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Mr. Enoch Totten for McKnight.

Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Smith for the United States.

MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE delivered the opinion of the court.

These are cross-appeals in the same case. The sum of $30,675.68 was awarded by the proper accounting officers to McKnight & Richardson, as assignees of Simeon Hart, a government contractor, for furnishing army supplies. The assignment was made by parol, and the delivery to the assignees of a receipt signed by Hart, with a blank for the amount that might be paid by the United States, to be filled in accordingly. Upon the allowance of the claim as stated a treasury warrant was issued to McKnight & Richardson for $21,675.68. The remaining $9,000 was retained in the treasury "on account of a debt due the United States from Simeon Hart, as surety on a bond given by Lieut.-Col. Jno. B. Grayson, Com. of Subs., to await the final settlement of said Grayson's accounts." This reservation of the $9,000 was made by order of the Second Comptroller and the Secretary of the Treasury. McKnight & Richardson sued in the Court of Claims to recover this sum. The United States thereupon set up a counter-claim, and insisted upon their right to recover back the $21,675.68 which had been paid already to the petitioners.

The Court of Claims adjudged against both parties, and both appealed to this court.

Accord

The claim of the United States cannot be sustained. ing to the settled usages and practice of the department, the evidence in the record was sufficient to warrant the allowance of the amount found due to Hart. Lieut.-Col. Grayson, as a commissary of subsistence, was charged with the duty of receiving and inspecting the articles delivered, and of certifying the quantities and the prices to be paid. The voucher which he gave is explicit upon these points, and presupposes full knowledge on his part of what is set forth. His fidelity in the discharge of this duty was secured by his honor as a soldier, his commission, and his bond. It does not appear that any fraud was ever suspected, or that there is the slightest ground for such an imputation. It is true the assignment was contrary to law, and therefore a nullity, but there was nothing contrary

to good morals or conscience in the payment or receipt of the money. The facts were all known. There was no indirection, concealment, or improper purpose on either side. Although the petitioners had no claim against the United States, they had a valid claim against Hart. The money was received in payment of his debt, and discharged it to that extent. He is estopped by his receipt from setting up any claim against the government. It does not appear that he has ever complained. Under the circumstances, it is quite clear that if the controversy were between private parties, there could be no recovery. 1 Story, Contracts, sect. 541.

With a few exceptions, growing out of considerations of public policy, the rules of law which apply to the government and to individuals are the same. There is not one law for the former and another for the latter.

There are also fatal objections to the case of the petitioners. The assignment, as we have already said, was wholly void. Spofford v. Kirk, 97 U. S. 484. It conferred no right that the United States was bound to regard. The payment of a part was not a waiver of this objection as to the residue. An agreement to that effect, express or implied, looking to the future, would have been without validity. There could have been no consideration for it, and no one had authority to make it. The statute is conclusive upon the subject. In the view of the law, the claim is as if the facts of which it is predicated

were not.

It was also competent for the United States to set off the amount due to Hart under his contract, so far as was necessary to meet his liability as surety on the bond of Grayson, and the Court of Claims was bound to adjudge accordingly. Rev. Stat. 1059; Gratiot v. United States, 15 Pet. 336.

Judgment affirmed.

STEWART v. SONNEBORN.

1. To sustain an action for malicious prosecution, the failure of the proceedings against the plaintiff must be averred and proved; but such failure is not evidence of the defendant's malice or want of probable cause in instituting them.

2. Malice, the existence of which is a question exclusively for the jury, and want of probable cause must both concur to entitle the plaintiff to recover; and although the jury may infer malice from the want of probable cause, proof even of express malice will not justify the inference that probable cause did not exist.

3. The question as to what amounts to probable cause is one of law in a very important sense. It is, therefore, generally the duty of the court, when evidence has been given to prove or disprove the existence of probable cause, to submit to the jury its credibility, and what facts it proves, with instructions that the facts found amount to proof of probable cause, or that they do not.

4. A seeming exception to this rule may grow out of the nature of the evidence, as when the defendant's belief of the facts which are relied on by the plaintiff to prove want of probable cause is a question involved. What that belief was is always a question for the jury.

5. In an action by A. to recover damages for the alleged wrongful and malicious institution of proceedings in bankruptcy against him, by B. & Co., the defendants asked the court to charge, that if the jury believed from the evidence that they, in prosecuting an action of debt against him, had acted on the advice of counsel, and upon such advice had an honest belief in the validity of the debt sued for and of their right to recover it; and in the institution of the bankruptcy proceedings had acted likewise on such advice, and under an honest belief that they were taking and using only such remedies as the law provided for the collection of what they believed to be a bona fide debt, they having first given a full statement of the facts of the case to counsel, then there was not such malice in the wrongful use of legal proceedings by them as would entitle A. to recover. The court declined so to charge. Held, 1. That the instruction should have been given. 2. That the facts therein stated constituted in law a probable cause, and being such, the existence of malice, if such there was, would not entitle the plaintiff to recover.

