APPROPRIATIONS.
See Army Pay, I; Eminent Domain, VI.
I. Professors at Military Academy; lack of appropriation; recourse to Court of Claims. McNeil, 406.
II. A private trained at an officers' training camp in the United States is not, by reason of his continuance of such training under orders at an overseas artillery school, to be deprived for the period of such overseas training, of the pay provided by the act of June 15, 1917, 40 Stat. 188, for enlisted men in training for commissions. Owen, 496.
ASSIGNMENTS. I. (1) Where at the time of filing its petition in the Court of Claims the property of plaintiff was in the hands of receivers, and thereafter said property, including any claim plaintiff might have against the United States, was by order of the court appointing such receivers con- veyed to another company, the ownership thus acquired was by operation of law and not an assignment under sec. 3477, Revised Statutes. Suit having been properly begun by the then owner of the claim, the new owner may intervene, and having intervened is entitled to a judgment for its use. (2) Under the circumstances re- cited, (1) the receivers were merely custodians pendente lite of the plaintiff's property, did not acquire title thereto, and could not sue the United States on plaintiff's claim, and (2) the intervenor's rights were not barred by the statute of limitations notwithstanding it did not appear in the case within six years from the time the right of plaintiff's action accrued, plaintiff itself having sued within the statutory period. Export Oil Corpora- tion, 342.
II. Where the plaintiff has acquired his claim against the
United States for alleged breach of contract through sale in bankruptcy proceedings of the assets of a cor- poration to which the Government contractor had at- tempted to assign the contract, the plaintiff can not recover in the Court of Claims. Doblin, 352.
See also Patents, II, III.
AUTHORITY OF PUBLIC OFFICERS.
See Contracts, V, VIII; Dent Act, II, III; Eminent Domain, X; Lever Act; Settlement Contracts, I, II; Treasury Pay.
AVIATION PAY.
See Navy Pay, II.
BONDS, TAX-FREE COVENANT.
See Taxes, XXII.
CHARTER PARTY.
(1) Where at the request of the United States Shipping Board an American-owned vessel was detained in a foreign port dur- ing April and May, 1918, in order that it might be decided whether it should carry on the return voyage to the United States a cargo of wheat for the United States Food Adminis- tration Grain Corporation, which it was thereafter required to do, and the owners of said vessel were thereby prevented from carrying out a more profitable charter party which had previously been entered into, the detention and subsequent requirement as to return cargo constituted a suspension and cancellation of said charter party under the act of June 15, 1917, for which the owners of the vessel are entitled to just compensation. (2) Under the circumstances recited the owners of the vessel, having been relieved of the expenses incident to the canceled charter party, are not entitled to demurrage for the period of detention. Carver et al., 1. COMMUNITY PROPERTY.
See Taxes, XXVII, XXVIII. COMPROMISE OF TAXES.
See Taxes, XXVII.
CONTRACTS.
I. Where there is an agreement to transport cement by barge at railroad rates, and there is sufficient cement to have called for the use of 60 or 70 railroad cars, the rates payable are those carried in railroad tariffs on carload lots and not those on less-than-carload. Goltra, 147. II. The plaintiff entered into a contract with the Shipping Board to supply it with designated quantities of crude and fuel oil during the year 1921 from its Mexican wells, subject to diminution of the source of supply and to prevention of performance for any cause "not within the control of the party whose performance is interfered with and which by the exercise of reasonable diligence it is unable to prevent." The Shipping Board's require- ments having greatly decreased due to a slump in ship- ping it refused to take the full contract quotas. Due to this refusal the plaintiff limited the flow of its wells, not, however, without accumulating a surplus which it was compelled otherwise to dispose of. In lieu of fuel
oil from the contract source, plaintiff's refining capacity being inadequate, the Shipping Board agreed to take such oil from other sources, plaintiff purchasing it for the Shipping Board. The Shipping Board took delivery of a portion only of the fuel oil so purchased. Held, that (1) there being no evidence that it could not in fact have taken more oil than it did, the Shipping Board was not, under the exceptions or force majeure clause, ex- cused from performance because of decrease in business but was obligated to take the entire actual production, or oil purchased in lieu thereof, within the designated quantities; that (2) though there might be an obligation to take "potential," i. e., some or all of the oil left in the ground, the uncertainty of quantity precluded a money judgment thereon. Atlantic Gulf Oil Corpora- tion, 162.
III. Plaintiff held entitled to recover the difference between the unpaid balance of the price named in contract for coal and the price paid by the Government in the open market for coal to cover shortage in deliveries. Clinton Coal Co., 312.
IV. The Government is under no obligation to recompense a contractor for machinery used in part fulfillment of a Government contract, purchased and used by the con- tractor prior to entering into the contract, and which he could have sold at a more advantageous price if it had not been held in readiness to complete work on material the Government failed to furnish. Bauman, 413.
V. A contract with the Reclamation Service provided for an extension of time by the engineer in charge on account of delay due to unforeseen causes beyond the control of the contractor," and for payment of the contract price when, among other things, "the terms of the contract shall have been fully complied with to the satisfaction of the engineer." The engineer approved an extension of time for such delay, and no liquidated damages therefor were deducted in payment of the contract price. Held, that the approval by the engineer was binding upon the Government and settlement being made accordingly, the Comptroller General had no authority to withhold liqui- dated damages for such delay from a deposit made by the contractor with a bid for other work. Steacy-Schmidt Mfg. Co., 499.
VI. At a time when all of its mines were closed due to strikes, plaintiff, in May and June, 1922, submitted to the de- fendant various bids for furnishing and delivering to
the Treasury Department coal during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1923, and in June, 1922, in response to an invitation from the War Department which knew that the mines were closed due to said strikes, for bids on coal to be furnished during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1922, submitted a bid therefor. Before the bid was accepted plaintiff withdrew the same, stating that it had been submitted under the impression that the coal was for the fiscal year 1923, that it did not have sufficient coal above ground to make any delivery in the fiscal year 1922. Held, that a subsequent acceptance of the bid by the War Department did not constitute a contract. Nason Coal Co., 526.
VII. Where a contractor is denied his own independent judg- ment as to the preparation and sufficiency of his own plans and specifications for the construction of pre- scribed structures by a provision in the contract which imposes upon him the duty of following the plans and specifications of the owner, and he does in a workmanlike manner follow such plans, he is not to be denied com- pensation therefor because it finally develops that the work done in accord with said plans does not develop the intended results. Dayton-Wright Co., 544.
VIII. A contract with the Secretary of the Navy for construction work at Annapolis at cost plus a fee of 10 per cent in- cluded as part of the cost the transportation, not in- volving repeated travel, of skilled labor to and from the site. Due to a scarcity of labor, the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks issued a 'change" order including as part of the cost repeated travel which in the opinion of the officer in charge was absolutely necessary. The contract further provided: "Rates of pay higher than those prevailing or established in the vicinity at the time of making the contract will not be authorized by the officer in charge, except on the approval of the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks." In lieu of paying a necessary increase in wages to cover the cost of daily travel of skilled labor to and from work, the contractor paid the cost of such travel, which was ap- proved by the officer in charge and inured to the benefit of the Government. Held, that in view of the provision quoted the Bureau of Yards and Docks had authority to issue the said order and the contractor was entitled to recover the cost of such travel plus the stipulated fee. Miller, Inc., 599.
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