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On the 15th of July 1885 the court decided that, where the claimant's administrator received his appointment outside of the United States, ancillary administration must be taken out in the District of Columbia, and that the ancillary administrator only could maintain the claim of the decedent and take judgment thereon; and it was also held that a judgment could not be rendered in favor of a guardian.'

The court invariably required the person making a claim for another to show some authority from the latter. In a certain case one James C. Jewett, styling himself administrator of the estate of William Henderson and fifteen other persons, said to be deceased seamen, who had suffered losses on the high seas by the acts of Confederate cruisers, on January 13, 1883, filed an original petition praying judgment for upward of $10,000 for such losses. The time for the filing of claims expired next day. On the 9th of October 1884 he filed a so-called amended petition as administrator, praying judgment on his original petition. His reason for this proceeding seems to have been that in his original petition he nakedly assumed the title of administrator, and that it was not till September 7, 1883, that he was actually invested with an administrator's authority. On these facts counsel for the United States asked for judgment. Counsel for the petitioner resisted the motion on the ground that the authority as administrator when actually obtained related back to the filing of the original petition; and in support of this contention he cited the rulings of the first court and the words of the act of 1882 permitting a petition to be "verified by or in behalf of claimant." The court, speaking through Judge Harlan, reviewed the rulings of the first court, some of which were adverse to the claimant's contention. In the cases of Miguel Ignacio v. United States and Abraham Osborn v. United States the petitions were dismissed for want of authority on the part of the person presenting them.2 In William O. Smith v. United States an administrator appointed in the District of Columbia was permitted to be substituted for a foreign administrator; but in this case it might have been held that the requirements of the statute had been substantially complied with. In the case of "Robert Montgomery v. United States and other cases," referred to by the reporter of the first court as having reversed the previous decisions, there was, said Judge Harlan, no expression coming from the court itself implying that it intended to be so understood. It was probable that the action of the court in the case of Montgomery rested on the "peculiar circumstances" which the reporter referred to but did not disclose. Continuing, Judge Harlan said:

"No doubt that court felt justified, as does this court, in giving a generous construction of the statutes in favor of bona fide claimants. Of this character are the decisions of this court sustaining the right of ships' husbands to verify and file claims of the second class, including war premiums paid for their co-owners, and of factors and commission merchants, embracing war premiums paid for consignees and other customers, and also decisions permitting assignees in bankruptcy to come in by amendment of petitions erroneously verified and filed by the bankrupts, and prosecute the same to final judgment in the name of said assignees, which decisions council for claimant at bar cites in support, as he thinks, of his contention in this case.

1 Manning v. Leighton (Vt.), 26 Atl. 258, 259.
2 Supra, p. 2393.

"In this class of cases, first above mentioned, this court, after elaborate argument of counsel and mature consideration, decided that the general authority conferred upon ships' husbands by their co-owners, and on factors by their customers, to transact this business for them, and to care for and preserve their respective interests in the premises, was sufficient to enable such agent, under the provisions of the statute, to legally verify and file these claims, and that when so verified and filed in due time, the several parties in interest, known in this court as 'beneficiaries,' might subsequently ratify this act of their agent, prove their claims as well as their loyalty, and recover judgments in their own names. It is obvious that the court, in these decisions, adhered to the principle that the authority of the bona fide owner of each claim is necessary to enable his agent to verify and file his claim. The only question decided in those cases, relating to the point raised by counsel in the case at bar, was as to the sufficiency of the testimony establishing the authority of such agents. The court held it to be sufficient.

"The decisions relating to the question as to the right of a bankrupt, or of his assignee in bankruptcy, to appear as a claimant in this court, are anomalous. The question whether or not these claims were a part of a bankrupt's estate, and passed or did not pass to the assignee, had not then been settled by the published opinions of the courts of the United States. The statute was absolutely silent on the subject. The most able and learned counsel at this bar were divided in opinion. Hence many of these claims were brought in the name of the bankrupt, and perhaps as many in the name of the assignee, and some of them by both, as conflicting claimants for the same claim. After listening to the most exhaustive argument of learned counsel pro and con, and after careful and mature consideration, the court came to the conclusion that these claims were property in such a sense as made them a part of a bankrupt's estate, and consequently that they passed under a general assignment to the custody of the assignee for the benefit of creditors. At the date of this decision the six months' time had expired; and therefore all of these claims which had been verified and filed by the bankrupt, if not susceptible of amendment, would have to be dismissed, under the requirements of the statute, as having been voluntarily waived by their owners. But, in fact, there had been no intentional abandonment. Due diligence was manifest. They were the original owners of these claims. They believed themselves to be at the time the legal owners. Their condition resulted from the uncertainty of the law governing the question of title, which at that date had not been declared by any competent court.

