Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/836

 824 FEDERAL REPORTER. �resalted in deorees of forfeiture. Pursuant to the terms of compro- mise, the sam of money required was paid into the registry of the court. In two of the cases the court had adjudged Able and Hunter, respeotIYely, to be informera, and consequently entitled, irnder the law and regulations then existing, to portions of the proceeds recovered. Final orders of distribution were made, and checks issued to the colleotor accordingly. He paid to the informera their respective shares, under the circumstances stated, and the sums by him 80 paid are two of those now sued for. �At a term of the district court subsequent to that in which it had finally disposed of those cases, application was made by the collector, at the instance of the commissioner, for ieave to pay back into the registry the sums received, with a view to securing different or modi- fied decrees. The court held that it could not thus change the final decrees entered of a former term. �It seems that the sum fixed upon for compromise was based partly on penalties and partly on taxes due; and therefore the com- missioner was of opinion that the informera should receive nothing from that part of the gross sum paid, which was designed to cover taxes. The court, in its action, treated the fund in the registry as so much recovered from the forfeitures named. The suits were not for taxes, and what might or might not have induced the compromise could not alter the law or the statutes of the cases. The money was paid in those suits, and must be distributed as the law in such cases required. As had been well settled, the informers could not be de- prived of their portions of the proceeds. �This suit is based, not only on a different theory, but alao on the hypothesis that those final decrees made in 1870, of the district court, furniah no protection to the collector who acted under them. This court holda otherwise. The decrees of the district court were subject to review by the appellate court ; but no action therefor was ever had. Hence there can be no recovery by the United States for the sums so paid to the informers. �Aa to the third aum in dispute there is no valid defence, to-wit, 12,710.80; but it is entitled to a credit of $582.44. �Judgment, therefore, will be for $2,127.36, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per year from the date of the demand ou the ad- ministrator, to-wit, December 13, 1878. ��� �