United States v. Graham

• Decision Date: 21 January 1884
• Citation: 3 S.Ct. 582,28 L.Ed. 126,110 U.S. 219
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. GRAHAM
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

110 U.S. 219

3 S.Ct. 582

28 L.Ed. 126

UNITED STATES v. GRAHAM.

January 21, 1884.

Sol. Gen. Phillips and Thomas Simons, for appellant.

Robt. B. Lines, for appellee.

WAITE, C. J.

We are unable to distinguish this case in principle from that of U. S. v. Temple, 105 U. S. 97, in which it was decided that an officer of the navy who, while engaged in public business, traveled under orders by land or sea, the travel by sea not being in a public vessel of the United States, was entitled, under the act of June 30, 1876, c. 159, (20 St. 65,) to mileage at the rate of eight cents a mile for the whole distance traveled, whether by sea or land. The mileage sued for in this case accrued while the act of March 3, 1835, c. 27, (4 St. 757,) was in force. The language of that act, on which the question now presented arises, is as follows:

'It is hereby expressly declared that the yearly allowance provided for in this act is all the pay, compensation, and allowance that shall be received, under any circumstances whatever, by any such officer or person, except for traveling expenses under orders, for which ten cents per mile shall be allowed.'

That of the act of 1876, passed upon in Temple's case, was:

'And so much of the act of June 16, 1874, * * * as provides that only actual traveling expenses shall be allowed to any person holding employment or appointment under the United States while engaged on public business, as is applicable to the officers of the navy so engaged, is hereby repealed; and the sum of eight cents per mile shall be allowed such officers while so engaged in lieu of their actual expenses.'

It is found as a fact, in this case, that on the sixth of April, 1835, which was only a little more than a month after the act of 1835 was passed, circular instructions were issued from the treasury department to the effect that mileage at the rate of 10 cents a mile was fixed by law and should be paid for traveling expenses within the United States, but that the usual and necessary passage money actually paid by officers returning from foreign service, under orders or on sick ticket, when they could not return in a public vessel, would be paid as theretofore, as well as the like expenses of officers going out. The navy regulations, adopted in 1865, and in force in 1872, when the claim of Graham, the appellee, accrued, provided that 'for traveling out of the United States the actual expenses only are allowed.' It is also found that from the time of the passage of the act of 1835 until the decision of Temple's Case in this...