Brown v. United States, 113 U.S. 568 (1885), was an appeal from the Court of Claims regarding one James Brown, the intestate of the appellant, who was a boatswain in the United States Navy. The petition in this case was filed against the United States by the administratrix of his estate in the Court of Claims to recover a balance of pay which she alleged was due to Brown at his death.
The Court of Claims found the following facts:
The decedent Brown, was appointed a boatswain in the US Navy, January 4, 1862. On October 22, 1872, the Naval Retiring Board, before which he had been ordered by the Secretary of the Navy under the provisions of § 23 of the Act of August 3, 1861, 12 Stat. 291, reported that he was incapacitated from performing the duties of his office, and that there was no evidence that such incapacity was the result of any incident of the service. He was accordingly, upon the day last mentioned, by order of the President, retired on furlough pay. From October 22, 1872, to June 30, 1875, Brown received pay at the rate of $900 per annum, and from July 1, 1875, to June 6, 1879, at the rate of $500 per annum. On the day last named, he died.
The court also found that the Acts of August 3, 1861, 12 Stat. 290, and of December 21, 1861, 12 Stat. 329, were soon after their enactment construed by the President and Navy Department to include warrant officers, and under that construction it had been the uniform practice of the President to place warrant officers on the retired list, and large numbers of these officers had been so retired. No protest or objection was made by Brown during his lifetime, either to his retirement or rate of pay. The accounting officers of the Treasury had uniformly held that longevity pay to retired officers was not authorized by § 1593 of the Revised Statutes.
From these findings of fact the Court of Claims deduced, as a conclusion of law, that Brown was legally placed on the retired list, and had received the full amount of pay allowed him by law, and was not entitled to recover, and entered judgment dismissing the petition. The appeal of the petitioner brings that judgment under review.
The appellant asserted that the law applied only to commissioned officers, and not to warrant officers, to which latter class Brown belonged.
The question, however, was not a new one, and the findings showed that soon after the enactment of the act, the President and the Navy Department construed the section to include warrant as well as commissioned officers, and that they have since that time uniformly adhered to that construction, and that under its provisions, large numbers of warrant officers have been retired. This contemporaneous and uniform interpretation is entitled to weight in the construction of the law, and in a case of doubt ought to turn the scale.
The appellant next contended that the retirement of Brown was illegal because, at the time of his retirement, no officer could be placed on the retired list for disability not originating in the line of duty.
The theory behind this contention is this: the statute required that all officers retired for disability or incompetency not resulting from long and faithful service or wounds or injuries received in the line of duty or from sickness or exposure therein should be retired on furlough pay, and, as §§ 3, 5, and 19 of the Naval Appropriation Act of July 15, 1870, 16 Stat. 321, abolished the furlough pay list, the President was only authorized to retire Brown wholly from the service with one year's pay. The court thought it was clear that the sections of the statute referred to were not intended to abolish the furlough pay list. So far as they refer to retired officers, they apply to the retired list, and not the retired list on furlough pay. For thirty years, the legislation of Congress has divided retired naval officers into two classes. By § 2 of the Act of February 28, 1855, 10 Stat. 616, the officers on the retired, or, as it was then designated, reserved list were divided into those entitled to receive leave of absence pay and those entitled to receive furlough pay.