Codman v. Brooks
| Decision Date | 12 September 1893 |
| Parties | CODMAN v. BROOKS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
R.H. Dana and R. Codman, for plaintiff.
J.B Warner, for Edward Gray and others.
W.G Russell and J. Fox, for Lucia G. Alexander and others.
H.D Hadlock, for Brooks and others.
The plaintiff in this case, as administrator de bonis non with the will of William Gray, has received a large sum of money appropriated by congress under the statute of March 3, 1891, c. 540, (26 Stat. 862, 908,) to the payment of claims for vessels and other property belonging to the testator, illegally seized and condemned by the French government prior to the treaty of 1800 between France and the United States. William Gray left six children, of whom five were residuary legatees under his will, and the other was otherwise provided for.
The first question which we have to consider is whether this money is to be divided among the representatives of all his children, or only among those who represent the residuary legatees. The act of March 3, 1891, after making appropriations of specific sums to a large number of persons by name, ends with a proviso as follows: "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 the assignees in bankruptcy; and the awards in 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 represent the next of kin, and the courts which granted the administration, respectively, shall have certified that the legal representatives have given adequate security for the legal disbursement of the awards." This proviso is of doubtful meaning. Some of its clauses seem to point to one intention on the part of congress, and some to another; but, in determining what disposition is to be made of the moneys to which it refers, the whole statute is to be considered in connection with the previous legislation which it supplements. It is very clear that Statutes Jan. 1885, c. 25, (23 Stat. 283,) under which the court of claims acted in making to congress the reports on which this part of the appropriation bill is founded, treats the French spoliation claims as property belonging to the representatives of the original sufferers. The legislation proceeds upon the theory that the original sufferers had valid claims against the French government which the United States might properly demand and recover for their benefit, and that when the United States, by the treaty of 1800, relinquished these claims for a valuable consideration, there was an equitable right of property which congress ought to recognize in favor of citizens wrongfully despoiled. It is equally clear that the court of claims, whose reports to congress were the foundation of the legislation under which the payments were made, treated these claims as property. The statute of 1891 follows closely these reports of the court of claims. It departs from them only in failing to appropriate anything for the few claimants who represent assignees in bankruptcy and in adding the proviso. The substance and effect of the legislation is a following of the original act of 1885 and the reports of the court of claims under it in treating these claims as property belonging to the representatives of the original holders, except in those cases where the claims had passed to assignees in bankruptcy, during the lifetime of those holders. For good reasons, doubtless, it was thought best not to attempt to revive proceedings in cases in bankruptcy, most of which were ended nearly a century ago, nor to make awards of large sums to those who long ago bought their claims, generally for nominal sums, in the settlement of estates in bankruptcy. By express provision, the payments in such cases are to be made for the benefit of the next of kin. This is the only express modification of the theory of the court of claims. There would seem to have been little necessity for this provision after the claims in favor of assignees in bankruptcy and their representatives had been stricken from the appropriation bill. But, perhaps, as has been decided by the court of claims, (Henry's Case, 27 Ct.Cl. 142,) congress intended this provision as a direction to that court in subsequent cases, and very likely a more important object of the provision was to cover any cases among the large number included in the appropriation bill in which it might subsequently appear that there had been an assignment in bankruptcy, and in which a claim might be made against the administrator under the assignment. Conformably to the views above expressed, it was held in Balch v. Blagge, 157 Mass. 144, 31 N.E. 764, that under this statute the next of kin must be determined as of the date of the death of the original sufferer. The precise question now before us which was not decided in that case is whether the proviso takes the money in each case entirely out of the estate of the deceased person to whose administrator it is appropriated, and divides it equally among the next of kin, notwithstanding the existence of a will which would dispose of it differently, or whether the whole statute, taken together, indicates a purpose on the part of congress to have the property administered as the estate of the deceased sufferer according to law. We think the principles established and the reasons given in Balch v. Blagge, ubi supra, require us to hold in the present case that the money goes to the residuary legatees under the will of William Gray, subject to the assignment made by one of them.
Among the persons to whom appropriations are made in this statute several are described as...
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