Chesapeake Delaware Canal Company v. United States

by the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

250 U.S. 123

CHESAPEAKE & DELAWARE CANAL COMPANY  v.  UNITED STATES

Error to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

No. 192.  Argued: Apr. 17, 1919 --- Decided: May 19, 1919

It is a perversion of the rule requiring assignments of error to multiply them unnecessarily. P. 124.

State statutes of limitations and the principle of laches are inapplicable to the United States when asserting governmental rights. P. 125.

Semble, that the presumption of payment arising from the lapse of twenty years without suit to collect does not apply to the United States in such cases. Id.

The collection of dividends declared on corporate shares owned by the United States is an assertion of its right as creditor unaffected by its relations as shareholder, and, in suing for such dividends, they being public moneys applicable only to public purposes, the United States acts in its governmental capacity. P. 126.

Books of the Treasury Department, showing the miscellaneous receipts and disbursements of the Government, printed from the written public records of the Department, pursuant to the acts of Congress and Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, of the Constitution, and used as original records in the daily business of the Department and produced from its custody, held, competent evidence, without certification under Rev. Stats., § 882, for the purpose of proving the nonpayment as well as the payment of dividends by a private corporation to the United States. P. 127.

Evidence held sufficient to show that dividends sued for by the Government many years after they were declared were never paid, and to sustain refusal of defendant's motion for a directed verdict. P. 129.

240 Fed. Rep. 903, affirmed.

The case is stated in the opinion

Mr. Charles J. Biddle, with whom Mr. Charles Biddle, Mr. Andrew C. Gray, Mr. J. Rodman Paul and Mr. R. Mason Lisle were on the brief, for plaintiff in error.

[p124] The Solicitor General, Mr. Assistant to the Attorney General Todd and Mr. Lincoln R. Clark, for the United States, submitted.