Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Totten v. United States

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Date decided
  
1876

Full case name
  
Totten, Administrator, v. United States

Prior history
  
Appeal from the Court of Claims

Majority
  
Field, joined by unanimous

Citations
  
92 U.S. 105 () 23 L. Ed. 605; 1875 U.S. LEXIS 1732; 2 Otto 105

Ruling court
  
Supreme Court of the United States

People also search for
  
Tenet v. Doe, United States v. Reynolds

Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105 (1876), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled on judicial jurisdiction in espionage cases. The court deemed an oral contract between a deceased spy and President Lincoln was unenforceable because courts cannot hear cases in disputes involving spying contracts, because it might do harm to make public the details of the enterprise and embarrass the government.

This case was later referenced by the court in a similar context in the 2005 case of Tenet v. Doe.

References

Totten v. United States Wikipedia