Horace Gray

“ It is obvious that the public service would be hindered, and the public safety endangered, if the supreme authority could be subjected to suit at the instance of every citizen, and consequently controlled in the use and disposition of the means required for the proper administration of the government. The exemption from direct suit is therefore without exception. This doctrine of the common law is equally applicable to the supreme authority of the nation, the United States. They cannot be subjected to legal proceedings, at law or in equity, without their consent ”

“ And this court has repeatedly and uniformly declared that the United States have no more right than any private person to use a patented invention without license of the patentee or making compensation to him. ”

“ Although this suit was not brought against the United States by name, but against their officers and agents only, nevertheless, so far as the bill prayed for an injunction and for the destruction of the gate in question, the defendants had no individual interest in the controversy. The entire interest adverse to the plaintiff was the interest of the United States in property of which the United States had both the title and the possession. The United States were the only real party, against whom alone, in fact, the relief was asked, and against whom the decree would effectively operate. ”

“ The United States, therefore, are not liable to a suit for an infringement of a patent, that being an action sounding in tort. Schillinger v. U.S., 155 U.S. 163, 15 Sup. Ct. 85; U.S. v. Berdan Firearms Manuf'g Co., 156 U.S. 552, 15 Sup. Ct. 420.
A public officer is not personally liable on a contract, although under his own hand and seal, made by him in the line of his duty, by legal authority, and on account of the government, and inuring to its benefit, and not to his own. ”

“ Ct. 903, 923-925, 928, 931, 932, 962, 1020, where a collector of taxes due to the state of Virginia refused to receive coupons of the state tendered in payment of such a tax, because forbidden to do so by a statute of the state, which was unconstitutional and void as impairing the obligation of the contract made by the state with the holders of such coupons in the statute under which they were issued, the court, speaking by Mr. ”