Bradfield v. Roberts

175 U.S. 291 (1899)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P took a suit in equity to enjoin D from paying Providence Hospital any moneys belonging to the United States, by virtue of a contract between the Surgeon General of the Army and the directors of that hospital. Providence Hospital is a private eleemosynary corporation, composed of members of a monastic order or sisterhood of the Roman Catholic Church. The nuns formed a private hospital corporation through an Act of Congress. The government then appropriated hospital-building funds and entered into an agreement with the nuns to build a hospital. In view of the sectarian character of Providence and the specific and limited object of its creation, P contends the contract between the same and the Surgeon General of the Army and also the said agreement between the same and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia are unauthorized by law, and, moreover, involve a principle and a precedent for the appropriation of the funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment, and also a precedent for giving to religious societies a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty which would, if once established, speedily obliterate the essential distinction between civil and religious functions. D demurred to the bill on the ground that P had not in and by his bill shown any right or title to maintain the same; also upon the further ground that P had not stated such a case as entitled him to the relief thereby prayed or any relief as against the defendant. The demurrer was overruled and the injunction granted. Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District, the judgment was reversed. P appealed to the Supreme Court.