Ultimately, the
Court of Claims held that an implied contract did exist between Berdan and the Government (20), because the Government used the invention knowing that it was covered by the Berdan patent, and knowing that Berdan would expect compensation (21).
"We obviously took a different position, that the
Court of Claims Act says that any right to a jury and circuit court jurisdiction that existed before the
Court of Claims Act was amended was preserved," Ringsmuth said.
Lawsuits against the state go through the
Court of Claims. Damage awards had been limited to $100,000 since the early 1970s.
One model is the
Court of Claims, a predecessor to the Federal Circuit and the Court of Federal Claims, which reduced litigants' costs through a variety of measures.
Noffsinger and the Board in the
Court of Claims. In Dr.
Subsection (d) of section 22 of the
Court of Claims Act omitted previous language referencing timelines for payments made on the "death of [a] law enforcement officer," and inserted a reference to the "time set forth in Section 3 of the Line of Duty Compensation Act." A similar modification was made to subsection (b) which addresses "Payment of awards." Illinois lawmakers added subsection (3) to section 24 of the
Court of Claims Act which provides that when a claim is paid under the Line of Duty Compensation Act "the Court must direct the Comptroller to add an interest penalty" if the payment is not made within 6 months of a properly filed claim.
The
Court of Claims ruled for the IRS and the taxpayer appealed.
The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the
Court of Claims' decision.
Between 1967 and 1970 the
Court of Claims awarded Kuhne's company and a partner $1.27 million for costs overruns caused by the government's defective design.
While the Lunney decision was issued only a few months ago, we already have seen another court, the New York
Court of Claims, take the analogy approach in Firth vs.
399 (1980), the
Court of Claims held, per curiam, that "line pack" gas that was needed to pressurize the taxpayer's pipeline, but 80 to 97 percent of which would be lost permanently whenever the pipeline was abandoned, was properly accounted for as a depreciable capital asset, instead of as inventory.