Shrewsbury v. United States/Opinion of the Court

by Ward Hunt

United States Supreme Court

85 U.S. 664

Shrewsbury  v.  United States

It can hardly be denied by the most zealous advocate that the two contracts before us differ essentially in their nature and form. The contract made with the claimant is a contract for the transportation of corn, at a price fixed, and in quantity not to exceed 15,000,000 pounds. The sole duty of the claimant under this contract was to carry and deliver the corn. He did not purchase it nor own it; he had nothing to do with its value or quality, and could neither make nor lose by a fluctuation in the value of the corn.

The later contract with Fuller & Tiernan, on the other hand, is strictly a contract for the purchase of 18,000 bushels of corn, to be delivered at a place and within a time named, and at a price specified, to be paid on the delivery and acceptance of the corn. In this case the corn is the property of Fuller & Tiernan until delivered. They purchase it; they own it. If the price of corn in the market varies essentially they will make a profit or be losers, according as the direction of the variation shall be. Their contract is to furnish the corn at Fort Union, New Mexico, and they are at liberty to obtain it from any source they choose. They have no claim for payment until delivery, and the United States have no ownership of the corn until delivery and payment.

The foundation, however, of the claimant's demand rests upon the identity of these dissimilar contracts. Having contracted to deliver to him for transportation all the corn of which the quartermaster's department required transportation from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Union, he insists that this contract is violated by a purchase by the subsistence department of the United States, made at Fort Leavenworth, of corn to be delivered by the seller of the same at Fort Union. This view cannot be sustained. There is not only not an identity, but there is not a similarity between the contracts. The making of the latter contract, and its performance, was not a breach of the former.

It is suggested in the claimant's brief that the proceeding of the United States in making the contract with Fuller & Tiernan was a device unfairly to evade the performance of the claimant's contract. No such fact is found by the Court of Claims, and their findings of fact are taken by us to be the facts in the case. We discover nothing in the case that would have justified the Court of Claims in coming to such conclusion. We should, at all times, be slow to sustain such an imputation upon the good faith of the government.

The claimant makes complaint that the quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth lent to Fuller & Tiernan a quantity of corn to be used by them in performance of their contract of sale with the commissary of subsistence; that the loan of corn was illegal, the title still remaining in the United States, and that this fact furnishes evidence that the second contract was a device and a pretence only. We have only to say on this branch of the case that the claimant is not invested with authority to supervise the transactions of the different departments of the government. Whether the commissary of subsistence had authority to make the contract with Fuller, whether there was an irregularity in the loan of corn to Fuller, and what was the motive of these dealings, are matters to be investigated by the War Department. They cannot be challenged by the claimant. He rests his claim for damages upon the making and performance of Fuller's contract. That contract has not been repudiated or objected to, so far as we know, by the proper authority. The record contains no evidence that any of the transactions are the subject of censure by the government.

The supplies contracted to be transported by the claimant were those of the quartermaster's department, that is, the supplies to be used for and by the army. The corn purchased by the commissary of subsistence was sent to New Mexico, not for the army, but to feed the Mexicans or Indians. The duties of the quartermaster's department, and of the department of subsistence, are separate and distinct. The departments are managed by different officers, whose authority is confined to the matters connected with their departments.

The contract to transport, in the case before us, relates to supplies for the quartermaster's department. The arrangement which is set forth as a violation of that contract related to supplies needed by the commissary of subsistence, a different subject entirely.

The duty of the commissary department, in general terms, is to feed the army, to provide supplies for its subsistence. Transportation is not understood to be among its duties. That office belongs to the quartermaster's department. What the commissary provides to feed the army it is the duty of the quartermaster to transport to such points as may be needed. Hence, in the case before us, it was in the ordinary course of business, the contract for transportation being already made, and further supplies being needed, that the purchase of the same should devolve on the commissary department.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.

Notes