United States v. Lawson

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. LAWSON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

101 U.S. 164

101 U.S. 164

25 L.Ed. 860

UNITED STATES v. LAWSON.

October Term, 1879

APPEAL from the Court of Claims.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

The Solicitor-General for the United States.

Mr. John Scott, Jr., for the appellee.

MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Compensation to collectors of the customs from the organization of the government to the present time has been chiefly derived from certain enumerated fees, commissions, and allowances, to which is added a prescribed sum, called salary, much less than a reasonable compensation for the service required of the officer. 1 Stat. 64, 316, 627, 786.

Sufficient appears to show that by these several acts certain enumerated fees and commissions were made payable to the collectors of the customs, and that they were also entitled to certain proportions of fines, penalties, and forfeitures. By the same acts they were required to keep accurate accounts of all fees and official emoluments by them received, and of all expenses for rent, fuel, stationery, and clerk-hire, and to report the same annually to the Comptroller of the Treasury, but they were allowed to retain to their own use the whole amount of the emoluments collected from those sources, without any limitation. Maximum rate of compensation was subsequently prescribed, which was $5,000, and it was made applicable to all collectors without any discrimination. 2 id. 172.

It was provided by that act that whenever the annual emoluments of any collector, after deducting the expenses incident to the office, amounted to more than $5,000, the surplus should be accounted for and paid into the treasury. Districts for the collection of the customs were, at a later period, divided into two classes, usually denominated the enumerated and the non-enumerated ports, and the maximum rate of compensation to collectors was diminished. 3 id. 695.

Under that act the maximum for the enumerated ports was $4,000 and for the non-enumerated ports $3,000, and the provision in respect to both classes was that the excess, after deducting the expenses incident to the office, should be paid into the treasury as public money.

For a considerable period of time these regulations were satisfactory, but when the policy was changed, the free list much enlarged, and the rates of duty reduced, experience showed that the emoluments of collectors from those sources were not sufficient to give them a reasonable compensation. Temporary expedients were resorted to for several years by the passage of an annual compensation act, as will be seen by reference to the acts of Congress during that period. United States v. Walker, 22 How. 299-308; United States v. Macdonald, 5 Wall. 647, 655.

Importers, under various antecedent acts of Congress, were allowed to place certain goods in the public stores under bond, at their own risk, without the payment of the duties, until the goods were withdrawn. Public stores were accordingly rented, and as the business increased, the rent and storage received by the collector of the merchants making deposits in the stores exceeded the amount paid to the owners of the same, and there was no law requiring the collector to account for the excess. Congress interposed and regulated the subject. 5 Stat. 432; Rev. Stat., sect. 2647.

By that enactment collectors are required to include in their quarterly accounts all sums received for rent and storage in the public stores beyond the rents which are paid to the owner, and if the excess in any one year exceeds $2,000, it is made their duty to pay such excess into the treasury as part and parcel of the public money. United States v. Macdonald, 2 Cliff. 270, 282.

Two thousand dollars of the amount, under the act of Congress then in force, might be retained by the collector in addition to the amount received from other lawful sources of emolument, provided the latter did not exceed the maximum rate allowed to the office. Receipts from the other sources of emolument were to be accounted for as before; but the effect of the new provision was to add $2,000 to the compensation of a collector, if his office earned that amount from rent and storage. Custom dues of every kind received by a collector are now required to be credited in his quarterly accounts, no matter from what source of emolument the money is derived; and the provision is, that whenever the emoluments of any collector, other than one of the enumerated ports, 'shall exceed $3,000, the excess shall in every such case be paid into the treasury for the use of the United States; but the provision does not extend to fines, penalties, or forfeitures, or the distribution thereof.' Rev. Stat. 2691.

Apply the rule prescribed in that provision to the case before the court, and it is clear that the collector, if the compensation he received from other sources of emolument, after deducting the incidental expenses of his office, amounted to $3,000, would not have a right to retain any portion of the excess received for rent and storage beyond what he paid to the owners of the stores rented. His right in such a case, provided the aggregate of his receipts from the other sources of emolument, after deducting the incidental expenses of his office, was insufficient to give him the maximum compensation allowed, would be to retain enough from the amount derived from that source to make up the deficit.

Judgment was rendered in favor of the petitioner, and the United States appealed to this court. No formal assignment of errors is filed, but the proposition submitted in argument is that ...