BODEMULLER
V.
UNITED
437
not affected by implication, save in those general statutes regulating pro· cedure which do not divest the public of any right, and do not violate any principle of public policy. The demurrer is overruled.
BODEMULLER (District Court, 1.
UNITED STATES. January, 1889.)
w:
D. Louisiana.
OI,AIMS AGAINST UNITED STATES-FREl'iCH SPOLIATION-To WHOM ACTIOl'l ACCRUES.
A claim of a citizen of France against the United States for cotton taken during the civil war was. under a treaty between the two nations, submitted to a commission for adjudication, by his widow and administratrix. The commission found and reported the sum due, but withheld one-sixth of the amoun1 for the reason that one of the three heirs of the claimant was an American citizen, whereupon the heir .sued the United States for her portion so with· held. lIeld, that plaintiff had no cause of action, as, if any existed, it accrued to the administratrix. The cause of action for such demand is not against the French government, as it received no money under the award for plaintiff's benefit.
2. SAME-'VItEN FREl'iCH GOVERNMEl'iT NOT LIABLE.
3.
SAlIm-JURISDICTIO:'iI OF DISTRICT COURT.
After the commission had passed upon the claim it was no longer a "war claim," and the district court has jurisdiction of an action for its recovery. The award does not render the plaintiff's demand reB adjudicata, as her cause of action was never submitted to the commission,
4.
SAME-AwARD OF COMMISSION-RES ADJUDICATA.
At Law. Action by Rosalie E. Bodemiiller against the United States. for money alleged to be due her as one of the heirs of her father's succession. Alex. Porter Morse, Henry L. Garkmd, L. Dupre, and George A. King, for plaintiff. M. S. Jones, Dist. Atty BOARMAN 1 J. This case was submitted in pursuance of the ad March 3,1888, which provides for suits against the government in certain cases. The facts show as follows: .Tean Prevot, at the time of his death in Louisiana, was a French citizen. He left a widow, born in France, and three children, born in Louisiana. When he died he had a claim against the United States for $4,695.94. In 1884, the widow, Teressa Prevot. was appointed in the probate court ()f Louisiana. and qualified as administratrix of the deceased husband's succession. Among the property of the deceased waR inventoried the claim of $4,695.94 against the government. The administratrix successfully prosecuted said claim before the French-American commission, which was provided for in a treaty made in 1880 between the United States and the French republic. That commission, composed as it was of one citizen of France, one of Brazil, and one of the United States, in passing upon said claim, made the following award:
438
FEDERAL REPORTER,
vol. 39.
"We allow the claim at the sum of $2,020.94. Mrs. Bodemiiller's husband a:ppears to have beennatnralized, to have voted, and held office, and we think was an American citizen. As her nationality follows that of her husband. we have deducted one-sixth of the sum otherwise allowed. leaving $2,020.94. allowed as above; the $2.020.94 bearing interest at 5 per cent. from May 1. 1863. Signed," etc. Mrs. Bodemuller, plaintiff in this suit, is now a widow, and is one of the three children of the deceased Jean Pre"t"ot. Her husband, at the time of the award, was a naturalized citizen of the United States. Jean Prevot's claim was for cotton taken from him during the war. On his claim of $4.,695.94 the sum of $2,425.15 was allowed as due him by the governmenL From this sum $404.18-one-sixth of the whole amount allow.ed by the commission-was deducted, because, as the commission said, one ofthe three heirs of Jean Prevot-the plaintiff, Mrs. BodemUller-had. married a citizen of the United States. The sum, $2,020, which was left after .saiddeduction, was paid to the administratrix. Neither of the parents of the plaintiff herein were' naturalized citizens. On this statement of facts the government denies the jurisdiction of the court, on the. follqwing grounds: (1) Because plaintiff now sues on a claim growing out of the late civil war,-the claim being one known as a "war claim j" (2) because the claim sued on has been rejected by a commission paving jurisdiction to hear and finally determine such claimsj (3) because the actIon of the plaintiff, if she has any action, is against the French government. 7'he claim successfully prosecuted by the administratrix for Prevot's succession, was, before it was liquidated and allowed by the commission, a" war claimj" but it is by no means. olear that the cause of action now presented. by .the plaintiff is inherent in a war claim, Historically it may be said to qa'le grown out of such a claim, but proximately her de'mand will be sustained· or denied in accordance with the view the court may have as to the action and jurisdictional power of the commission in deducting one-sixth of the amount allowed the succession in this award pereinstated, because the plaintiff, Mrs. BodemUller, one of the heirs to the succession, was not, because of her marriage to a naturalized citizen, .entitled to her share of the amount found to be due by the government to said. succession .. This suggestion as to the cause of action shown in plaintiff's petitibn is supported by the fact that the court in disposing of her suit on its merits Will not be called on under any decision it may rtiake to hear evidence of any kind' touching the origin, right, or value of the claim or debt which the government incurred in favor of the French llP citizen, J Prevot, by taking his cotton duringthe war. The cause of action, as shown by the petition, grows out of, or is inherent in, the fact established by the finding ofthe commission, that defendant wrongfully withholds from this plairitiff a sum of money awarded to the succession of herdeceased 'father. The claim, so long as it remained in an unliq.uidated condition, was it "war claim," growing out of the war; but the obligation now sought to be judicially enforced against the government is for a sum of money the recovery of which cannot be said to depend in
BODEMULI,ER tI. UNITED STATES. ,"j
4-39
