US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

The jurat attached to a deposition taken before a commissioner of a circuit court of the United States is not a certificate to the deposition in the ordinary sense of the term, but a certificate of the fact that the witness appeared before the commissioner and was sworn to the truth of what he had stated, and the commissioner is entitled to a separate fee therefor.

This was a petition for fees as commissioner of the Circuit Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The claim included a large number of items, but the only point in controversy before this Court is whether petitioner was entitled to fifteen cents for each jurat or certificate appended to depositions taken by him as such commissioner. The total number of jurats so appended was 238, and the total charge therefor was $35.70.

The Court of Claims allowed this item, and the government appealed.