| Litigants: | United States v. Lee |
| Arguedatea: | October 18 |
| Arguedateb: | 19 |
| Argueyear: | 1882 |
| Decidedate: | December 4 |
| Decideyear: | 1882 |
| Fullname: | United States v. Lee. Kaufman and another v. Same. |
| Usvol: | 106 |
| Uspage: | 196 |
| Parallelcitations: | 1 S. Ct. 240; 27 L. Ed. 171; 16 Otto 196 |
| Prior: | Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia. |
| Holding: | Sovereign immunity does not extend to officers of the government. |
| Majority: | Miller |
| Joinmajority: | Field, Harlan, Matthews, Blatchford |
| Dissent: | Gray |
| Joindissent: | Waite, Bradley, Woods |
| Lawsapplied: | Act for the Collection of Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts (12 Stat. at L. 422); Fifth Amendment |
United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882),[1] [2] is a 5-to-4 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Constitution's prohibition on lawsuits against the federal government did not extend to officers of the government themselves. The case involved the heir of Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of Confederate States of America General Robert E. Lee, who sued to regain control of Arlington House and its grounds. Arlington had been seized by the United States government in 1861 and eventually converted into Arlington National Cemetery. The estate had been sold to pay outstanding taxes, but the lawsuit contested the tax sale as improper. A jury found in favor of the Lees.[3] The Supreme Court, too, concluded that the tax sale was illegal.[4] [5] [6] In stripping the federal officers of their sovereign immunity, the Supreme Court agreed that suit against them was proper.[7]
The jury verdict returned Arlington to the Lee family, but only temporarily. The family never returned to Arlington, but rather sold the estate to the United States government in 1883 for $150,000 ($ in dollars).[8]
John Parke Custis, son of Martha Washington and stepson of George Washington, purchased 1100acres of forest and farm land in 1778 and called it "Arlington."[9] [10] The estate was located directly across the Potomac River from the future site of Washington, D.C., in what was then Alexandria County (now known as Arlington County). John Custis died in 1781, and his son, George Washington Parke Custis, inherited the property. G.W.P. Custis hired George Hadfield, then supervising construction of the United States Capitol, to design and build a two-story Greek Revival house atop the most prominent hill on the property, a mansion Custis named "Arlington House." G.W.P. Custis' daughter, Mary Anna, married Robert E. Lee in 1831. Custis died in 1857, leaving his estate and Arlington House to his daughter.[11]
In April 1861, Virginia seceded from the United States and Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army on April 20, 1861, and joined the military forces of the Confederate States of America. On May 7, troops of the Virginia militia occupied Arlington and Arlington House.[12] With Confederate forces occupying Arlington's high ground, the capital of the Union was left in an untenable military position.[13] Although unwilling to leave Arlington House, Mary Lee believed her estate would soon be taken by federal soldiers. So she buried many of her family treasures on the grounds and left for her sister's estate at Ravensworth in Fairfax County, Virginia, on May 14.[14] [15] On May 3, General Winfield Scott ordered Brigadier General Irvin McDowell to clear Arlington and the city of Alexandria, Virginia, of all troops not loyal to the United States.[16] McDowell occupied Arlington without opposition on May 24.[17]
On June 7, 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted the Act for the Collection of Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts (12 Stat. at L. 422), legislation which imposed a property tax on all land in "insurrectionary" areas of the United States.[18] The 1863 amendments to the statute required these taxes to be paid in person.[19] Congress knew that few Confederate sympathizers would appear in person to pay the tax, thus allowing the federal government to seize large amounts of property and auction it off to raise money for the war effort. A tax of $92.07 ($ in dollars) was levied on the Arlington estate in 1863. But Mary Lee, afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis and behind Confederate lines in Richmond, Virginia, gave the payment to her cousin, Philip R. Fendall (who lived in Alexandria). The tax collectors refused to accept his payment.[20] On January 11, 1864, the entire estate was auctioned off to pay the tax due. (With a 50 percent penalty for nonpayment, the total of tax and fine was $138.11 ($ in dollars).)[21] Although the auction was well-attended, the U.S. government was the only bidder and won the property for $26,800 ($ in dollars) (less than its assessed value of $34,100 ($ in dollars)).
With local cemeteries in Alexandria County and Alexandria filling rapidly with war dead, Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using 200acres of the Arlington estate as a cemetery. The first burial there was made on May 13, 1864. United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery.[22] By the end of the war in April 1865, more than 16,000 people had been buried at Arlington. In September 1866, a memorial and a burial vault (containing the remains of 2,111 U.S. and Confederate soldiers who died at the First Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Bull Run, and along the Rappahannock River) were buried in Lee's former wildflower garden on the mansion's east side beneath the Civil War Unknowns Monument, a memorial to honor unknown soldiers who had died during the American Civil War.[23]
Robert E. Lee made no attempt to restore his title to Arlington before his death in 1870. Mary Lee died in 1873, having returned to the house a few months before her death. Too upset at its condition, she refused to enter and left after just a few moments.
