McKee v. United States
United States Court of Claims
The Reporters’ statement Of the'ease: The following are the facts found by the court upon which the final argument in the case was heard : I; In the year 1864, Brigadier-General John M. Thayer was in command of the District of the Frontier, Department of Arkansas, with headquarters at Fort Smith, and Greene Durbin, captain and assistant quartermaster, was chief quartermaster of said district; which district was in the Indian Territory, south of Kansas and west of Arkansas.
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The Reporters’ statement Of the'ease: The following are the facts found by the court upon which the final argument in the case was heard : I; In the year 1864, Brigadier-General John M. Thayer was in command of the District of the Frontier, Department of Arkansas, with headquarters at Fort Smith, and Greene Durbin, captain and assistant quartermaster, was chief quartermaster of said district; which district was in the Indian Territory, south of Kansas and west of Arkansas. II. During the spring, summer, and fall of 1864, owing to the low stage of water in the Arkansas River, it was…
1DissentRichardson, J.
I concur in tbe dissenting opinion of the chief-justice; and as to the right of the United States to recover back money paid in mistake of law by the executive officers of the Government, my views are these:
The general rule recognized in this country and in England, as between individuals, although not without exceptions, is that money paid in mistake of law, when all the facts are known to the parties, and there is no fraud, cannot be recovered back by action. This rule is founded on the maxim of the civil law, "ignorantio legis neminem exousat,” which, in its application to the…
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