## Facts

- The United States owned shares of stock in the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company.
- The company declared cash dividends on those shares in 1873, 1875, and 1876.
- The United States demanded payment in 1911; the company refused.
- In 1912, the United States sued to recover the unpaid dividends.
- The company asserted payment and relied on the long lapse of time to defeat the claim.

## Issues

1. Whether state statutes of limitations or equitable laches can bar the United States from suing to collect dividends on stock it owns when the dividends constitute public money.
2. Whether a rebuttable presumption of payment arises from more than 20 years’ delay in suing, and whether the United States produced sufficient evidence to rebut any such presumption.
3. Whether Treasury Department books of “miscellaneous receipts and disbursements,” printed and used as original records, are admissible to prove nonpayment without certification under Rev. Stat. § 882.
4. Whether the trial court erred in refusing an instruction effectively directing a verdict for the canal company.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed judgment for the United States.
- State statutes of limitations and laches were held inapplicable because the United States sued in its governmental capacity to recover public moneys.
- The Court did not decide as a general matter whether the 20-year presumption of payment applies against the United States, because the point was not properly preserved; it proceeded on the assumption that the presumption applied.
- Treasury Department receipt-and-disbursement books were properly admitted as competent evidence of nonpayment without Rev. Stat. § 882 certification because they were produced from departmental custody and treated as original records.
- The evidence was sufficient to support a finding of nonpayment and to justify denial of the company’s request for a directed verdict.

## Legal Principles

- When the United States asserts governmental rights to recover public money, state statutes of limitations and the equitable doctrine of laches do not bar the action.
- Dividends declared on corporate shares owned by the United States are treated as public funds; collection is pursued as a creditor claim in a governmental capacity rather than as a private shareholder dispute.
- Treasury Department books of government receipts and disbursements, printed pursuant to federal authority and maintained as original working records, are admissible to prove both payment and nonpayment without additional certification under Rev. Stat. § 882.
- Even if a long-delay presumption of payment is assumed to apply, it may be rebutted by competent evidence showing the absence of payment.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the United States could sue to collect long-unpaid dividends as public funds free from state limitations and laches defenses, and it sustained the use of Treasury receipt records to prove nonpayment and defeat any presumption based solely on delay.


Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co. v. United States, 250 U.S. 123 (1919)