Langford v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Citation: 101 U.S. 341,25 L.Ed. 1010
• Parties: LANGFORD v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

101 U.S. 341

101 U.S. 341

25 L.Ed. 1010

LANGFORD v. UNITED STATES.

October Term, 1879

APPEAL from the Court of Claims.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Benjamin F. Butler and Mr. Thomas Wilson for the appellant.

The Attorney-General for the United States.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was brought by the plaintiff against the United States to recover for the use and occupation of certain lands and buildings. The judgment of the Court of Claims was rendered against him, and he appealed here.

The first question arising in this case concerns the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims upon the suggestion of the Attorney-General that the claim is not founded on contract, either express or implied. That court could have no cognizance of the case on any other ground, according to the express language of the statute defining its jurisdiction. Rev. Stat., sect. 1059.

The findings of the court leave no doubt that the Indian agents acting for the United States, and without the consent of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, took possession of the buildings which that board had erected upon the lands, and have since retained them by force and against its will or that of Langford, who claims title under it. The United States always asserted that their possession was by virtue of their own title, which was hostile to that of the claimant. The military of the United States was at one time ordered to protect by force the occupation of the agents.

Conceding that the title, or even the right to the possession of the premises, was in claimant, it would seem that the facts above stated show that the act of the United States in taking and holding that possession was an unequivocal tort, if the government can be capable of committing one, and that if the case were between individuals every implication of a contract would be repelled.

Counsel for claimant, admitting this to be true, makes a very ingenious argument to prove that the government, in taking and using the property of an individual against his consent, and by force, cannot be guilty of a tort, because the nature of the relation of the government to its citizens, and the provisions of the Constitution, create an implied obligation to pay for property, or for the use of property, so taken. The argument rests on two distinct propositions: 1. That the maxim of English constitutional law, that the king can do no wrong, is one which the courts must apply to the government of the United States, and that therefore there can be no tort committed by the government. 2. That by virtue of the constitutional provision that private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation, there arises in all cases where such property is so taken an implied obligation to pay for it.

It is not easy to see how the first proposition can have any place in our system of government.

We have no king to whom it can be applied. The President, in the exercise of the executive functions, bears a nearer resemblance to the limited monarch of the English government than any other branch of our government, and is the only individual to whom it could possibly have any relation. It cannot apply to him, because the Constitution admits that he may do wrong, and has provided, by the proceeding of impeachment, for his trial for wrong-doing, and his removal from office if found guilty. None of the eminent counsel who defended President Johnson on his impeachment trial asserted that by law he was incapable of doing wrong, or that, if done, it could not, as in the case of the king, be imputed to him, but must be laid to the charge of the ministers who advised him.

It is to be observed that the English maxim does not declare that the government, or those who administer it, can do no wrong; for it is a part of the principle itself that wrong may be done by the governing power, for which the ministry, for the time being, is held responsible; and the ministers personally, like our President, may be impeached; or, if the wrong amounts to a crime, they may be indicted and tried at law for the offence.

We do not understand that either in reference to the government of the United States, or of the several States, or of any of their officers, the English maxim has an existence in this country.

The other point is one which requires more delicate handling.

We are not prepared to deny that when the government of the United States, by such formal proceedings as are necessary to bind it, takes for public use, as for an arsenal, custom-house, or fort, land to which it asserts no claim of title, but admits the ownership to be private or individual, there arises an implied obligation to pay the owner its just value.

It is to be regretted that Congress has made no provision by any general law for ascertaining and paying this just compensation. And we are not called on to decide that when the government, acting by the forms which are sufficient to bind it, recognizes that fact that it is taking private property for public use, the...