Opinion of the Court 145 C. Cls. The Government pleads the statute of limitations. If the plaintiff's cause of action accrued on January 15, 1951, when it paid the $10,000, the statute of limitations has run. If it did not accrue until December 11, 1951, when the Maritime Administration refunded a part of the $10,000 and expressed its intention to keep the rest, the plaintiff's suit was filed in time. We conclude that it was filed in time. When the $10,000 was deposited no determination had been made that the ship did in fact have desirable features and, so, the Maritime Administration did not then assert a right to the money, except as an escrow agent. It required its payment, not because it claimed plaintiff owed it, but as an assurance that it would be paid in case it was found the ship did have desirable features. Until that determination was made, the Maritime Administration had not asserted a right to the money. Plaintiff was not deprived of its right to the money until the Maritime Administration determined the vessel did have desirable features. Until then it was still its money, although in the hands of another. Its deposit of it was in lieu of a bond to pay the value of the desirable features, if and when the Administration determined the ship had desirable features. It was exacted as a guarantee that payment would be made if such a determination should be made. Until that determination, the Administration had asserted no adverse right to the money. When it did so, plaintiff's cause of action accrued. At the time plaintiff deposited its money, it was perhaps ignorant of the lack of authority in the Administration to demand payment for desirable features, under the circumstances of this case, or, it may have had doubts of its authority, but to avoid a law suit, if possible, it decided to deposit the money anyway, in the hope that no desirable features would be found, and to await that determination before contesting the matter. The law looks with favor on honorable means to avoid law suits, and parties ought not to be penalized if they attempt to do so. Plaintiff was justified in refraining from having recourse to the courts until the Administration asserted an unequivocal right to the amount it found due for desirable features. Until that determination was made, the statute did not begin to run. 647 Dissenting Opinion by Judge Madden and Judge Laramore Indeed, having once made the deposit, plaintiff was in no position to sue for its return, in advance of the determination the deposit was made to secure. This ship would not have been delivered had not the deposit been made. Having gotten the ship on the faith of the deposit, plaintiff could not sue to recover it, so long as the reason for the deposit continued. This holding, that the statute does not begin to run until there was an unequivocal demand for payment for desirable features, is in harmony with the holding in Jackson v. United States, 141 C. Cls. 385, decided January 15, 1958; Nautilus Shipping Corporation v. United States, 141 C. Cls. 391, decided January 15, 1958; and Gulf Oil Corporation v. United States, 143 C. Cls. 261, decided July 16, 1958. In all of those cases there was a determination that there were desirable features and an unequivocal demand for the payment of a definite sum for them. We said the statute began to run at that time. We reaffirm that holding. The plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted, and the Government's similar motion is denied. Judgment will be entered in plaintiff's favor for $3,150.00. It is so ordered. BRYAN, District Judge, sitting by designation, and JONES, Chief Judge, concur. MADDEN, Judge, with whom LARAMORE, Judge, joins, dissenting: The United States, on January 15, 1951, exacted from the plaintiff $10,000, which, under the Ship Sales Act of 1946, the United States was not entitled to exact. Like any person who illegally exacts money from another, the United States was subjected by the law to an obligation to give the money back. That duty was immediate and unconditional. The victim of the exaction had the corresponding legal right to enforce that duty in a court. In fact, the instant suit in this court is the suit of that victim to enforce that duty. But the suit was brought more than six years after the duty arose and the corresponding right to sue accrued. Syllabus 145 C. Cls. It would seem that a consultation of the calendar would suffice to solve the question. No one claims that the $6,850 voluntarily returned by the Government was a partial payment which was an acknowledgment of the debt and therefore tolled the statute. The $6,850 payment was accompanied by a statement of intention that the other $3,150 would not be repaid. So the $3,150 has been owed, and the right to sue for it has existed, since January 15, 1951. The Government has no more right than an individual to require a person to place money "in escrow" with it to secure the payment of a debt which he does not owe. If the plaintiff by paying the $10,000 which it did not owe, got the ship, to which it was entitled without paying the money, but thereby somehow estopped itself from getting the $10,000 back, one wonders why it isn't still estopped, since it still has the ship. Yet the court gives the plaintiff a judgment for the $3,150, the part of the $10,000 not voluntarily returned by the Government. It is all very confusing. I suggest again that the confusion could be avoided by consulting the calendar. NEW YORK AND CUBA MAIL STEAMSHIP CO. v. THE UNITED STATES [No. 132-55. Decided May 6, 1959. Defendant's motion for reconsideration and to reopen proof overruled October 7, 1959] ON PLAINTIFF'S AND DEFENDANT'S MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT