Trist v. Child

Citation21 Wall. 441,22 L.Ed. 623,88 U.S. 441
PartiesTRIST v. CHILD
Decision Date01 October 1874
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

APPEAL from the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia; the case being thus:

N. P. Trist having a claim against the United States for his services, rendered in 1848, touching the treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo—a claim which the government had not recognized—resolved, in 1866-7 to submit it to Congress and to ask payment of it. And he made an agreement with Linus Child, of Boston, that Child should take charge of the claim and prosecute it before Congress as his agent and attorney. As a compensation for his services it was agreed that Child should receive 25 per cent. of whatever sum Congress might allow in payment of the claim. If nothing was allowed, Child was to receive nothing. His compensation depended wholly upon the contingency of success. Child prepared a petition and presented the claim to Congress. Before final action was taken upon it by that body Child died. His son and personal representative, L. M. Child, who was his partner when the agreement between him and Trist was entered into, and down to the time of his death, continued the prosecution of the claim. By an act of the 20th of April, 1871, Congress appropriated the sum of $14,559 to pay it. The son thereupon applied to Trist for payment of the 25 per cent. stipulated for in the agreement between Trist and his father. Trist declined to pay. Hereupon Child applied to the Treasury Department to suspend the payment of the money to Trist. Payment was suspended accordingly, and the money was still in the treasury.

Child, the son, now filed his bill against Trist, praying that Trist might be enjoined from withdrawing the $14,559 from the treasury until he had complied with his agreement about the compensation, and that a decree might pass commanding him to pay to the complainant $5000, and for general relief.

The defendant answered the bill, asserting, with other defences going to the merits, that all the services as set forth in their bill were 'of such a nature as to give no cause of action in any court either of common law or equity.'

The case was heard upon the pleadings and much evidence. A part of the evidence consisted of correspondence between the parties. It tended to prove that the Childs, father and son, had been to see various members of Congress, soliciting their influence in behalf of a bill introduced for the benefit of Mr. Trist, and in several instances obtaining a promise of it. There was no attempt to prove that any kind of bribe had been offered or ever contemplated but the following letter, one in the correspondence put in evidence, was referred to as showing the effects of contracts such as the one in this case:

FROM CHILD, JR., TO TRIST.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 20th, 1871.

MR. TRIST: Everything looks very favorable. I found that my father has spoken to C_____ and B_____, and other members of the House. Mr. B_____ says he will try hard to get it before the House. He has two more chances, or rather 'morning hours,' before Congress adjourns. A_____ will go in for it. D_____ promises to go for it. I have sent your letter and report to Mr. W_____, of Pennsylvania. It may not be reached till next week. Please write to your friends to write immediately to any member of Congress. Every vote tells; and a simple request to a member may secure his vote, he not caring anything about it. Set every man you know at work, even if he knows a page, for a page often gets a vote. The most I fear is indifference.

Yours, &c.,

L. M. CHILD.

The court below decreed,

1st. That Trist should pay to the complainant $3639, with interest from April 20th, 1871.

2d. That until he did so, he should be enjoined from receiving at the treasury 'any of the moneys appropriated to him' by the above act of Congress, of April 20th, 1871.

From this decree the case was brought here.

The good character of the Messrs. Child, father and son, was not denied.

Messrs. Durant and Horner, for the appellants, upon the main point of the case (the validity of the contract between Child and Trist), relied upon Marshall v. Baltimore Railroad,1 in this court, and upon the principles there enunciated in behalf of the court by Grier, J.

Messrs. B. F. Butler and R. D. Mussey, contra:

The case relied on by opposing counsel is widely different from this one.

