Walker v. United States

• Decision Date: 02 August 1905
• Citation: 139 F. 409
• Parties: WALKER v. UNITED STATES. UNITED STATES v. WALKER.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

139 F. 409

WALKER v. UNITED STATES.

UNITED STATES v. WALKER.

United States Circuit Court, M.D. Alabama.

August 2, 1905

Chas P. and Edwin F. Jones, for petitioner.

W. S Reese, Dist. Atty., opposed.

On the 8th of April, 1898, B. W. Walker, late marshal for the Middle district of Alabama, brought suit against the United States in the Circuit Court under the act of March 3, 1887, to recover $2,268 upon certain disallowed claims for mileage, fees, and expenses between February 14, 1890, and September 16, 1893. The United States interposed the plea of the statute of limitation of six years. Afterwards, on the 2d day of July, 1899, the United States set up a counterclaim for $842. All the claims were referred to a master to state the accounts. He reported on the facts only; his conclusions of law being waived by consent. The case and counterclaim were submitted on the report, and agreement as to certain facts, and the admission by Walker that he was not entitled to recover for the services set forth in Exhibit B to the master's report. Walker moved for decree in his favor upon the matters set forth in Exhibit A to the master's report, and for the disallowance of the government's counterclaim. The government made a counter motion to reject Walker's claims, and for judgment in its favor on its counterclaim. The facts are fully set forth in the opinion.

JONES District Judge.

The proviso to the first section of the act 'to provide for the bringing of suits against the government of the United States,' approved March 3, 1887 (24 Stat. 505, c 359)U.S. Comp. St.1901, p. 752))8 under which this suit is brought, declares:

'No suit against the government of the United States shall be allowed under this act, unless the same shall have been brought within six years after the right accrued for which claim is made.'

Petitioner's counsel contend that:

'The mere items of the account are but the details of the daily duties of the marshal, and continue until his term of office expires; that the government always regards the compensation of the marshal as subject to revision during his term of office; that he has the right, up to the time he ceases to be marshal, to present any omitted claims for services, and the limitation does not being to run until he ceases to be marshal.'

The court, under well-settled principles, has no authority to engraft exceptions upon a statute of limitations which the statute itself does not make. Adopting the petitioner's view would require the court to hold that the limitation does not run against claims for services by the marshal so long as he remains in office, notwithstanding the command of the statute that the limitation shall begin to run from the time the right accrued. Kendall v. United States, 107 U.S. 125, 2 Sup.Ct. 277, 27 L.Ed. 437. Each item of service rendered by Walker prior to the 8th day of April, 1892, is clearly barred.

In seeking the principle which must control the fate of the counterclaim, it is important to bear in mind the law and the facts of the particular transaction out of which that claim arose, and the time and circumstances under which it is brought forward. The law did not contemplate that the marshal could discharge his important duties without help, and therefore created the office of deputy marshal. It did not contemplate that either of these officers should perform public services without remuneration, and consequently made proper provision therefor. At the time of the transactions here involved that remuneration did not take the form of a salary, but consisted of a fee or allowance for each service in the marshal's settlements at stated periods with the Treasury Department. In the matter of his compensation, the deputy marshal, although a public officer performing public services, occupied the anomalous position of a stranger to the government. Douglas v. Wallace, 161 U.S. 349, 16 Sup.Ct. 485, 40 L.Ed. 727. Nevertheless the law bound the marshal to include the fees earned by his deputies in his accounts, and to collect them from the government, in order that he might not retain more than the maximum compensation allowed by the law, and that he might have a fund out of which to pay his deputies for their services. It has always been the rule that the marshal shall collect such fees, and pay over to his deputies their proportion. The agreed facts do not disclose whether Walker's deputies bound themselves in any way to repay to him the portion paid over to them, if the government, after allowing and paying these fees to the marshal, should seek to recover them from him; and it is unnecessary, therefore, to inquire whether in the absence of such a contract he could, under any circumstances, recover what he had paid them, through mistake of law, for services rendered by them. We may assume that, as between them, he bears the loss. In the discharge of his legal and moral duty, Walker prepared and rendered his accounts, including therein these particular fees, during each year of his incumbency of the office. He made no concealment or misstatement, and there was no fraud. Every one acted honestly and in good faith, relying on a long, and during the time these payments were made an unbroken, practice of the government to allow and pay for these particular services. The court to which the accounts were presented approved them, and the proper officials of the Treasury Department allowed them, and Walker collected the money from the government, and paid three-fourths of the amount of these fees to his deputies from time to time as he made settlements, and retained the balance, as was his duty to do, under the law as then construed by every department of the government which had acted or spoken on the subject. The government knew, when the money was paid to Walker, that the greater part of it would be immediately paid out to him. The government repeatedly and uniformly paid these fees in a consecutive course of dealings with him for four years, and then, after a delay of five years after Walker's retirement from office, for the first time makes known its intention to correct what was at least a common error by ripping up all these settlements and compelling him to refund the money. It knew full well that every day's delay in making known to Walker its changed attitude would add to his difficulty in saving himself harmless, if, indeed, it was ever in his power after paying over the money to his deputies. If a like transaction had occurred between Walker and anybody else, he could successfully reply, when sued to recover the money:

'You are estopped. You knew that in the course of our business dealings we had repeated settlements, in which I dealt with you, not only for myself, but for third persons to whom I was under obligation to pay for services which you recognized were for your benefit, and that out of the money you paid me, and on the faith of your acts, I was constantly paying over a part of it to these third persons. I rendered you fair and honest statements. You had my accounts examined by your representative, and we had settlements, to which we both then agreed, and on which you paid the balances in my favor. accepted these settlements as finalities. It is now too late for you to reverse your attitude towards me as to those past and settled transactions.'

After much deliberation, the court has reached the conclusion, whatever may be the general rule, that under the facts of this case the United States stands, as to its counterclaim, upon no better footing than would the private citizen, though doubtless it may recover money paid under mistake of law by its officers. It is conceded that the money the government now seeks to recover by its counterclaim was illegally paid out, that the United States cannot be defeated or barred of its rights by the mere laches of its agents, that it cannot be estopped by the unauthorized acts of its accounting officers, that it is not subject to the statute of limitations, and that the unauthorized acts of his agents never bind the sovereign. It is, however, equally true, when the sovereign becomes an actor in a court of justice, especially in an action which proceeds on equitable principles, that his rights must be determined upon those fixed principles of justice which govern between man and man in like situation, and that the sovereign will be bound, as an individual would be, by his own acts, or by (what is the same thing) acts of his agents lawfully done within the purview of the authority he commits to them.

United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 712, 8 L.Ed. 547, was a suit, under an act by which the United States consented to be sued, to determine whether certain lands in Florida were private property, or passed to the government by the cession from the King of Spain. The Supreme Court said:

'By consenting to be sued, and submitting the decision to judicial action, they have considered it as a purely judicial question, which we are now bound to decide as between man and man on the same subject-matter.'

When the sovereign sues, he brings with him no privileges which exempt him from the common fare of suitors. King of Spain v. Hullett, 1 Clark & F. 333; Rothschilds v. Queen of Portugal, 1 Young & C. 594. In the latter case, a question arose as to the right of the Rothschilds to retain interest out of a fund in their hands against the Queen. Baron Alderson said:

'Now, if the conduct of her most faithful majesty, through her lawfully authorized agents, was such as to induce the Rothschilds as reasonable men to suppose that by such delay they were acting in conformity to her majesty's wishes, they would justly be entitled to charge her with that interest.'

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