Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Tuolumne Gold Dredging Corp.

Courts administer justice, not alms. As has so often happened in recent years both in international and intranational affairs, the United States is here being asked to pay for the misadventure or the improvidence of others.

Fortunately, however, we have a Supreme Court that is steadily moving away from this eleemosynary philosophy of government. In Federal Crop Insurance Corporation v. Merrill, 1947, 332 U.S. 380, 383-384 , 68 S.Ct. 1, 3 , 92 L.Ed. 10 , the Court said:

It is in this legal climate, then, that the instant controversy must be resolved.

1. The Agreed Statement of Facts

This is a civil action brought by the plaintiff to foreclose an indenture and chattel mortgage, for a money judgment, for an accounting, for a sale, and for an injunction. The defendant Walter W. Johnson Company, hereinafter referred to as Johnson, has filed a counterclaim, consisting of five “causes of counterclaim”. According to the counterclaim itself, as filed on June 30, 1950, it is directed solely against the plaintiff. The Agreed Statement of Facts, however, recites that Johnson’s counterclaim is “against plaintiff and against defendant Tuolumne Gold Dredging Corporation”, hereinafter…