In April 1874,[24] Robert E. and Mary Lee's eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, petitioned Congress for payment for the Arlington estate.[25] Lee argued that tax sale of the entire property (rather than just that portion needed to pay the tax debt) amounted to confiscation and was unconstitutional. He also argued that the tax collectors' refusal to accept payment made the proceedings null and void. Finally, he asserted that the federal government should only be able to secure a life interest in the property (in other words, seize it only as long as Mary Lee lived) and could not assert title to the estate without the consent of the state of Virginia. He offered not to litigate the seizure of Arlington if paid. Lee's petition was referred to the United States House Committee on the Judiciary on April 6, but it was not acted on.
In April 1877, Lee filed suit in Alexandria County circuit court to eject the U.S. government from Arlington.[26] His suit named, among others, Frederick Kaufman (a civilian in the United States Department of War who oversaw Arlington National Cemetery) and R.P. Strong (a U.S. Army officer who supervised the portion of Arlington which had become an Army post).[27] Almost a thousand others were named in the suit, all of them former African American slaves who had been allowed to form a settlement known as Freedmen's Village on part of the estate.[28] On July 6, United States Attorney General Charles Devens filed a writ of certiorari asking that the case be transferred to the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a request which the federal court approved three days later. On July 16, Devens filed a motion to have Lee's suit dismissed on the grounds that the Constitution made the federal government immune to suits at law (unless it gave its consent).[29] Lee filed a demurrer, pointing out that the government had taken the contradictory position of being a private buyer in a tax sale and yet asserting sovereign immunity as if its purchase were a governmental act.[30] On March 15, 1878, the circuit court held that not only did the court have jurisdiction to decide the issue but that the lawsuit presented a controversy over facts which should be decided by a jury.[31] A jury trial was held January 24–30, 1879, in Alexandria.[32] The jury found for Lee, concluding that the demand to accept payment only in person violated the Constitution's due process guarantees.
The federal government asked on April 6, 1879, that the jury verdict be set aside on the basis of the Supreme Court's ruling in Carr v. United States, 98 U.S. 433, (a decision handed down on March 3, after the jury's verdict had been reached).[3] Carr v. United States involved a case where the city of San Francisco, California, transferred title to property within the city to the federal government even though a private citizen claimed title to the land. The Supreme Court reaffirmed in Carr that the federal government cannot be sued without its consent, that a suit against an officer or agent of the federal government does not bind the government itself, and that courts do not have jurisdiction over title suits against the federal government's officers and agents.[33] Only when property has been transferred by the courts does a private citizen establish a right to establish or reclaim rights to title. But the circuit court in Lee held that much of the decision in Carr was dicta, and reaffirmed the jury decision.[34]
Two appeals were made to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first was by the United States government itself, while the second was made by the government on behalf of Kaufman and Strong.[35] The question was whether the title actually transferred to the federal government. If yes, then Lee had no claim; but if not, then Lee had standing to sue to reclaim his title to the land. To determine this, the Supreme Court first had to rule out all other grounds for a suit, and then determine whether the tax sale actually transferred the title.[36]
Associate Justice Samuel Freeman Miller wrote the decision for the majority, joined by Associate Justices Stephen Johnson Field, John Marshall Harlan, Stanley Matthews, and Samuel Blatchford. Most of Miller's ruling was technical.[37]
After reviewing the facts of the case,[38] Miller presented the two critical questions in the case: 1) Were there other grounds for a suit other than transfer of title in error, and 2) whether the tax sale had actually transferred title.[39] The members of the Court were agreed that there no errors regarding interpretation of the law by the circuit court, in the jury instructions, or in the documents of the tax sale.[40] But, citing Bennett v. Hunter, 72 U.S. 326 (1869),[41] (which had involved the nearby Abingdon estate); Tacey v. Irwin, 85 U.S. 549 (1873);[42] and Atwood v. Weems, 99 U.S. 183 (1878),[43] the majority reaffirmed that a tax collector's refusal to accept payment was the equivalent of payment.[44] The majority considered whether a rule had been properly adopted by the tax commissioners to accept payment only from the title holder him or her self, and found that it had properly been adopted.[45] However, the majority found that denial of a taxpayer's right to pay through an agent was improper:[46]