United States v. Jones

• Decision Date: 13 December 1886
• Citation: 30 L.Ed. 440,119 U.S. 477,7 S.Ct. 283
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. JONES, Adm'r, etc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

119 U.S. 477

7 S.Ct. 283

30 L.Ed. 440

UNITED STATES v. JONES, Adm'r, etc.

December 13, 1886.

Atty. Gen. Garland and H. J. May, for the United States.

John Paul Jones, for appellee.

WAITE, C. J.

The grounds of this motion are (1) that, under the law as it now stands, no appeal lies from a judgment of the court of claims to this court; and (2) that since the appeal was taken congress has appropriated the amount necessary to pay the judgment.

The case of Gordon v. U. S., 2 Wall. 561, holding that no appeal would lie from a judgment of the court of claims to this court, was announced March 10, 1865. The cause was originally submitted on the eighteenth of December, 1863, and on the tenth of April, 1864, it was ordered for argument on the second day of the next term. Chief Justice TANEY died October 12, 1864, and the case was not reargued under the special order of the previous term until January 3, 1865. Consequently the opinion published as an appendix to 117 U. S. 697, must have been prepared by him before the decision was actually made. The records of the court show that in announcing the judgment Chief Justice CHASE said: 'We think that the authority given to the head of an executive department by necessary implication, in the fourteenth section of the amended court of claims act, to revise all the decisions of that court requiring payment of money, denies to it the judicial power, from the exercise of which alone appeals can be taken to this court. The reasons which necessitate this conclusion may be more fully announced hereafter. At present, we restrict ourselves to this general statement, and to the direction that the cause be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.' This differs somewhat from the case as reported by Mr. Wallace, and shows precisely the ground of the opinion, to-wit, the special provisions of section 14. That section was as follows:

'Sec. 14. That no money shall be paid out of the treasury for any claim passed on by the court of claims till after an appropriation therefor shall have been estimated for by the secretary of the treasury.'

At the next session of congress after this decision the objectionable section was repealed by the act of March 17, 1866, c. 19, (14 St. 9,) and the court of claims was directed to transmit, at the end of every term, a copy of its decisions to the heads of departments, and certain other officers specially mentioned. From that time until the presentation of this motion it has never been doubted that appeals would lie. Indeed, immediately after the repealing act went into effect, and before the adjournment of the term then being held, a set of rules regulating such appeals was promulgated by this court, and it is safe to say that there has never been a term since in which many cases of the kind have not been heard and decided without objection from any one. At December term, 1866, in De Groot v. U. S., 5 Wall. 427, the new rules were referred to and explained; and at the next term, in December, 1867, in U. S. v. Alire, 6 Wall. 577, a case which could not be entertained on a general appeal was sent back, in order that a special appeal might be allowed of which this court could take jurisdiction. In delivering the opinion, Mr. Justice NELSON, who was with the majority when Gordon's Case was decided, after referring to that case as denying the jurisdiction of this court 'on account of the power of the executive department over its judgment by the fourteenth section of the act of 1863,' said 'that section had been repealed by the firs section of the act of March 17, 1866.' So, too, in U. S. v. O'Grady, 22 Wall. 641, Mr. Justice CLIFFORD, who also concurred in the judgment in Gordon's Case, said, for the court: 'The supreme court declined to take jurisdiction of such appeals chiefly for the...