United States v. Charles Mason

• Decision Date: 24 February 1913
• Docket Number: No. 537,537
• Citation: 227 U.S. 486,33 S.Ct. 374,57 L.Ed. 607
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Appt., v. CHARLES B. MASON, Executor, etc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

227 U.S. 486

33 S.Ct. 374

57 L.Ed. 607

UNITED STATES, Appt.,

v CHARLES B. MASON, Executor, etc.

No. 537.

Submitted December 20, 1912.

Decided February 24, 1913.

Assistant Attorney General Thompson and Mr. George M. Anderson for appellant.

Mr. Francis P. B. Sands for appellee.

Memorandum opinion, by direction of the court, by Mr. Justice Lurton:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the court of claims, allowing the executor of the late Captain Thomas Mason the difference between his pay as retired junior captain in the revenue-cutter service and the pay of a senior captain in the same service, for the time between the passage of the act of April 16, 1908 (35 Stat. at L. 61, chap. 145, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 884), and his death, September 10, 1910.

The provision of the 5th section of the act referred to is in these words:

'That any officer of the revenue-cutter service with a creditable record, who served during the Civil War in the land or naval forces of the United States, shall, when retired, have the rank and receive three fourths of the duty pay and increase of the next higher grade; and the provisions of this section shall apply to officers of the said service now on the retired list.'

Mason had served with credit during the Civil War in the naval service of the United States. He was therefore within the provision of the section set out, and the only question is whether, under that provision, his advance in grade and in pay is to be made upon the grade he held when he was retired, or upon the grade and pay he had when this act was approved.

He had been retired as of May 3, 1895, while holding the rank of first lieutenant in the revenue-cutter service, with one half of the pay of a first lieutenant on the active list, under the act of March 2, 1895 (28 Stat. at L. 920, chap. 189, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1853). By the act of April 12, 1902, § 9 (32 Stat. at L. 101, chap. 501, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 879), he and all other officers upon the retired or permanent waiting list were give 75 per cent of the duty pay of the rank they had when retired. By a special act of February 25, 1905 (33 Stat. at L. 813, chap. 796), he was advanced 'one grade from first lieu- tenant to that of captain,' for meritorious acts while in the service of the Navy and of the revenue-cutter service of the United States, but with no increase in pay by the advance in grade thereby authorized.

The only trouble about the meaning of the act arises...