"Under these peculiar circumstances' justice clearly demanded that the legal representatives of the bankrupt's estate, of which such claims, under this decision, constituted a part, should be permitted to come forward and ratify the verification and filing by the bankrupt, and prosecute them in their own name to final judgment. The court has permitted this to be done, believing such verification and filing by the bankrupt a more rational satisfaction of every conceivable reason of the statute than by the assignee in bankruptcy. As a notice to the government of the exist ence of the claim, it would be equally satisfactory. The bankrupt, being the original owner of the property destroyed, would presumably have more reliable knowledge as to the verity of the loss and the value of the property than the assignee in bankruptcy; and, up to the date of the assignment, as to indemnity, returns, dividends, set-offs or prior assignments. And as to the question of his own loyalty, he is the only person who could swear or affirm with absolute certainty; and under the decisions of the court, the only person whose loyalty it is necessary to prove in the collection of a bankrupt's claims by an assignee.

"The court will not assume that there were not peculiar circumstances' developed in the case of Robert Montgomery v. The United States, and others, decided by the former court, equally potential and conclusive, justifying a departure from the verbal requirements of the statute, and yet bringing these decisions fully within the reasons of the law, as interpreted and applied by this court. But if this were not so, and it could be shown that this decision of the former court was in complete accord with the contention of the complainant's counsel, entertaining the greatest respect for

the legal learning and judicial acumen of its several members, this court does not see its way clear to follow such a precedent in deciding the case at bar.

"Regarding this statute as being beneficent in character, and intended by Congress to be construed generously in the interest of claimants, this court had given a liberal application to the principle of law requiring authority derived from the owner of a claim to commence a suit by another in his behalf; recognizing the legality of the verification and filing in all cases in which such authority could be reasonably presumed, although not formally bestowed, provided that any existing doubt should be removed by subsequent ratification; as when verified and filed by a ship's husband in behalf of his co-owners; by a factor in behalf of his consignees and other customers; by a partner in behalf of other members of the firm; by a son in behalf of his father; by a wife in behalf of her husband; or by an intimate friend in behalf of his comrade.

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"But in judicial proceedings the most generous and liberal construction should have a reasonable limit. And in the case under consideration the person who verified and filed the petition was at the time totally destitute of authority derived from the owners of these claims, either expressly given or derived from his personal relations with them during their lifetime. He had never been their agent or attorney. The nearest approach to such relation was his alleged employment in 1877 by their attorney, one Edgar F. Brown, to assist him in preparing sailors' claims, which may have included the claims of these parties; which employment was, of course, terminated by Brown's death, which occurred soon thereafter. does not appear that Jewett was at the time, or ever had been, associated with any one of them in business of any character, or that he was a kinsman or intimate friend, or that he had seen any one of them since 1877, or that he knew any one of them personally, or that he had any special knowledge of their identity and of the verity of their several claims, except that derived from memoranda on loose sheets of paper found, as he alleges, in Mr. Brown's office after his death and transferred to him-by whom it is not revealed-and used by him in preparing this petition. Hence, if these parties had been living, his authority derived from them to verify and file this petition in their behalf would have been a naked assumption, without legal sanction or the least moral support; and as they were all dead at the time, and he had not been appointed administrator of their estates, he was equally destitute of authority derived from a competent court; and as it does not appear that any one of these persons left families or kindred or creditors in this country or elsewhere to be benefited by a judgment in his favor, this court does not feel impelled to give extraordinary latitude to the phraseology of the statute and the universally recognized principles of law, which can not be demanded in the interest of justice.