Contract; Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946; limitation of actions; price adjustment on prior sales to citizens. In an action to recover from the Government a sum collected from plaintiff by the United States Maritime Commission for so-called “desirable features" under the Commission's erroneous interpretation and application of provisions of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, 50 U.S.C. App. § 1742, in making adjustments under section 9 of that Act, it is held that a suit filed on March 30, 1955, is not barred by the six-year statute of limitations applicable to claims in this court [28 U.S.C. § 2501], because (1) when plaintiff filed its application for an adjustment in 1946 under the 1946 Act the computations proposed by the Maritime Commission, which included an item 652 Syllabus to cover desirable features, was only an indication that the Commission might unlawfully charge the plaintiff for such item; (2) in 1948 the desirable features item was still only in the proposal stage and no contract had been made; (3) the events which occurred in 1949 and 1950, including the execution of the contract containing the erroneous desirable features item, took place within the six-year statute of limitations; and (4) plaintiff is also entitled to recover any interest it paid on the erroneously included cost of desirable features by which amount its mortgage should have been but was not reduced as of March 8, 1946, the effective date of the Act. With respect to the Government's counterclaim for various items of credit which it says the Maritime Commission erroneously allowed the plaintiff in computing the section 9 adjustment, it is held that in enacting section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act Congress had intended that prior purchasers of ships from the Maritime Commission should be treated in the same way as persons making purchases of ships for the first time under that Act and therefore could not have intended that such prior purchasers of new ships should, after March 8, 1946, continue paying interest on the larger amounts which they had agreed to pay the Commission for new ships prior to 1946. Defendant's counterclaim is dismissed. Limitation of Actions 58(1) United States 75, 110 Contract; Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946; limitation of actions; accrual of cause of action; possibility of breach.—Where, in the course of making the proper adjustments under section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, 50 U.S.C. App. § 1742, to determine the purchase price of a ship which the prospective purchaser had originally purchased from the United States Maritime Commission prior to 1946, the computations suggest the possibility that the Government may in the future unlawfully charge the purchaser (plaintiff) with the cost of so-called "desirable features", such possibility will not give rise to a cause of action for the recovery of the sum which may be ultimately illegally collected from plaintiffpurchaser. Contract; Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946; price adjustment on prior sales to citizens; interest-recovery of.-In enacting section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, 50 U.S.C. App. § 1742, providing for adjustments in prices for citizens who, prior to the effective date of the 1946 Act, had purchased new ships from the Maritime Commission, Congress intended that such citizens should be treated exactly like 1946 purchasers of used ships and therefore could not have intended Opinion of the Court 145 C. Cls. that such prior purchasers of new ships should continue paying interest after 1946 on the larger amounts which they had promised to pay for new ships prior to 1946. United States 75 Contract; Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946; price adjustment on prior sales to citizens; interest-recovery of.-Where a pre1946 purchaser of ships from the Maritime Commission becomes entitled to an adjustment in purchase price under section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, 50 U.S.C. App. § 1742, and such adjustment erroneously includes an item for "desirable features", such purchaser is entitled to recover interest paid after the effective date of the Act (March 8, 1946) on any amount included for desirable features. United States 110 Mr. J. Franklin Fort for the plaintiff. Messrs. Kominers & Fort were on the briefs. Mr. Clare E. Walker, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General George Cochran Doub, for the defendant. MADDEN, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court: The plaintiff sues to recover $7,200 which the Government's agency, the United States Maritime Commission, charged it for "desirable features" on two ships which the plaintiff bought from the Maritime Commission. Our decision in A. H. Bull Steamship Co. v. United States, 123 C. Cls. 520, was to the effect that, in circumstances such as those here present, the "desirable features" charge was improper. On the merits, then, the plaintiff is entitled to recover if the merits are reached. The Government pleads the statute of limitations, and also a counterclaim. We consider first the question of the statute of limitations. In August, 1943 the plaintiff purchased the two ships in question, the Cape Chalmers and the Cape Alerander, from the Maritime Commission. It paid some $1,450,000 for each ship, partly in cash, the balance secured by a mortgage which called for annual payments of principal and interest. As soon as the ships were delivered to the plaintiff in 1943, they were chartered back by the plaintiff to the Government for the duration of the war. In 1946 the Government had a surplus of merchant ships which it had acquired during the war and which it wanted |