Ball v. Halsell

Citations

• 161 U.S. 72
• 16 S. Ct. 554
• 40 L. Ed. 622
• 1896 U.S. LEXIS 2139

Syllabus

<p>By the act of February 26,' 1853, c. 81, § 1, (Rev. Stat. § 3477,) every specific assignment, in whatever form, of 'any claim against the United States, under a statute or treaty, whether to be presented to one of the executive departments, or to be prosecuted in the Court of Claims, is void, unless assented to by the United States.</p> <p>A contract, by which the owner of a claim against the United States for Indian depredations appointed an attorney to receive and give acquittances for one half of the money which the attorney might recover of the United States upon that claim, will not, although the attorney has obtained from the Secretary of the Interior a recommendation for the payment of a certain sum upon that claim, but for the payment of which Congress has made no appropriation, support an action by the attorney against the principal for part of a iess sum recovered upon that claim from the United States in the Court of Claims under the subsequent act of March 3, 1891, c. 358, out of which the attorney has been allowed and paid less than twenty per cent of that sum, as provided by that act.</p>