United States v. Wallace/Opinion of the Court

by Stanley Matthews

United States Supreme Court

116 U.S. 398

United States  v.  Wallace

 Argued: January 18, 1886. ---

It is provided in section 847, Rev. St., regulating the fees of commissioners: 'For issuing any warrant or writ, and for any other service, the same compensation as is allowed to clerks for like services.' Section 828, Rev. St., provides that the clerk be allowed: 'For making dockets and indexes, taxing costs, and all other services on the trial or argument of a cause where issue is joined and testimony given, $3;' and 'for making dockets and indexes, taxing costs, and other services in a cause which is dismissed or dis continued, or where judgment or decree is made without issue, $1.'

It was not disputed by the accounting officers of the treasury department, nor by the solicitor general in argument, that the commissioner was legally bound, under the order of the circuit court, to render the services charged for in keeping the dockets required, nor that he is entitled to compensation therefor; but it is insisted that he ought not to be allowed the compensation demanded, because the services rendered in keeping his docket are not in all particulars like services to those rendered by clerks in keeping dockets, and that, consequently, his compensation is fully covered by paragraph 8 of section 828, which allows, for making entries, 'for each folio, 15 cents.' This view is met by the court of claims in the following extract from its opinion: 'The phrase 'like services' does not necessarily mean 'identical with,' for by such a construction the compensation allowed to commissioner 'for any other service' would be defeated because of the subject-matter of the duties of the commissioner and the clerk being somewhat different; but the statute must receive a reasonable construction, and where the service of the clerk bears a substantial resemblance to the duty performed by the commissioner, then, under section 847, the commissioner would be entitled to the compensation allowed by law to the clerk, it being in legal substance a 'like service."

The compensation of 15 cents for each folio, supposed to embrance this service, is given 'for entering any return, rule, order, continuance, judgment, decree, or recognizance, or drawing any bond, or making any record certificate, return or report.' Clearly, this service has no likeness to that of keeping a docket, while the keeping of a docket by the commissioner is a like service to the keeping of a docket by the clerk, although the docket entries to be made by each may differ.

The judgment of the court of claims is affirmed.

Notes