1. The District Court is without jurisdiction of an action to
recover from the United States the amount of a fine imposed on the
plaintiffs, and paid under protest, under a penal statute afterward
adjudged by this Court to be unconstitutional. P.
272 U. S.
735.
2. The payment of such fine under a plea of
nolo
contendere, with an attempted reservation of a right to
reclaim it if the statute on which the indictment was based were
declared unconstitutional by this Court, did not create any
contract with the United States. P.
272 U. S.
735.
Reversed.
Appeal from a judgment of the district court awarding damages
against the United States in a suit under the Tucker Act to
recover, with interest, the amount of a fine imposed under § 4
of the Lever Act, which was afterwards adjudged
unconstitutional.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The district court entered final judgment for defendants in
error March 9, 1925, and certified that the only question involved
was one of jurisdiction.
By an indictment returned into the United States District Court,
Northern District of New York, February 1920, defendants in error
were charged with violating § 4 of the Lever Act, c. 53, 40
Stat. 276, 277, as amended October 22,1919, c. 80, 41 Stat. 297,
29, by selling women's
Page 272 U. S. 735
apparel at unjust and unreasonable rates. They entered pleas of
nolo contendere October 8, 1920, and each undertook to
"waive any and all claims which I now have or hereafter may have
to any and all fines which the court may see fit to impose upon me
upon such plea, except in the event that the so-called Lever Act
under which said indictment is founded shall be declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States."
February 28, 1921, this Court held § 4 of the Lever Act
invalid.
United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S.
81. April 25, 1924, the court below undertook to set
aside the judgment and conviction and sentence entered there
October 8, 1920.
The present proceeding, begun May 24, 1924, set up the claim
that, under the above-stated facts, the United States became
obligated to repay t o plaintiffs in error the sum of five thousand
dollars with interest. A demurrer which raised the question of the
court's jurisdiction was overruled, and the matter came here by
direct writ of error.
The attempt by plaintiffs in error to reserve rights if the
Lever Act should be held unconstitutional amounted, at most, to a
protest, possibly sufficient to overcome the suggestion of an
estoppel, but no contract arose out of it which obligated the
United States to return the find. Neither the court nor any federal
officer had authority to make such an agreement. The controlling
general principles are sufficiently stated in
Russell v. United
States, 182 U. S. 516,
530;
United State v. Holland-America Lijn, 254 U.
S. 148;
United States v. Minnesota Mutual Investment
Co., 271 U. S. 212.
The court below was without jurisdiction, and should have
dismissed the complaint. Its judgment must be reversed.
Reversed.
