Bonner v. United States/Opinion of the Court

If the position of the counsel of the United States, that the Court of Claims has no authority to hear a case of this character, be well taken, we are relieved of the necessity of deciding the merits of the controversy.

The claimant insists that there was no power to establish Ludlow's line as the true boundary, and exclude entries on the west side of it, as Virginia did no assent to this action on the part of Congress, and as it is demonstrable that this line does not include all the lands between the two rivers.

If this position be correct, this claim is based on the theory that the United States has violated the trust contained in the deed of cession of the Northwestern Territory, and is bound in good conscience to furnish compensation to the Virginia beneficiaries who suffer by this misconduct. This makes a case for the interposition of a court of equity, and if it were a controversy between two private suitors, it would have to be settled there, for a court of law could not afford the proper mode and measure of relief. But the Court of Claims has no equitable jurisdiction given it, and was not created to inquire into rights in equity set up by claimants against the United States. Congress did not think proper to part with the consideration of such questions, but wisely reserved to itself the power to dispose of them.

Immunity from suit is an incident of sovereignty, but the government of the United States, in a spirit of great liberality, waived that immunity in favor of those persons who had claims against it which were founded upon any law of Congress or regulation of an executive department, or upon any contract with it, express or implied, and gave the Court of Claims the power to hear and determine cases of this nature.

The inquiry then arises whether the present case, in view of this limited jurisdiction, is one that the Court of Claims had a right to consider. The answer to this question seems to us of easy solution. It is not pretended that there was any regulation of a department to justify the entries in dispute, and it is certain, instead of having a law of Congress to rest upon, they were made in violation of the whole course of legislation by Congress on the subject. Congress has not only, in fixing the boundary line of the reservation, excluded these entries, but has also limited the time in which the holders of warrants of the class in question should have the right to locate them, and, in addition to this, has forbidden their location on tracts of land for which patents had been previously issued, or which had been previously surveyed.

As the land in question had been previously patented to individuals, or granted for the use of schools, it follows that the attempt on the part of the claimant to locate his warrants on them was contrary to law, and that the claim which he now makes for compensation, because of the failure of this proceeding, cannot be said to be founded on a law of Congress. Nor can it be said to be based on a contract in the sense of the law conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims. That court was authorized to enforce legal rights and obligations, but it could not proceed further and judge of the equities between the citizen and his government. In the absence of legislation by Congress the holder of a Virginia military bounty-land warrant can have no legal right against the United States for compensation on the allegation that the government has wrongfully appropriated to other uses the lands ceded for his benefit.

It is only a contract authorized by law that the Court of Claims can consider, and as there is no law of Congress on this subject there is nothing on which that court could base a judgment against the United States, if, in the opinion of that tribunal, it had not fulfilled its duties towards the beneficiaries under the Virginia deed of cession. The liability of the government, if at all, arises out of the breach of an accepted trust, and that liability cannot be enforced at law. The claimant is in no better position because the government is the trustee than he would be if a private person occupied that relation, and it is very clear, if such were the case, that a court of equity would abone have the power to deal with him.

As the government has not thought fit to allow itself to be sued in the Court of Claims on equitable considerations, it follows that the remedy of the claimant, if any now exists, is with Congress.

The judgment of the court below is REVERSED, and the case is remanded to that court with directions to dismiss the petition for

WANT OF JURISDICTION.