any way on the validity or invalidity of a" war claim." The creditor in whose favor the obligation wal;; incurred by the if at all, in this suit because oLthe unauthorized acts of the commission who liquidated Prevot's claim, in causing the government, against whom their award was made iri fin'or of Prevot's succession, to withhOld 'a part of the award. The power of the commission in deducting the sum which in their opinion belonged to Mrs. Bodemiiller as one of the three heirs of the deceased was of the highest judicial kind. Granting that congress did not exceed its constitutional power in vesting the cotnrnissiori, composed as it was of two subjects of foreign governments, with such judicial power as would authorize it to interpret and give judicial effect to the domestic or probate laws of Louisiana in the distribution of money paid or to be paid to Prevot's succession, it does not appear that the plaintiff in this suit ever submitted her cause of action upon which she now makes her demand. It cannot be said that plaintiff in her capacity as one of the three heirs to her father's succession was so represented by the administratrix as to make the commission's award, and the unwarranted deduction made by it on the sum allowed to the succession, res adjudicata as to her. The cause of action set up in this suit, in whomsoever it may prove to be, is not against the French repnblic, to whom it is not shown that any money was paid by the United States for the plaintiff herein. Having overruled the exceptions to the jurisdiction, as well as the exceptions of a peremptory kind filed by the rlefendant, the court, in its own observation, finds, in considering the merits of the suit, an objection to the right of Mrs. Bodemiiller, the plaintiff herein, to recover the amount or any sum now withheld by the government in pursuance of the commission's award. This objection, though it does not come in the way of a peremptory exception, must be considered. It is in the fact that the debt incurred by the government in favor of the French citizen Prevot became at his death an asset of the succession which could be administered by, or paid only to, the administratrix of Prevot'ssuccession, under the laws of Louisiana. The commission, under the treaty, had ample powers to hear and determine the claim made before it by the succession. It had ample powers to make the award in favor of or against the succession. But, conceding to the commission, under the treaty, judicial powers commensurate with those vested by congress in the circuit courts of the United States, it does not follow the commission did have or would have jurisdictional power to withhold from the succession of Jean Prevot the full amount due by the government at the time of his death. If the circuit court had been employed in judicially determining the cause of action presented by the administratrix to the commission, it could not, uuder the pleadings and issues tendered in that, case, have given judgment against the government for a sum less than the amount due to the succession; and no partof it could have been withheld from· the succession on the ground that one of theheire to the succession had married a naturalized citizen. The in
440
her suitbef'ore the' commission, recovered for the benefit of the succes· sion,to which the whole sum allowed in the award was due. If thE governrnEmt now withholds any part of the sum declared by the com· missi911 to be due to the succession, that sum, whatever it is, may bE now recoverable by the succession. The cause of action for its recovery, if there is any such cause, in the absence of any pleading or proof showing the right of plaintiff, an heir to the said succession, to bring this suil for herself under the succession laws of Louisiana, still remains in the administratrix of the succession. It does not appear that the plaintiff, as the case is now presented, has in herself any cause of action against the defendant. The suit, for the reason stated, will be dismissed.
TAYWR MANUF'G
Co. v.
HATCHER MANUF'G TAYWR MANUF'G
Co. Co.
HATCHER MANUF'G
(Oircuit Court, S. D. Georgi(/" W. D.
March 28,1889.)
l.
DAMAGES-MEASURE OF, FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT-ExPENSES AND PROFITS.
When there have been part performance, and expenditures properly made by one of the parties to a contract, which is broken by the fault of the other party, the party performing may reCQver his reasonable expenditures. He may also recover the profits of the contract, if he proves that di'rect, as distinguished from speculative, profits would have been realized.· If the expenditures of the party not at fault are unreasonable, it is the duty of the opposite party to show it. Profits remote and speculative. and incapable of clear and direct proof, cannot be recovered; but when they are the direct and immediate fruits of the cOntract, they may be. They areihen part and parcel of the contract itself, entering into and constituting a portion of its very elements. Citing leading American case, "Yasierlon v. Mayor, 7 Hill, 69.
2.
SAME-DIRECT AND SPECULATIVE PROFITS.
SAME.
The leading English case announces the rule .fiUS: "Wn;:,re two parties have made a .contract which one of them has broken, the damages which the, other patty ought to receive in respect of such breach of contract should be snoh as may fairly and reasonably be considered, either arising naturally, i. e., according to the usual course of things, from such breach of contract it· self, or such as may reasonably be snpposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties at the time they made the contract as the probable result of the breach of it." Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Exch. 341--353.
SAME-CONTINGENT DAMAGES.
Damages which are the legal and natural result of the I10ct done, though to some extent contingent, are not too remote to be recovered. Code Ga. § 13073.
5.
Where, by the action of the party at fault, the profits of a contract have been prevented" all recovery therefor will not be dE1feated because exact and absolute pr,oof is unattainable; and, in view of the tortious refusal of the party at .fault to perform its contract. the party injured is permitted to show tbe particular facts which have transpired, and the entire transaction upon .which the claim and expectation of profits is founded, in order to prove with reasonable certainty what the profits would have been.