Dollar S. S. Line v. United States

The Dollar Steamship Line brought an action under the “Tucker Act” (28 USCA § 41, cl. 20), against the United States to recover $5,043.81. The case was tried upon admitted and stipulated facts, and a judgment was rendered in favor of the United States. From the judgment, plaintiff appeals.

According to the undisputed facts, the Dollar Steamship Line transported the United States mail from ports in the United States (New York City and Jacksonville, Fla., via Havana) to the Canal Zone. Manifests were made up by the postmasters showing the kinds and weights of mails transported on the President ships during December, 1925, and January, 1926, and payment was asked by the Steamship Company, upon the basis that the mails so transported to the Canal ’ Zone' were foreign mails. Shortly before this, the Comptroller General of the United States had held that where post offices are established to serve United States forces in foreign ports, such offices are to be classed as “domestic offices” and that, therefore, such mails are to be considered domestic mails. The accounts submitted for December, 1925, and January, 1926, in so far as they covered mail carried to the United States forces on…