Branch v. United States
| Decision Date | 01 October 1879 |
| Citation | 100 U.S. 673,25 L.Ed. 759 |
| Parties | BRANCH v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Court of Claims.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Theodore H. N. McPherson for the appellants.
The Attorney-General, contra.
This case presents the following state of facts:——
In June, 1865, the marshal of the United States for the middle district of Alabama seized certain cotton belonging to the appellants, by order of the District Court of that district, upon the information of the district attorney, under the Confiscation Act. Pursuant to an order of the court made in the progress of the suit for condemnation, the property was sold, and the proceeds paid over, under the direction of the court, to the clerk. The clerk, having been notified by the Interior Department that the First National Bank of Selma, Alabama, had been designated by the Secretary of the Treasury as a depositary of public money, deposited in July, 1866, to his own credit as clerk in that bank the money received by him from the marshal. This deposit was made pending the condemnation suit and to await the further orders of the court. In January, 1871, the suit was dismissed and judgment entered in favor of the defendants for costs. In the mean time the Bank of Selma had failed, and in the proceedings for winding up its affairs under the National Banking Act a dividend amounting to $641.32 upon this deposit was paid to the court and then by order of the court paid over to the claimants, less a small amount allowed by the judge to an auditor appointed by him to ascertain the facts. This suit was brought against the United States to recover the balance of the original deposit, upon the ground that, as the bank was at the time when the deposit was made a designated depositary of public money, it was part of the treasury of the United States, and that consequently the deposit made by the clerk was equivalent to a payment of the money into the treasury, binding the United States to the claimants for its return in case the court should determine, in the condemnation suit, that the cotton when seized was not liable to confiscation.
The position assumed by the appellants is to our minds wholly untenable. The designated depositaries are intended as places for the deposit of the public moneys of the United States; that is to say, moneys belonging to the United States. No officer of the United States can...
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Howard v. United States
...in the treasury of the United States and hence no longer in the possession or custody of that receiving officer. See Branch v. U. S., 100 U.S. 673, 25 L.Ed. 759. And the same situation exists with reference to public funds on deposit with a federal depository awaiting disbursement by an off......
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Bakalis v. Crossland Sav. Bank
...only with banks on military bases. It distinguished the status of mere depository banks. Id. at 962 (distinguishing Branch v. United States, 100 U.S. 673, 25 L.Ed. 759 (1879) (banks holding money of the United States on deposit are not agents of the United These cases are essentially instan......
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Webb Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc v. Beckwith, 79-1033
...235 (1933), as well as elsewhere. See Coudert v. United States, 175 U.S. 178, 20 S.Ct. 56, 44 L.Ed. 122 (1899); Branch v. United States, 100 U.S. 673, 25 L.Ed. 759 (1880); Sellers v. Harris County, 483 S.W.2d, at 243. We do not understand that the appellees contend otherwise so far as the f......
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O'connor v. Rhodes
...safekeeping and prompt payment of public money deposited with them. * * *" In Branch v. United States, 12 Ct. Cl. 281, affirmed 100 U. S. 673, 25 L. Ed. 759, it is said that the act of the Secretary in designating a national bank as a depositary of public money does not change its character......