The Missing Court of Claims Report: Is Letitia Humphreys Court of Claims Report 42?

Between the years 1855 and 1863, the opinions or breportsQ of the United States Court of Claims were delivered to the House of Representatives for final consideration. In total, 296 cases were conveyed, but in the process, Report 42 was lost and, according to indexes of such documents, bnever received by [the] House.Q This article cites examined records of the Court of Claims, from both the United States Congressional Serial Set and original documents now in the National Archives, which support the contention that there was a completed opinion for Court of Claims Report 42 that was lost sometime during its transfer between the Court and the House. This 150-year-old case – Letitia Humphreys, Administratrix of Andrew Atkinson – was one in a long list of judicial proceedings, involving over 100 claimants, that resulted from the 1812 invasion of Florida by the United States, and that concerned the payment of interest to those compensated under the last clause of the ninth article of the 1819 Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits, Between the United States of America and His Catholic Majesty. These Florida petitions were examples of early claims actions against the federal government, in many cases after decades of inaction. D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0740-624X/$ see front matter D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2006.03.003 4 Corresponding author. Fax: +1 402 472 5131. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C.D. Bernholz)8 [email protected] (W.R. Ellis). 1 Fax: +1 202 219 6273. Government Information Quarterly 23 (2006) 309–324 The Court of Claims was created in 1855 and was formed in response to the ever-growing number of claim petitions that demanded far more attention than Congress could afford. Initially, claims following Independence were handled by the Treasury Department, as authorized by Congress, and distinctive administrative groups handled special claims cases like those following the War of 1812. This process led to a larger participation by Congress itself, with the creation of claims committees that assured some insulation from the constitutional questions that plagued such claims. Specifically, there were concerns that allocating claim petitions to a forum other than to Congress would violate the First Amendment right that citizens may bpetition the government for a redress of grievance.Q Further, Article I, § 9 of the Constitution required that bno money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law,Q and so Congressional supervision of claims payments was considered appropriate. However, the burden grew over time. Congress became progressively more concerned that b[n]o counsel appeared to watch and defend the interest of the Government,Q and that, with their own propensity to find it bmore convenient and more safe not to act at all upon those claims which called for much investigation, especially when the amounts involved seemed large,Q petitions carried on for years, sliding from one Congress and one standing committee to the next. The creation of the Court of Claims in 1855 addressed some of these issues. Of particular interest within this jurisdiction are the early, carry-over cases that populated the Court’s calendar. There was an immediate opportunity to respond to these petitions. The main case opinions for these first 295 proceedings were published in House of Representatives Court of Claims volumes as part of the communications between the Court and Congress. The United States Congressional Serial Set holds these cases in a suite of eighteen volumes, with the cases sequentially numbered. Further, it is worthy to note the development of reports sent to the Senate that paralleled the action of the Court and its communications with the House. The Senate Report Committee of Claims, to which was referred bAn Act making appropriations for the payment of certain claims,Q together with opinions of the Court of Claims in the cases of Samuel P. Todd, John Shaw, and Isaac Beaugrand was used to convey the Court’s findings for the three initial Court of Claims cases, Samuel P. Todd, Isadore D. Beaugrand, and John Shaw. As an indication of the delay that some of these petitions endured, Todd concerned interest on money due since the period 1812 to 1815. The Court concluded that only the original amount was due Todd, without interest, although binterest may be added if Congress should see fit to allow it.Q Beaugrand was a case involving an Ohio volunteer in the war with Mexico who petitioned for, and won a judgment, of $162.81 plus interest. Shaw requested $1000, and interest, for serving as an interpreter to translate Winnebago into French and English during the 1828 trial of nine Indians charged with murder. The principal was awarded, but interest was not. One of the ways to locate these early cases is to examine checklists or indexes that focus upon documents of that era, but it appears that there is one Court of Claims Report that is missing. The Tables of and Annotated Index to the Congressional Series of United States C.D. Bernholz, W.R. Ellis Jr. / Government Information Quarterly 23 (2006) 309–324 310