas entertained by the court in Hepburn v. Griswold, but it certainly was favorable to the defendant. He cannot complain, and we do not.

That in point of fact there is no ground for the allegation that the jury were misled, or the damages exaggerated, appears by a short calculation. It was proved that the flock consisted of 608 sheep, of which number 30, 40, or perhaps 50, were bucks; about 140 or 150 wethers, and about 300 ewes. Add all these numbers, taking the highest estimates, 50, 150, and 300, and we have only 500 sheep accounted for; leaving 108 to be accounted for and valued, according to the different values of the different kinds of sheep. Now there was direct evidence fixing the average value of all the sheep per head in specie, in 1860 and 1861. Besides, it is well known that in Texas, as in California, coin is the standard of value in business, except when the contrary is stated. The depreciation of value at the sale, arising from the apprehended defect of title, which the event has shown to have been well grounded, must not be disregarded in arriving at the value of the sheep at that time. Accepting, therefore, this estimate of their average value, with a good title, the 608 sheep, at $10 per head, would be worth $6080 in specie. Adding four and one-third years' interest—that is, from March, 1863, till June, 1867—at 8 per cent. (the rate in Texas), say 33 1/3 per cent. = $2026.66 2/3, and we have the aggregate amount of $8106.66 2/3, an amount larger than the verdict complained of, saying nothing, according to the ruling of the judge, about the difference between the value of the sheep, when estimated in gold and silver and when estimated in legal tender notes of the United States.

Moreover, on the first trial, where no such instruction as is here complained of was given, the verdict was for a greater amount than on the second.

The case in the SECOND suit, Parker v. Davis, arose on a bill in equity by Davis, to compel the specific performance of a contract by Parker to convey a lot of land to Davis upon the payment of a given sum of money. This contract was dated and the suit brought upon it before the passage of any of the acts of Congress already referred to, as authorizing the issue of government notes, and making them a legal tender in payment of all 'debts.' The Supreme Court of Massachusetts in February, 1867 (after the passage of the acts), decreed that Davis should pay into court a certain sum of money, and that Parker should thereupon execute a deed to him of the and in question.

In pursuance of that decree Davis paid...