& The jury, if they find for the plaintiff, cannot, in estimating his damages, consider the fees of counsel in prosecuting the suit.

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Middle District of Alabama.

This was an action brought by Meyer Sonneborn, the plaintiff below, against A. T. Stewart & Co., to recover damages for an alleged wrongful and malicious institution of proceedings in bankruptcy against him. The record shows that in the years 1865 and 1866 Sonneborn was a member of the firm of

E. Leipzeiger & Co., in New York, and that while he was thus a member the firm bought goods on credit from A. T. Stewart & Co. Some time in 1866 he withdrew from the firm; but no notice of his withdrawal was published, and the firm continued business in its old name without any apparent change. In the spring of 1867 the defendants sold other goods on credit to E. Leipzeiger & Co., as they allege, without any notice that Sonneborn had previously withdrawn from the firm. On the other hand, he alleges that he did give personal notice of his withdrawal to one of the clerks in the defendants' store before the purchases of 1867 were made. No payment for these latter purchases having been made, the defendants in 1869 sued the plaintiff to recover the debt in the Circuit Court for Barbour County, Alabama, and after trial a verdict and judgment were given against them. This was at the August Term, 1871. From the verdict and judgment the defendants prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, where the judgment was reversed and a new trial was ordered. On the 12th of May, 1873, before the case came on for a second trial, one Jonas Sonneborn, a brother of the plaintiff, brought suit against him in the Eufaula city court, and one month afterwards recovered a judgment by default for $6,944.43 (the present plaintiff having made no resistance), and thereupon an execution was issued and levied. This proceeding having come to the notice of A. T. Stewart & Co. (and they having been advised by legal counsel that an act of bankruptcy had thereby been committed by Sonneborn), on the 15th of August, 1873, they filed their petition in the District Court, praying that he might be declared a bankrupt, and that a warrant might issue to take possession of his estate. They represented themselves to be creditors for the sales made to E. Leipzeiger & Co. in 1867, of which firm they averred Sonneborn was a member; and the act of bankruptcy alleged was that on the 12th of June, 1873, he suffered and permitted a judgment to be recovered against him by default in favor of Jonas Sonneborn, in the city court of Eufaula, upon which an execution had issued, whereon a levy had been made. Upon this petition a rule to show cause, &c., was awarded, an injunction issued, and a warrant for provisional seizure granted, which on the 19th

of August, 1873, was executed. Such was the situation when the case of the defendants against the plaintiff came on for the second trial in the Barbour County Circuit Court. The result of that trial in November, 1873, was a judgment for Sonneborn, which was subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State at its June Term, 1874. It thus having been determined that the defendants were not creditors of Sonneborn, the proceedings in bankruptcy were dismissed and the present suit was brought, alleging that they had been prosecuted maliciously and without probable cause.

There was a verdict for the plaintiff for $21,000 and costs; and judgment having been entered thereon, Stewart & Co. sued out this writ of error. So much of the charge of the court below as was excepted to by the defendants, and also the instructions requested by them and refused, are set forth in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Roscoe Conkling for the plaintiffs in error.

This action cannot be maintained without averring and proving malice. Benson & Co. v. McCoy, 36 Ala. 710; McKellar v. Couch, 34 id. 336; McLaren, Ragan, & Co. v. Bradford, 26 id. 616; Lindsay v. Larned, 17 Mass. 191; McCul lough v. Grishobber, 4 Watts & Serg. (Pa) 201; Stone v. Swift, 4 Pick. (Mass.) 389; Garrard v. Willett, 4 J. J. Marsk. (Ky.) 630; White v. Dingley, 4 Mass. 433; Turner v. Walker, 3 Gill & Johns. (Md.) 377; Morris v. Corson, 7 Cow. (N. Y.) 281; Ives v. Bartholomew, 9 Conn. 309; Marshall v. Betner, 17 Ala. 832; Tatum v. Morris, 19 id. 302; Vandryen v. Linderman, 10 Johns. (N. Y.) 106; De Medina v. Grove, 10 Ad. & Ell. N. s. 152; Churchill v. Liggers, 3 Ell. & Bl. 937; Olinger v. McChesney, 9 Leigh (Va.), 660.

The mere wrongful resort to legal process affords no ground of action. It is damnum absque injuria, the costs being cast upon the unsuccessful party, "as a satisfaction to the defendant for the inconvenience of being held to defend a groundless suit." McKellar v. Couch, supra.

The misuse of legal process must have been both wrongful and malicious; but the whole charge of the court ignores the essential requisite of proof of malice, while those particular portions of it to which exception was taken assert Sonneborn's

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