Johnson v. McAdoo (45 App. D.C. 440)

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Johnson v. McAdoo, Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (Oct. 15, 1915)

Johnson v. McAdoo, 45 App. D.C. 440 (1916)

Syllabus
by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia

Johnson v. McAdoo 244 U.S. 643 (1917)

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related portals: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Johnson v. McAdoo, 45 App. D.C. 440 (1916), was a class-action lawsuit filed in 1915 in US federal court seeking reparations for slavery in the amount of 68 million dollars, the amount of cotton tax that was collected between 1862 and 1868 on cotton and held by the U.S. Treasury Department. Since its collection in the 1860s, the tax money was held by the Treasury Department for next fifty years without distribution due to issues regarding the appropriateness of collecting the tax on cotton produced by slaves. Recognizing that the $68 million had no takers for the prior 50 years, the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, an organization founded in 1896 by former slaves Callie House and Isaiah H. Dickerson as one of the first organizations to campaign for reparations for slavery in the United States, saw an opportunity for a court to give the government collected tax money to former slaves and their descendants in equity. The plaintiffs sought to have the court order the Treasury Department to perform the specific act of giving the $68 million to the plaintiff class made up of descendants of slaves and former slaves as being a fair resolution to the lawsuit. Lead plaintiff H. N. Johnson was a former slave. Defendant William G. McAdoo was the United States Secretary of the Treasury at the time the lawsuit was filed in 1915. Johnson v. McAdoo was the first documented chattel slavery reparations litigation in the US at the federal level. The lawsuit was unsuccessful and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the decision by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia to denied the claim.

4012867Johnson v. McAdoo, 45 App. D.C. 440 (1916) — Syllabus
1916the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia

45 App. D.C. 440
H. N. Johnson et al., Appellant

v.

William Gibbs McAdoo

No. 2918

United States Court of Appeals,
District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued October 6, 1916
Decided November 14, 1916
Appeal allowed December 16, 1916
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OFFICERS; UNITED STATES AS A PARTY.

Court Documents
Opinion of the Court
Linked cases: Brief of Appellants Brief for Appellee

A bill in equity against the Secretary of the Treasury to establish an equitable lien upon a fund in his custody by virtue of his office, such as a fund derived from the sale of cotton seized by the United States during the Civil War, is not maintainable, as the read defendant is the United States, which cannot be sued without its consent.

No. 2918. Submitted October 6, 1916. Decided November 14, 1916.

Hearing on an appeal from a decree of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia dismissing an amended bill in equity to establish a lien upon a fund in the custody of the defendant, the Secretary of the Treasury.

Affirmed.

The facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. C. J. Jones for the appellants.
Mr. John E. Lasky, United States District Attorney, and Mr. M. C. Van Fleet, Special Assistant, for the appellee.
Mr. Justice Robb delivered the opinion of the Court.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

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