UNITED STATES
V. KRUM.
823
clause must be held to be subordinate to the specific provisions of particular sections, which show a manifest intent to apply to past transactions. The purpose of that clause was, I think, simply to prevent any existing right of the United States from being wholly cut off, or affected otherwise than expressly provided. Under the construction above adopted, as in Sohn v. Waterson, 17 Wall. 596, any -existing right to reliquidate the duties would not be cut off; it would remain unaffected for the full period of one year thereafter, but no . longer; and that, I think, is all that the act designed. The defendant is, therefore, entitled to judgment. See Barney v. 92 U.8. 449; Ullman v. MurphY,l1 Blatchf. 354; Refund of Custom:> .iJutu:", 15 Gp. Atty. Gen. 121.
V.
KRUM, Adm'r, and others.March 13, 1882.)
(Circuit Court, hJ. D. Missouri.
Where a decree of forfeiture is rendered in a suit for a breach of the internal revenue law, and the defendant, pursuant to a compromise with the government, pays a sum of money into court, and A. and B. are adjudged entitled to a portion of the fund paid as informers, and the court makes a final order of distribution, and issues checks to 0., collector of internal revenue of the district, and no appeal is taken, and C. pays A. and B. the amounts to which they have been held entitled, he cannot be held liable on his official bond for the amounts so paid, whether the informers are legally entitled thereto or not. 2. SAME-INFORMER.
Where money is paid into court under circumstances like those above stated. the right of the informers to their proportio:l of the sum paid ill not a1Iected by the fact that a part of such sum ill desiJOnated to cover taxes.
William A. Bliss, for the United States. William Patrick, for defendants. TREAT, D. J. This is a suit on the official bond of the late Charles W. Ford, formerly collector of internal revenue, to reCOver three several sums of money alleged to have been received by him, and to be due to the United States. It appears that three several suits in rem were instituted by the United States, in the United States district court, for the forfeiture of certain distilled spirits, and such proceedings therein had as -Reported by B. F. Hex, Esq., of the St. Louis bar.
824
FEDERAL REPORTER.
resulted in decrees of forfeiture. Pursuant to the terms of compromise, the sum of money required was paid into the registry of the court. In two of the cases the court had adjudged Able and Hunter, respectively, to be informers, and consequently entitled, under the law and regulations then existing, to portions of the proceeds recovered. Final orders of distribution were made, and checks issued to the collector accordingly. He paid to the informers their respective shares, under the circumstances stated, and the sums by him so 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 leave to pay back into the registry the sums received, with a ",iew to securing different or modified 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 commissioner was of opinion that the informers should receive nothing from that part of the gross sum paid, which WQS designed to cover taxes. The oourt, 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 cou.d 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 deprived of their portions of the proceeds. This suit is based, not only on a different theory, but also on the hypothesis that those final decrees made in 1870, of the district court, furnish no protection to the collector who acted under them. This court holds 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. As to the third sum in dispute there is no valid defence, to-wit, $2,710.80; 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 on the administrator, to-wit, December 13, 1878.
VERMONT I"ARM MACHINE CO. V. CONVERSE,
825
VERMONT FARM MACHINE CO.
v.
CONVERSE.
fOircuit Court, D. Connecticut.
February 3, 1882.}
A motion to " reopen" a cause, and allow defendant to take additional testimony, was denied; the defendant not stating that the evidence was not accessible at the trial, or that it was not then known to him, or that it is material.
On motion to reopen the cause and allow additional testimony to be taken. TV. E. Simonds, for plaintiff. Charles B. Tilden, for defendant. SH1PMAN, D. J. This is a motion to "reopen" the cause and allow the defendant to take additional testimony upon 16 points. The testimony seems by the record to have been closed on November 25, 1881, when the plaintiff's rebutting testimony was taken. The defendant did not then suggest that he was intending to reply. He does not now state that the evidence was not then as accessible and as well known to him as it is now, or that it is material. He says that the statements of the plaintiff which it is desired to answer "consist for the mosi part of new matter, not yet set forth or alluded to in the prima ,til,t:ic case made by the plaintiff, and not being in reply to anything set up by the defendant," and that the testimony "tends to injure him and prejudice his rights in the present suit." I am of opinion that when the plaintiff closed his rebutting testi. many the defendant did not think that this new matter required any reply or was of importance. Subsequent reflection leads him to fear that, if it is unanswered, it may prejudice his case, but he does not think that it will injure him, or that it is of importance. If the case is opened, and the defendant is allowed to take testimony upon 16 points which are not claimed to be material to the case, I think that the present compact record would become needlessly voluminous, and that needless expense would be imposed upon both parties. The motion is denied.