Higginson v. Schoeneman, 10834.
| Decision Date | 14 June 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 10834.,10834. |
| Citation | 190 F.2d 32 |
| Parties | HIGGINSON v. SCHOENEMAN et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
George E. H. Goodner, Washington, D. C., with whom Scott P. Crampton, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.
Harry Marselli, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., with whom Ellis N. Slack and Lee A. Jackson, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen., and George Morris Fay, U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellees.
Before EDGERTON, CLARK and BAZELON, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia wherein the appellant's motion for summary judgment was denied and appellees' motion to dismiss the complaint was granted.
This suit was instituted by the appellant, a citizen of the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, then residing in England, against the appellees, both as individuals and in their respective official capacities as officers of the United States. The complaint requested a mandatory order requiring the appellees to pay a balance due on a final judgment of the Court of Claims, which was entered on April 4, 1949. The opinion of the Court of Claims concluded as follows: "Judgment will be entered in favor of plaintiff appellant here for the total amount due with interest, in accordance with the findings of fact and the foregoing opinion, upon the filing by the parties of a computation or stipulation showing the exact amounts of the several overpayments, the dates of payment, and the amounts on which and the dates from which interest at 6% per annum is to be included in the judgment." 81 F.Supp. 251, 268.
The parties filed their stipulation, and it was approved by the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It provided that:
The judgment of the Court of Claims recited the stipulation and awarded interest as computed in the stipulation. When the judgment of the Court of Claims became final on July 3, 1949, a judgment claim was filed by the appellant with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Commissioner sent the appellant a check for the principal of the judgment and interest of $947.62; this represented interest during the period the appellant was not resident in England. No interest was paid by the Commissioner for the period from December 8, 1941, to December 31, 1947, when the appellant was resident in England. After the appellant protested the nonpayment, the Commissioner replied that the elimination of the interest involved was required by § 3804 of the Internal Revenue Code, 56 Stat. 961, 26 U.S.C. § 3804 (1942), since the appellant was outside of the Americas during that period. Consequently the appellant filed his suit for a mandatory order to require the appellees to pay the remaining interest of $1,751.26.
The judgment itself is plain. It awards interest from the dates set forth at six per centum per annum. As this term is commonly used, it has always meant continuous interest from the dates specified until the obligation is discharged. The appellees do not contend the contrary. They have urged this Court to go behind the Court of Claims judgment and correct it to read "with interest as provided by law." Obviously we cannot go beyond the final judgment itself. It is universally recognized that a final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, of the parties and the subject matter, is not subject to such a collateral attack. 1 Freeman, Judgments § 305 (5th ed. 1925), 576 et seq., 31 Am.Jur. 175, § 401, 49 C.J.S., Judgments, § 401, p. 792, 155 A.L.R. 465 note. Sound public policy dictates that there shall be an end to litigation, once heard on its merits. And it is essential to the orderly administration of justice that the valuable rights incorporated into such solemn records as judgments should not lightly be disturbed or overthrown.
This was the rule which this Court adopted when it affirmed the denial of a petition for habeas corpus which sought to collaterally attack a criminal conviction. Hodge v. Huff, 1944, 78 U.S.App.D.C. 329, 140 F.2d 686, certiorari denied 322 U.S. 733, 64 S.Ct. 946, 88 L.Ed. 1567. This was likewise the rule adopted by our court in National Ben. Life Ins. Co. v. Shaw-Walker Co., 1940, 71 U.S.App.D.C. 276, 111 F.2d 497, certiorari denied Shaw-Walker Co. v. National Ben. Life Ins. Co., 311 U.S. 673, 61 S.Ct. 35, 85 L.Ed. 432. In the Shaw-Walker case a collateral attack was made on an equity receivership proceeding in...
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