Harvey v. United States

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Harvey v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued January 13–14, 1885
Decided February 2, 1885
Full case nameHarvey v. United States
Citations113 U.S. 243 ( more )
5 S. Ct. 465; 28 L. Ed. 987
Court membership
Chief Justice
Morrison Waite
Associate Justices
Samuel F. Miller  · Stephen J. Field
Joseph P. Bradley  · John M. Harlan
William B. Woods  · Stanley Matthews
Horace Gray  · Samuel Blatchford
Case opinion
MajorityBlatchford, joined by unanimous

Harvey v. United States, 113 U.S. 243 (1885), was a case for labor and materials furnished by the claimants in constructing coffer dams in Davenport, Iowa and in performing the work necessarily connected therewith and preliminary to the mason work for the piers and abutments referred to in the contract. That court proceeded on the view that the claimants had no right to rely on the testimony of experts introduced by them as to the value of the work, but should have kept and produced accounts of its cost and expense, but it gave to the claimants the benefit of the testimony of experts introduced by the United States as to such value in awarding the above amount. Held that the claimants could not be deprived of reasonable compensation for their work because they did not produce evidence of the character referred to, when it did not appear that such evidence existed, if the evidence they produced was the best evidence accessible to them and it enabled the court to arrive at a proper conclusion. [1]

Contents

Decision

The judgment of the Court of Claims is affirmed for the full amount of the award made to the claimants, and an additional amount of 842.82 is allowed for the labor done and materials furnished by the claimants in constructing coffer dams and in performing the work necessarily connected therewith and preliminary to the mason work for the piers and abutments referred to in their contract, the same being an additional allowance on account of item (1) in their petition filed August 30, 1876, and the said judgment is reversed so far as respects item (2) in that petition, and the sum of 574.80 is allowed for that item, and this cause was remanded to the Court of Claims, with a direction to enter judgment accordingly.

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"Wherefore the plaintiffs demand judgment against the above-named defendants in the sum of $40,828.97, with interest on $40,500.00 from the 30th day of July, 1874, and on $328.97 from the 3d day of October, 1874, besides the costs and disbursements of this action."

To this complaint the defendants severally demurred on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained and judgment rendered in favor of the defendants dismissing the complaint, to reverse which this writ of error is prosecuted.

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"SECTION 1. The twelfth section of the 'Act to authorize the formation of corporations for manufacturing, mining, mechanical, or chemical purposes,' passed February 17, 1848, as said section was amended by chapter 657 of the Laws of 1871, is hereby further amended, so that section 12 shall read as follows:"

"§ 12. Every such company shall, within twenty days from the first day of January, if a year from the time of the filing of the certificate of incorporation shall then have expired, and if so long a time shall not have expired, then within twenty days from the first day of January in each year after the expiration of a year from the time of filing such certificate, make a report, which shall be published in some newspaper published in the town, city, or village, or, if there be no newspaper published in said town, city, or village, then in some newspaper published nearest the place where the business of the company is carried on, which shall state the amount of capital, and of the proportion actually paid in, and the amount of its existing debts, which report shall be signed by the president and a majority of the trustees, and shall be verified by the oath of the president or secretary of said company, and filed in the office of the clerk of the county where the business of the company shall be carried on, and if any of said companies shall fail so to do, all the trustees of the company shall be jointly and severally liable for all the debts of the company then existing, and for all that shall be contracted before such report shall be made. But whenever under this section a judgment shall be recovered against a trustee severally, all the trustees of the company shall contribute a ratable share of the amount paid by such trustee on such judgment, and such trustee shall have a right of action against his co-trustees, jointly or severally, to recover from them their proportion of the amount so paid on such judgment, provided that nothing in this act contained shall affect any action now pending.

It is finally insisted that a judgment against the corporation, although founded upon a tort, becomes ipso facto a debt by contract, being a contract of record or a specialty in the nature of a contract. But we have already seen that the settled course of decision in the New York Court of Appeals rejects the judgment against the corporation as either evidence or ground of liability against the trustees, and founds the latter upon the obligation of the corporation on which the judgment itself rests. And it was decided by this Court in the case of Louisiana v. New Orleans, 109 U. S. 285, that a liability for a tort, created by statute, although reduced to judgment by a recovery for the damages suffered, did not thereby become a debt by contract in the sense of the Constitution of the United States forbidding state legislation impairing its obligation, for the reason that the term 'contract' is used in the Constitution in its ordinary sense as signifying the agreement of two or more minds, for considerations proceeding from one to the other, to do or not to do certain acts. Mutual assent to its terms is of its very essence."

The same definition applies in the present instance, and excludes the liability of the defendants, as trustees of the corporation, for its torts, although reduced to judgment.

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References

  1. ↑ Harvey v. United States, 113 U.S. 243 (1885).
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