Grossmayer v. United States

Citations

• 7 Ct. Cl. 129

Syllabus

<p>On the defendants’ Appeal.</p> <p>A creditor residing in the District of Columbia during the rebellion, directs Ms debtor, residing in Georgia, to invest the debt in cotton and keep it for him till the rebellion shall be suppressed. The debtor makes the purchase in good faith, turns the cotton over to another to be held for the creditor, and after the war settles his account with the creditor and receives back his notes canceled. The third person holds the cotton until the capture of Savannah, and then reports it as the property of the creditor. The creditor brings, his action under the Abandoned or captured property act. In the Court of Claims the point now considered is not pressed. Judgment for the claimant. The defendants appeal.</p> <p>I. Where a creditor, residing in the Distrietof Columbiaduringtherebellion, sends across the lines to his debtor in Georgia directions to invest the debt in cotton and hold it till the close of the war, the transaction is unlawful, and no title is acquired and no property passes; nor can the creditor maintain an action under the Abandoned or captured property act to recover the proceeds of the cotton.</p> <p>II. A resident in the territory of one of two belligerents may have an agent, in the territory of the other to whom his debtor can pay his debt in money, or deliver property in discharge of it; but the agency must have been created before the war began. It is unlawful to appoint an agent after hostilities have been commenced; and it is not necessary, to make the act unlawful, that the principal communicate personally with the. agent; business intercourse through a middle-man, which results in establishing the agency, is equally unlawful.</p> <p>III. Where commercial intercourse during the rebellion was unlawful between a creditor in a loyal and a debtor in an insurrectionary State, the transaction growing out of such intercourse cannot be made better by ratification after the war, but must be held illegal and void.</p>