It was held by the first court that delay in the reTime of Filing Claims. ception of a petition caused by an accident to the United States mails should not be imputed to the claimant. In a case before the second court a petition was deposited in the mails at Glasgow, Scotland, January 2, 1883, addressed to an attorney at New York, by whom it was transmitted to Washington on January 17. It was deposited in the office of the clerk of the court on January 20. The time for filing claims under the act of 1882 expired January 14, 1883. It was held that the petition could not be received. The court said that in the case under the act of 1874 the petition was deposited in the United States mail, addressed to the clerk of the court, in ample season to have reached its destination within the prescribed time in the ordinary course of the mails. It was therefore in a sense in the custody of the government. In the case under consideration the petition was committed to a foreign mail, and was not addressed to the clerk or to any other officer of the court;

1 Geohegan v. United States, No. 1380.

and there was, the court added, "some uncertainty, to say the least, whether in due course of mail this petition, posted at Glasgow, January 2, would be delivered in Washington by 12 m. on the 14th.”1

July 24, 1885, the court made an order directing Case of Disbarment. Jerome F. Manning, one of the attorneys admitted to practice before it, to show cause at 10 o'clock the next morning why his name should not be stricken from the rolls. The ground of this action, as stated in the order, was that Manning, "being uninvited and refused admittance to its consultation room, July 23, 1885, then occupied by the court sitting in chambers engaged in the transaction of its official duties, nevertheless forced his way into said room, and interrupted the court in the prosecution of its official work by unseemly threats, then and there uttered against one of the judges thereof because of an official opinion delivered from the bench in open court by said judge as the organ of the court in the announcement of a decision in a case pending before it." On July 25, after the order had been read in open court, Mauning made a statement disclaiming any intention of interrupting or insulting the court, and asked for a postponement of the hearing till the 27th. The court declined to postpone the hearing beyond 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th, when Manning appeared with counsel, who read and filed affidavits and addressed the court in his defense. On the 29th of July the court, after signing a statement as to what took place on the 23d, made an order prohibiting Manning from exercising the functions of an attorney or counselor before it, and authorized the clerk "to substitute the name of any attorney of this court in place of said Jerome F. Manning in any case, upon the receipt of the request in writing from the claimant therein, or from his legal representatives to that effect." In the following autumn a motion was made for Manning's restoration. The court replied that after his disbarment he had embodied in a circular to his clients and in an article published in the Lowell (Mass.) Courier of August 1, 1885, a copy of which was received through the mails by each member of the court, statements which the court described as grossly abusive" and "in contempt of its authority;" and the court refused to rescind its order except on condition that Manning retract his charges on oath and apologize for them, which he refused to do.

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By the act of 1882 the Secretary of State was required, after receiving the list of the court's judgments, to transmit a certified copy of it to the Secretary of the Treasury, in order that they might be paid; but owing to the impossibility of making such a copy at once the original list was provisionally sent to the Treasury, in order that the claimants might not be subjected to any delay. While the matter stood thus Manning filed in the supreme court of the district of Columbia a petition for a writ of mandamus, in which he stated that the judges of the Alabama Claims Court had unlawfully caused his name to be erased from the "true and correct list" of judgments, and prayed that the Secretary of State might be

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2 The act of June 3, 1884 (23 Stats. at L. 33), requiring the court to report a list of judgments of the first class, expressly authorized the Secretary of State to transmit "the same, or a copy thereof," to the Secretary of the Treasury.

directed to recall the false and misleading record and furnish a true and correct one. Nothing came of this proceeding. Manning also brought suit for damages against Judge French in the courts of Massachusetts; but he failed to recover, it being held that the Alabama Claims Court possessed, under the statutes by which it was created, power to make rules for the admission of attorneys to practice before it, and to deprive such attorneys of the privilege of continuing such practice, and that the proceedings against Manning were not in the nature of a proceeding for contempt.3

Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Garland, At. Gen., October 14, 1886, MSS. Dept. of State.

The petition for the writ was filed October 11, 1886, and on November 22 an amended petition was filed. January 7, 1887, Merrick, C. J., directed a decree for the respondent. A motion was made for a rehearing, but on January 14 the petition was dismissed with costs. An appeal bond was filed, but the matter does not appear to have been carried further. No mandate was ever filed. (Mr. Young, clerk of the court, to Mr. Moore, February 8, 1897, MS.)

3 Manning v. French, 149 Mass. 391, 21 N. E. 945. A person named Charles 0. Osborn, who had been designated by the court as an expert witness to examine the books and records of sundry insurance companies and individual insurers, was disqualified by the court, and his orders of employment were revoked, upon the discovery that he had addressed a letter to an ex member of Congress offering him a sum of money for his influence to obtain a consular position under the Government of the United States. The Secretary of State possessed no power to review the judgments of the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims. (Mr. Porter, Assistant Secretary, to Mr. Steever, April 16, 1885, MS.)

The Department of State declined to advise the President to recommend to Congress the revision of the judgment of the court in respect of the claims of certain members of Lloyds. (Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Sir Lionel West, August 17, 1886, MS. Notes to the British Legation.)

5627-VOL. 5- -19

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