United States v. Pugh, 99 U.S. 265
Case details
Bluebook Citation
United States v. Pugh, 99 U.S. 265
Full caption
United States v. Pugh.
Country
United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Majority
Waite (Chief Justice)
United States v. Pugh.
1. The act of March 12, 1863 (12 Stat. 820), relative to abandoned and captured property, as extended by the act of July 2, 1864 (13 id. 375), authorizes the recovery in the Court of Claims of the proceeds of property captured and, without judicial condemnation, sold by the military authorities after July 17, 1862, and before March 12, 1863, if such proceeds were accounted for and credited by the Secretary of the Treasury to the abandoned and captured property fund.
Where, in a suit arising under those acts, no direct proof was given that e proceeds of the sale of the property were paid into the treasury, if the circumstantial facts which are established by the evidence are set forth If h the Court of Claims, which it sends here as<that upon w ic alone its judgment was rendered, and they are, in the absence of any c mg to the contrary, the legal equivalent of a direct finding that such pro-3 Th S]Were S° court will not on that account reverse the judgment.
Ju gment of the Court of Claims as to the legal effect of what may, percaf8 .n°^irnproPer^y’ be termed the ultimate circumstantial facts of the
.’ ^UG8^on’s Pr°perly presented, subject on appeal to be here stant^ f an<^ W^ere th® rights of the parties depend upon such circum-
the d\ a^s a^one’ and there is doubt as to the legal effect of them, it is
u h at court to frame its findings so that the question as to such 4. Un77c 1 be presented by the record. Interm^/n WalL 1)’ Same V* Ross <92 U- S* 281), and quirine ^ases ^d‘ ®bl), so far as they bear upon the rule re-the fact aa apPea,t from the Court of Claims, a finding by that court of verdict h T * 6 estabbshed by the evidence in the nature of a special
’ not t e evidence establishing them, cited and explained.
Appeal from the Court of Claims.
United St^ a°^on’ brought by Walter Pugh against the Court nf recover proceeds of certain property. The of Clmms found the following facts : -
1. In December, 1862, the claimant was in possession as owner of a plantation in Louisiana. The sugar and molasses described in the petition were a part of the products of such plantation, and were stored thereon, and in the possession of the claimant’s agents.
2. In December, 1862, this said sugar and molasses were seized by the military forces of the United States, and turned over to a military commission, known as the sequestration commission, on the 12th of January, 1863. The commission was directed by general order No. 8, Department of the Gulf, “to sell at public auction all property in its possession that has not been or may not be claimed or released, except such as may be required for the use of the army, and turn over the proceeds thereof to the chief quartermaster.” The said sugar and molasses were then in the possession of the commission. On the 4th of February, 1863, the commission caused the same to be sold, with other property, at public auction in New Orleans. By the accounts kept by the commission, it appears that the net proceeds of the sugar and molasses amounted to $4,362.23. It does not appear specifically that the proceeds were paid over to the chief quartermaster of the Department of the Gulf, but it appears, and the court find the fact to be, that he receive money at various times in the year 1863 from the sales of sugar and molasses in New Orleans, to the amount of $33,79. For this amount the chief quartermaster accounted on the na settlement of his accounts, and the same was credited by t Secretary of the Treasury to the abandoned and captured property fund in the treasury.
3. That, as appears from the accounts of the chief qua master, the said amount of $33,796.02 was received by the net proceeds of sales of sugar and molasses in New r. and the whole of said amount was received in an su 9 to the month of February, 1863. That it does not aPPea" became of the fund resulting from the said sa e o c an sugar and molasses, unless the same was pai oyer o quartermaster of the Department of the Gulf, m Pu™u of said order of General Banks, and was included in said
$33,796.02. . _ , affent
4. On June 13,1863, the said commission notified t g® p. 267of Mrs. Walter Pugh, wife of the claimant, who had applied for the release of a portion of the said proceeds, that the application was denied.
Upon these facts the claimant had judgment for $4,362.23. The United States thereupon appealed to this court.
Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Smith for the appellant.
Mr. Edward Janin, contra.
Me. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the court.
Two questions are presented by the -finding of facts in this case, to wit: —
1. Does the Abandoned and Captured Property Act, as extended by the act of July 2, 1864 (13 Stat. 375), authorize a recovery in the Court of Claims for the proceeds of property captured and sold by the military authorities, without judicial condemnation, after’ July 17, 1862, and before March 12, 1863, but accounted for and credited by the Secretary of the Treasury to the abandoned and captured property fund in the treasury ?
