The Missing Court of Claims Report: Is Letitia Humphreys Court of Claims Report 42?

Between the years 1855 and 1863, the opinions or “reports” of the United States Court of Claims were delivered to the House of Representatives for final consideration. In total, 296 cases were conveyed, but in the process, Report 42 was lost and, according to indexes of such documents, “never received by [the] House.”This article cites examined records of the Court of Claims, from both the United States Congressional Serial Set and original documents now in the National Archives, which support the contention that there was a completed opinion for Court of Claims Report 42 that was lost sometime during its transfer between the Court and the House.This 150-year-old case – Letitia Humphreys, Administratrix of Andrew Atkinson – was one in a long list of judicial proceedings, involving over 100 claimants, that resulted from the 1812 invasion of Florida by the United States, and that concerned the payment of interest to those compensated under the last clause of the ninth article of the 1819 Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits, Between the United States of America and His Catholic Majesty. These Florida petitions were examples of early claims actions against the federal government, in many cases after decades of inaction.