Benjamin N. Cardozo

“ A transfer of a warrant has need to be accompanied by safeguards lest the assignor may avoid it afterwards for forgery or fraud. A transfer of the fund after payment is perfected is of no concern to any one except the parties to the transaction, and this quite irrespective of the time of the assignment or the manner of its making.
If the Government has any interest in the outcome of this controversy it is in sustaining the assignment to the surety rather than destroying it. The contractor undertook that materialmen would receive their money promptly while the work was going on. ”

“ The fund is in court to be distributed to rival claimants, with the Government discharged irrespective of the outcome. The very fact that an assignment is permitted even as between the contractor and the Government itself when the warrant is outstanding, if the transfer be executed with prescribed formalities, is significant that the Government is not concerned to regulate the equities of claimants growing out of irregular assignments when collection is complete and liability is ended. ”

“ No reason is discoverable in the policy of the statute why the analogy should be rejected in its application to the case at hand. Far from defeating or prejudicing the interests of the Government, the recognition of the equities growing out of the relation between the contractor and the surety will tend, as already has been suggested, to make those interests prevail. ”