United States v. Laughlin

• Decision Date: 14 April 1919
• Docket Number: No. 200,200
• Citation: 63 L.Ed. 696,39 S.Ct. 340,249 U.S. 440
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. LAUGHLIN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

249 U.S. 440

39 S.Ct. 340

63 L.Ed. 696

UNITED STATES

v LAUGHLIN.

No. 200.

Argued Jan. 30 and 31, 1919.

Decided April 14, 1919.

Mr. C. Edward Wright, of Washington, D. C., for the United states.

Messrs. Francis W. Clements and William R. Andrews, both of Washington, D. C., for appellee.

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case, although involving but $200, is deemed by the government to be important, because typical of a large group of cases of like character. Suit was brought by Laughlin in the Court of Claims under section 2 of the Act of March 26, 1908 (35 Stat. 48, c. 102 [Comp. St. § 4492]), for the repayment of an alleged excess charge exacted of him when he made a pre-emption cash entry November 20, 1878, for a tract of 160 acres of public land, part of section 33, township 5 south, range 12 east, W. M. in the Dalles, Oregon, land district, for which he was charged by the proper officer of the United States the sum of $400, or at the rate of $2.50 per acre. There was a judgment in favor of the claimant (Laughlin v. United States, 52 Ct. Cl. 292), and the present appeal followed.

The land is a part of an odd-numbered section within 40 miles of the general route of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, as shown by its map filed in the Interior Department August 13, 1870, upon the basis of which the department, on February 14, 1872, issued an order withholding from disposition the odd-numbered sections of public lands and increasing in price to $2.50 per acre the even-numbered sections within the limits indicated by the map. No map of definite location of this particular portion of the proposed railroad was ever filed; this portion never was constructed, and the grant as to it was forfeited by act of Congress of September 29, 1890 (26 Stat. 496, c. 1040). Claimant applied to the Secretary of the Interior under the Act of March 26, 1908, for the refund of $200 of the purchase price, alleging that the lawful price was $1.25 per acre; but the Secretary, on July 22, 1916, although finding the facts to be as above stated, denied the application upon the ground that the questions of law presented had been previously adjudicated by the Land Department adversely to claimant's contention.

Upon the present appeal it first is insisted in behalf of the government that the Court of Claims had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter. If there was jurisdiction, it arose from the clause of section 145, Judicial Code (Act March 3, 1911, c. 231, 36 Stat. 1136 [Comp. St. § 1136]), which confers upon that court jurisdiction to hear and determine claims founded upon 'any law of Congress'—the act of March 26, 1908, being the law relied on. Section 2 of this act reads as follows:

'That in all cases where it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Interior that any person has heretofore or shall hereafter make any payments to the United States under the public land laws in excess of the amount he was lawfully required to pay under such laws, such excess shall be repaid to such person or to his legal representatives.'

The third section provides machinery for the payment of the amount of the excess when ascertained. It is contended by the government that a favorable decision by the Secretary is a condition precedent to the right of recovery under the section quoted; that since the Secretary disallowed the present claim, because not satisfied that an excessive payment under the law had been made, there has been no violation of any right of claimant; and that hence there is not presented a claim founded upon a law of Congress within the meaning of the term as employed in defining the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims. We cannot accept this construction of section 2 of the act of 1908. According to it, although facts were made to appear to the entire satisfaction of the Secretary showing that a person had made 'payments to the United States under the public land laws in excess of the amount he was lawfully required to pay under such laws,' it would rest in the uncontrolled judgment and discretion of the Secretary to deny repayment of the excess because not satisfied that it ought to be repaid, notwithstanding Congress had declared that under the precise state of facts it should be repaid. Under this construction the legislative power would in effect be delegated to the Secretary. In our view it was the intent of Congress that the Secretary should have exclusive jurisdiction only to determine disputed questions of fact, and that, as in other administrative matters, his decision upon questions of law should be reviewable by the courts. In the case before us the facts were not and are not in dispute, and were shown to the Secretary's satisfaction; whether, as matter of law, they made a case of excess payment, entitling claimant to repayment under the act of 1908, was a matter properly within the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims. See Medbury v. United States, 173 U. S. 492, 497, 498, 19 Sup. Ct. 503, 43 L. Ed. 779; McLean v. United States, 226 U. S. 374, 378, 33 Sup. Ct. 122, 57 L. Ed. 260; United States v. Hvoslef, 237 U. S. 1, 10, 35 Sup. Ct. 459, 59 L. Ed. 813, Ann. Cas. 1916A, 286.

Upon the merits, the question is: What price could a pre-emptor lawfully be required to pay for public lands in an odd-numbered section within the primary limits of the Northern Pacific Railroad land grant after the filing of a map of general route and the making of an order withdrawing the oddnumbered sections from entry; no map of definite location of the line in question having at that time or at any time been filed?

The company was incorporated by Act July 2, 1864, c. 217, 13 Stat. 365, by the third section of which there was granted to it——

'every alternate section of public land, not mineral, designated by odd numbers [within defined limits], * * * whenever, on the line thereof, the United States have full title, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated, and free from pre-emption, or other claims or rights, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed, and a plat thereof filed in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and whenever, prior to said time, any of said sections or parts of sections shall have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, or pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of, other lands shall be selected by said company in...