There, Marshall entered—as the report of the case shows—into a contract with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, to obtain certain favorable legislation in Virginia for the contingent compensation of fifty thousand dollars by the use of personal, secret, and sinister influences upon the legislators. He expressly stated that his plan required 'absolute secrecy,' and 'that he could allege 'an ostensible reason' for his presence in Richmond and his active interference without disclosing his real character and object.' He spoke of using 'outdoor influence' to affect the legislators through their 'kind and social dispositions,' and pictured them as 'careless and good-natured,' 'engaged in idle pleasures,' capable of being 'moulded like wax' by the most 'pressing influences.' The company authorized him to use these means. The question in that case, therefore, was, whether a contract for contingent compensation for obtaining legislation by the use of secret, sinister and personal influences upon legislators was or was not contrary to the policy of the law. And the decision of that question was the decision of the case.

In Marshall's case, the plaintiff and defendant combined together to perpetrate a fraud upon the servants of the public engaged in legislating for the public good, and it was this fact which made the contract infamous and disgraceful and incapable of enforcement in the courts; not that the action sought was that of a legislature.

The case at bar differs from that of Marshall, toto coelo. Here both father and son were openly and avowedly attorneys for their client, Trist. They never presented themselves to anybody in any different or other respect. Every act of theirs was open, fair, and honorable.

Will it be denied that any man having a claim on the government, may appear in person before a committee of Congress, if they allow him, or speak to members of Congress, if they incline to hear him; point out to them the justice of his claim, and put before them any and all honorable considerations which may make them see that the case ought to be decided in his favor? This, we assume, will not be denied. But suppose that he is an old man, or a man infirm and sick; one, withal, living away from the seat of government; a case, it may be stated, in passing, the exact case of Mr. Trist; for he was old, infirm, sick, and lived at Alexandria. Now, if Mr. Trist being well had the right to call upon committees or members of Congress, and (if they invited him or were willing to listen to him) to show to them that he negotiated, as he asserted that he did, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and should be paid for doing so, what principle of either morals or policy, public or private, was there to prevent him (being thus old, infirm, sick, and away from Washington) from employing an honorable member of the Massachusetts bar to do the same thing for him? What principle to prevent him from doing by attorney that which he had himself the right, but from the visitation of God, had not himself, and at that time, the physical ability to do?

We are not here asking the court to open the door to corrupt influences upon Congress, or to give aid to that which is popularly known as 'lobbying,' and is properly denounced as dishonorable. But we are asking that by giving the sanction of the law to an open and honorable advocacy by counsel of private rights before legislative bodies, the court shall aid in doing away with the employment of agencies which work secretly and dishonorably.

The records of Congress show that with honorable motives and dishonorable stimulants both combined and acting upon the two classes of persons—upright and avowed, the Childs; or dishonest and secret, the Marshalls—who urge claims upon Congress, out of fifteen thousand private claims put before it since the government was organized, not more than one-half have been acted upon in any way. Are all private claims—claims in which the public has no interest—to be left absolutely to the action of Congress itself, moving only su a sponte? If so, they will never be acted upon. They can come before the body only through the action of private parties.

There will, therefore, always be solicitation before legislatures so long as legislatures have the power and exercise it of passing private laws. For the gift, or the art, of statement and persuasion is not the common property of mankind.

And if solicitation of some sort there must be, shall it come from the mouths of such men as Linus Child and his son—lawyers both, of unquestioned integrity—and be an open and upright solicitation of the intellect and the reason of the legislator; or shall it be made, by outlawry, a secret, sinister and personal solicitation of his passions, his prejudices, and his vices?

If you shall decide that the pledged word of his client as to compensation avails the Congressional practitioner nothing; that a man who in his poverty makes a contract may repudiate it when the fruit of the contract is attained; then will you remit all work before such bodies to men devoid of honor, irresponsible both in character and property; preying alike upon the misfortunes of claimants and the weaknesses of legislators.

[A good deal was said in the argument on both sides about contingent fees, but in view of the grounds on which the court based its judgment, a report of that part of the argument would be of no pertinence.]

Mr. Justice SWAYNE delivered the opinion of the court.

The court below decreed to the appellee the amount of his claim, and enjoined Trist from receiving from the treasury 'any...

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