United States v. North American Transportation & Trading Co.

Background

A private mining company owned a placer claim near Nome, Alaska, and lost physical control when an Army officer occupied a large tract as a site for an army post in mid‑1900. The President reserved the tract for military use on December 8, 1900, and the Secretary of War announced it as a public reservation on December 20, 1900. Buildings were put on the portion that had been the company’s claim, and the company could not operate the mine afterward. The Court of Claims found the taking occurred on December 8, 1900, valued the claim at $23,800, and the company also sought nearly twenty years of compensation for use and occupation.

Reasoning

The Court addressed when the Government’s legal taking occurred and whether extra payments for the years of occupation could be recovered. It held that an officer’s early, unauthorized seizure did not bind the Government until the reservation and later official acts made the appropriation effective, so the legal taking date was December 8, 1900. That date kept the suit within the six‑year limit. The Court also explained that recovery in the Court of Claims rests on an implied promise to pay the property’s value at the taking, and Congress has barred that court from awarding interest or similar payments unless a contract expressly provides for interest. The company’s claim for use and occupation was essentially interest and therefore not recoverable in this suit.

Real world impact

Owners whose land is seized for federal military use can recover the property’s value as of the official taking date, but cannot collect interest or separate monetary awards for the intervening years in the Court of Claims absent an express agreement or applicable statute. Unauthorized early seizures by local officers do not themselves create government liability until authorized or ratified by proper officials.