MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims which dismissed the petition on demurrer. The plaintiff owns a short-line railroad which it operated, but which is alleged to have been under federal control from January 1 to July 1, 1918. The suit was brought to recover, for that period, amounts representing the deficit in operating income, under maintenance of way and equipment charges, and the rental value of the property,
"The Company . . . expressly accepts the covenants and obligations of the Director General in this agreement set out and the rights arising thereunder in full adjustment, settlement, satisfaction, and discharge of any and all claims and rights at law or in equity, which it now has or hereafter can have against the United States, the President, the Director General or any agent or agency thereof by virtue of anything done or omitted, pursuant to the acts of Congress herein referred to.
"This is not intended to affect any claim said Company may have against the United States for carrying the mails or for other services rendered not pertaining to or based upon the Federal Control Act."
The acts of Congress referred to in the contract were the Federal Control Act, the Act of August 29, 1916, c. 418, 39 Stat. 619, 645, and the Joint Resolutions of April 6, 1917, and December 7, 1917, 40 Stat. 1, 429. The Government assigned as a ground of demurrer that the copy of the contract annexed to the petition showed that the claims sued on had been settled and that the United States had been released from any liability to the plaintiff.
The petition alleges, among other things, "that section 3 thereof does not contain and was not intended to contain any receipt or acknowledgment of any consideration by or in favor of the plaintiff for the use of said railroad property during said six months from January 1 to July 1, 1918;" that the section refers only to other provisions;
There is no contention that the contract as written does not express the actual agreement, nor a prayer that, because of mutual mistake, it should be reformed. The petition contains allegations which indicate that originally it was intended to challenge the validity of the contract because of duress, lack of consideration, and want of power in the Director General to enter into the same.
There is in the brief a suggestion that the lower court erred in giving effect to section 3 because "the contract was set out as an exhibit to the petition not as a part thereof, but merely for the purpose of showing to the court that the cause of action set out in the petition . . . [was] entirely independent of and arose outside of the contract itself." The suggestion is unsubstantial. Ordinarily the defense of release or accord and satisfaction must be pleaded in bar. But where the fact appears either in the body of the petition, or from an exhibit annexed, the defense may be availed of on demurrer. Compare Randall v. Howard, 2 Black, 585, 589; McClure v. Township of Oxford, 94 U.S. 429, 433; Speidel v. Henrici, 120 U.S. 377, 387.
Affirmed.
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