2. Does it appear that the proceeds sued for in this case were actually paid into the treasury ?
The first of these questions has been often the subject of consideration in the Court of Claims, but has never, until now, een brought here for determination. It was first decided adversely to the United States as early as 1867, in Barringer's ate (3 Ct. of Cl. 358) ; and although that, court has ruled the same way many times since, no appeal was taken by the govnment until the rendition of this judgment in 1876. Under ese circumstances, we ought not to disturb what may fairly be a rU^e decision *n that court acquiesced in by the
States, unless the error is manifest. int d ^andoned and Captured Property Act was undoubtedly the d h* ProsPective only in its operation. It provided coll i y which that class of property was thereafter to be with th disP086^ of, and directed what should be done the sei 6 P1'°ceeds-. By the act of July 17,1862 (12 Stat. 589), in the Cer^a^n hinds of property owned by those engaged e ion, and an application of the property or its p. 268proceeds to the support of the army of the United States, were authorized. This act contemplated, however, a condemnation of the property by judicial proceedings in rem instituted in the name of the United States in some court having jurisdiction of the territory within which the property was found, or to which it might be removed. The title did not pass by a seizure under the authority of this act until a decree of condemnation was rendered.
The sixth section of the Abandoned and Captured Property Act made it the duty of every officer or soldier of the army of the Uhited States who-took or received any abandoned property, or cotton, sugar, rice, or tobacco, from persons in the insurrectionary districts, or who had it under his control, to turn it over to the treasury agent provided for in the act, and take a receipt therefor. As the property captured in this case had been sold by the sequestration commission before this act took effect, no question arises as to whether, after the act did take effect, the property should have been turned over to the proper treasury agent, or proceeded against for condemnation under the act of 1862. Having been converted into money by the action of the capturing military authorities, without judicial Condemnation, there was nothing left for the treasury agent to do ; and as the property had been released from custody, there could be no proceeding against it in rem.
By sect. 3 of the act of July 2, 1864, sects. 1 and 6 of the Abandoned and Captured Property Act were extended so as to include every description of property mentioned in the act o 1862. This has been supposed by the Court of Claims to give that court jurisdiction over cases for the recovery of money actually paid into the treasury as the proceeds of property cap-, tured after July 17, 1862, and before March 12, 1863. Wringer's Case, supra; Mrs. Minor s Case, 6 Ct. of • Terry Carne's Case, 8 id. 277 ; Miss Moore's Case, 10 id. It is also understood to have been the practice of the execu departments of the government from the beginning to the abandoned and captured fund in the treasury with the p ceeds of all property captured after July 17, 18, an e March 12, 1863, paid over to the quartermasters, and accou for by them in their settlements with the Treasury Depa
No distinction was made in this particular between captures after March 12, 1863, and those before. It is a familiar rule of interpretation that in the case of a doubtful and ambiguous law the contemporaneous construction of those who have been called upon to carry it into effect is entitled to great respect. Edwards Lessee v. Darby, 12 Wheat. 210. While, therefore, the question is one by no means free from doubt, we are not inclined to interfere, at this late day, with a rule which has been acted upon by the Court of Claims and the executive for so long a time. Besides, the interpretation which has been given the act is in strict accordance with the well-settled policy of the government not to enforce the right of capture during the late war against the property of the inhabitants of the insurrectionary districts without giving the owners an opportunity of proving in a court of justice that, although they were in law enemies, they were in fact friends of the United States. Under the act of 1862 this proof might be made in the suit for condemnation, and under the Abandoned and Captured Property Act, in a suit instituted to recover the proceeds in the treasury. Under these circumstances, it can hardly be considered a forced construction of the act of 1864 to hold, as has been done, that it was intended to subject the proceeds in the treasury, of property captured after July 17, 1862, and sold without judicial condemnation before March 12, 1863, to the same suits that were allowed in cases of captures and sales after that date. If is practice is not supported by the exact letter of the law, it y the spirit, and it is certainly just. We are not disposed to change it.
