Benjamin N. Cardozo

“ All such inquiries are put aside as unnecessary to the solution of the problem now before us. Irrespective of the validity or invalidity of the whole or any part of the legislation of recent years devaluing the dollar, the maturity of the bonds in suit was accelerated by valid notice. As a consequence of such acceleration the right to interest has gone.
Second. The Secretary of the Treasury did not act in excess of his lawful powers by issuing the calls without further authority from the Congress than was conferred by the statutes under which the bonds were issued. ”

“ In the very nature of things it presupposes maturity as a preliminary condition. If there had been any different intention, the bonds would have provided that interest should cease upon payment or lawful tender, and not from the date of redemption stated in the call. This is not a case of mutual promises or covenants with performance to be rendered on each side at a given time and place. The obligees were not under a duty to do anything at all at the accelerated maturity, though they were privileged, if they pleased, to present the bonds for payment. ”

“ The duty of the Government and its only one was to pay the bonds when due. If the statutes had been amended before the date of redemption or if the courts had decided that payment must be made in good or in currency proportioned to the earlier content of the dollar, there is little likelihood that any one would judge the efficacy of the notice by the test of the law in force at the date of its announcement. ”

“ If payment, or readiness to pay the bonds in accordance with their terms was essential to 'redemption', the one or the other, equally with the required notice, was a condition of acceleration.
The obligation of the bonds, read in the light of long-established custom and of our own decision in Holyoke Water Power Co. v. American Writing Paper Co., 300 U.S. 324, 336, 57 S.Ct. 485, 81 L.Ed. 678, decided since the Perry Case, must, I think, be taken to be a 'gold value' undertaking to pay in gold dollars of the specified weight and finess or their equivalent in lawful currency. Compare Norman v. ”

“ Petitioner prayed for judgment in the sum of $1.07, the amount of the interest coupon for the six months' period ending October 15, 1934. [2] The court dismissed the claim, and the case is here on certiorari.
Respondent in No. 198 is the owner of a $1,000 First Liberty Loan 3 1/2 per cent. bond of 1932-1947, No. 47084, purchased on March 22, 1933, for $1,011.25. This is the same bond issue involved and described in No. 42. Respondent did not present his bond for payment either on the redemption date or later. He did not present the coupon which is the foundation of the suit. ”

“ The allowance of interest in eminent domain cases is only an apparent exception, which has its origin in the Constitution. Shoshone Tribe of Indians v. United States, 299 U.S. 476, 497, 57 S.Ct. 244, 251, 81 L.Ed. ”