Luckenbach Co v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 January 1930
• Docket Number: No. 49,49
• Citation: 280 U.S. 173,50 S.Ct. 148,74 L.Ed. 356
• Parties: LUCKENBACH S. S. CO. v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

280 U.S. 173

50 S.Ct. 148

74 L.Ed. 356

LUCKENBACH S. S. CO.

v UNITED STATES.

No. 49.

Argued Dec. 4, 5, 1929.

Decided Jan. 6, 1930.

Messrs. George A. King and William B. King, both of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Sisson, for the United States.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 174-175 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was a suit in the Court of Claims by the Luckenbach Steamship Company, petitioner, against the United States, to recover $30,370.94, claimed by the petitioner as a balance due for transporting mails of the United States, in steamships of United States registry, between ports of the United States and ports in the Canal Zone from December 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926. Judgment went against the petitioner (66 Ct. Cl. 679), and a petition to this court for a review on certiorari was granted.

That the petitioner rendered the service stated and did so at the request of the Postmaster General is not questioned. The only matter in dispute is the true measure of compensation. The Postmaster General allowed the sum of $82,851.62 and transmitted approved vouchers therefor to the General Accounting Office for direct settlement; but that office reduced the allowance to $52,480.68, and caused this reduced sum to be paid to the petitioner. Thereupon suit was brought for the balance.

The Postmaster General, in making his allowance, proceeded on the theory that the compensation was to be determined according to section 4009 of the Revised Statutes (39 USCA § 654); but the General Accounting Office regarded that section as inapplicable. If the section was applicable, the Post- master General's allowance was right, and should have been given effect by the Court of Claims.

Section 4009, which originally was part of the Act of June 8, 1872 (chapter 335, § 269, 17 Stat. 316), consolidating and amending the statutes relating to the Post Office Department, reads as follows:

'Sec. 4009. For transporting the mail between the United States and any foreign port, or between ports of the United States touching at a foreign port, the Postmaster General may allow as compensation, if by a United States steamship, any sum not exceeding the sea and United States inland postage; and if by a foreign steamship or by a sailing vessel, any sum not exceeding the sea postage, on the mail so transported.'

The specific point of difference between the Postmaster General and the General Accounting Office was that the former treated the ports in the Canal Zone as foreign ports within the meaning of that section, while the latter regarded them as domestic ports.

The rights possessed by the United States within the Canal Zone were acquired from the Republic of Panama under the Treaty of November 18, 1903, 33 Stat. 2234. The Zone has a width of 10 miles and extends across the Isthmus of Panama and into the sea at either end for a distance of 3 marine miles from mean low-water mark; but the cities of Panama and Colon and the harbors adjacent to them, although within the outer boundaries of the Zone, are expressly excepted thereunder by the second article of the treaty.

Whether the grant in the treaty amounts to a complete cession of territory and dominion to the United States, or is so limited that it leaves at least titular sovereignty in the Republic of Panama, is a question which has been the subject of diverging opinions¹ and is much discussed in the briefs. But for the purposes of this case the construction of the treaty in that regard need not be examined as an original question;-and this because a long continued course of legislative and administrative action has operated to require that the ports in the Canal Zone be regarded as foreign ports within the meaning of section 4009.

By the Act of March 2, 1905, c. 1311, 33 Stat. 843 (19 USCA § 126 and note), which came within less than two years after the treaty, Congress declared that the laws regulating the importation of merchandise and the entry of persons into the United States from foreign countries should apply to and control the importation of merchandise and the entry of persons from the Canal Zone into any state or territory of the United States or the District of Columbia; and on September 8, 1909 (27 Op. Attys. Gen. 594), the Attorney General, in an opinion given to the Secretary of War, held that the Canal Zone was not a possession of the United States within the meaning of the Tariff Act of August 5, 1909, c. 6, 36 Stat. 11, imposing specified rates of duty upon various articles when imported from a foreign country into the United States or 'into any of its possessions.'

In 1911 the Postmaster General, being authorized by an Act of March 3, 1891, c. 519, 26 Stat. 830, to arrange for the transportation of mails in American steamships between ports in the United States and foreign ports, submitted to the Attorney General the question whether, as respects mails largely intended for the cities of Colon and Panama, it would be within the letter and spirit of that act to arrange for the carrying of such mails from the ports of New York and San Francisco to the government docks at Cristobal and Balboa in the Canal Zone. The Attorney General responded in the affirmative, saying (29 Op. Attys. Gen. 194, 196):

'It appears from the papers transmitted by you that it will be more convenient for the vessels contracting for this mail service to use principally the government docks, which are being constructed at Cristobal on the Atlantic side and Balboa on the Pacific side; and the question arises whether by using these docks, which are in close proximity to but outside the limits of the cities of Colon and Panama and within the Canal Zone, and vessels would be carrying mails to foreign ports. It is stated in this connection that docking the large vessels at the cities of Colon and Panama would result in serious loss of time, and that the actual call at these places could be obviated by the use of a tender to meet the vessels upon entering the 'harbor adjacent to these ports' to receive and deliver the mail in Colon and Panama, the vessels then proceeding to the government docks at Cristobal and Balboa.

'It has been held that the purpose of the Act of March 3, 1891, is 'to promote the carriage of the ocean mails in ships of American register, and thereby to promote ocean commerce in American bottoms,' and that this statute, 'designed to promote foreign commerce, is entitled to a liberal construction, with a view to carrying out the purpose of its enactment.' 20 Op. 98, 101.

'In my opinion, the service proposed is in substantial compliance with the letter and spirit of the statute, as being between 'ports of the United States' and 'ports of foreign countries.' The word 'port' is not limited in its application to the city which bears the same name, but has been defined as including the entire harbor, within its inclosures and projections of land, where ships take refuge and seek shelter (citing authorities). Construing the word 'port' as synonymous with 'harbor' the vessels unquestionably would be carrying the mails to a foreign port if they entered the harbor, since the treaty reserves to Panama...