The second question presents for consideration a subject of in lmPor^ance connected with the practice under our rule,
. er^nce to aPPcals from the Court of Claims, which reestabl' K 1 by that court, “ of the facts in the case but i 4-1 y.the evidence, in the nature of a special verdict, be det $ eJ^enc® establishing them.” The ultimate fact to of the mi^e *n case *s whether the proceeds of the sale Daid inf Property belonging to the claimant have been given hnf lreasury’ direct proof to that effect has been circumqfo k a^’ *s by way inference from certain ««unstanM iacta which established by thfi p. 270dence. These circumstantial facts are set forth in the finding which has been sent here as the finding upon which alone the judgment was rendered, and as the case stands, the question we are to decide is whether those facts are sufficient to support the judgment. Confessedly, the court has found all the facts which have been directly established by the evidence. These facts are not evidence, in the sense that evidence means the statements of witnesses or documents produced in court for inspection. They are the results of evidence, and whether they establish the ultimate fact to be reached is, if a question of fact at all, to say the least, in the nature of a question of law. If what has been found is, in the absence of any thing to the contrary, the legal equivalent of a direct finding that the proceeds of this claimant’s property have been paid into the treasury, the judgment is right. Otherwise, it is wrong. The inquiry thus presented is as to the legal effect of facts proved, not of the evidence given to make the proof; and the question of practice to be settled is whether, under our rule, the judgment of the Court of Claims as to the legal effect of what may, perhaps not improperly, be called the ultimate circumstantial facts in a case, is final and conclusive, or whether it may be brought here for review on appeal.
From what is said in Ross’ Case (12 Ct. of Cl. 565), and by the reporters in a note (11 id. 344), we are led to suppose that the Court of Claims understands that our decisions in United States v. Ross (92 U. S. 281) and Intermingled Cotton Case» (id. 651) leave this question somewhat in doubt. To avoi misapprehension in the future, we take this opportunity to say that we not only think such a judgment may be reviewed here if the question is properly presented, but that when the rights of the parties depend upon circumstantial facts alone, and there is doubt as to the legal effect of the facts, it is the duty of the court, when requested, to so frame its findings as to put t doubtful question into the record. This would not require us on the appeal to decide upon the weight of evidence. a is done in the court below, when the particular fact is ^oun which the evidence tends to prove. The effect of mere evi en stops when the fact it proves is established. After that question is as to the effect of the fact; and when the evi
in a case has performed its part and brought out all the facts that have been proved, these facts thus established are to be grouped, and their legal effect as a whole determined. If the case could come here in $uch a form as to require us to consider the evidence, we should be required to trace the evidence to its logical results, find in this way all the facts that had been proven, and then declare the final legal conclusion. The rule relieves us from the necessity of considering the evidence at all, and confines our attention to the legal effect upon the rights of the parties of the facts proven as they have been sent up from the court below. In this way the weight of the evidence is left for the sole consideration of the court below, but the ultimate effect of the facts which the direct evidence has'established is left open for review here on appeal. The position which the case occupies when it comes here under such circumstances is precisely the same as it would be if the facts, instead of being found by the court, had been agreed upon by the parties, and their agreement embodied in the record.
In United States v. Crusell (14 Wall. 1), the question was whether the particular facts found justified the conclusion that the money sued for had been paid into the treasury; and inasmuch as the legal presumption is, in the absence of any thing to the contrary, that the officers of the government perform their duties when called upon to act in their official capacities, we thought that the law would infer from the facts found that t e money which ought to have been paid over by a quartermaster to his superior officer was actually paid over, and that in t iis way it had reached the treasury. So in Intermingled tton Cases (supra), when it was found that the cotton of the everal claimants contributed to and formed part of the capth t mass from which the cotton sold was taken, we concluded e claimants were entitled to their respective shares of U treasury as the proceeds of the sale. In c, . v* Ross (supra), however, we thought a similar anH US10n ^rom the particular facts there found was too remote, new and sent the cause back for a the i fla he Premises we considered too uncertain to justify and heen drawn. We thought independent ena facts were wanting, and that the law would not p. 272raise the presumption from what did appear that the plaintiff was entitled to recover. The difficulty in that case was not as to the power of this court to act upon the facts as found, but as to the sufficiency of the facts to support the judgment.
Upon the facts found in this case we have no difficulty in presuming that the money sued for is in the treasury, within the meaning of the Abandoned and Captured Property Act. The sequestration commission was directed to sell captured property, and turn the proceeds over to the chief quartermaster. The property in question was sold, and an account of sales stated by the commission. The case shows that at various times during the year 1863 the chief quartermaster received from the commission the proceeds of sugar and molasses sold, amounting in the aggregate to $33,796.02, and that this amount was all duly accounted for to the treasury, and there passed to the credit of the fund. This has always been treated in that department as equivalent to an actual payment into the treasury. In June, 1863, the commission refused the application of the wife of the claimant for a restoration of the proceeds, This raises the presumption that down to that time the money had not been released ; and as it is specially found that it does not appear what did become of the money unless it was paid over, as it should have been, to the chief quartermaster, we think the law will presume it was disposed of as the order of the commanding general required it should be. If any evidence to the contrary exists, the burden was cast upon the United States to produce it. Until the presumption in favor of the claimant is re pelled, the law gives him the right to the judgment he has obtained. ~
Judgment affirmed.