Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

“ We are of the opinion that when the government is a mere formal complainant in a suit, not for the purpose of asserting any public right or protecting any public interest, title, or property, but merely to form a conduit through whom one private person can conduct litigation against another private person, a court of equity will not be restrained from administering the equities existing between the real parties by any exemption of the government designed for the protection of the rights of the United States alone. ”

“ The principle that the United States are not bound by any statute of limitations, nor barred by any laches of their officers, however gross, in a suit brought by them as a sovereign government to enforce a public right, or to assert a public interest, is extablished past all controversy or doubt. ”

“ According to these decisions, courts of equity, in general, recognize and give effect to the statute of limitations as a defense to an equitable right when at law it would have been properly pleaded as a bar to a legal right. They refuse to interfere to give relief when there has been gross negligence in prosecuting a claim, or where the lapse of time has been so long as to afford a clear presumption that the witnesses to the original transaction are dead, and the other means of proof have disappeared. ”