Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01583/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01583-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 310
Nature of Suit: Airplane Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS F I L E D 

United Stam ~rt ~f Appeals FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 'tenth C1rcu1t 

JOSEPH WEISS, JR. and 

BRIGITTE WEISS, 

) 

) 

. ) 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) 

) 

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

) 

) 

)· 

) 

) 

NOV 161989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 88-1583 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 

(D.C. NO. 79-M-576) 

Shelley B. Don (Watson w. Galleher with him on the briefs), 

Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Plaintiffs-Appellants. 

William G. Pharo, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney (Michael 

J. Norton, Acting United States Attorney, with him on the brief), 

Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Defendant-Appellee. 

Before HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, SEYMOUR, and ANDERSON, Circuit 

Judges. 

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge. 

On August 23, 1976, a helicopter piloted by plaintiffappellant Joseph Weiss, Jr., crashed in the Buckskin Canyon area 

of Pike National Forest after striking an aerial tramway cable 

suspended approximately 150 feet above the ground. The upper end 

Appellate Case: 88-1583 Document: 010110067965 Date Filed: 11/16/1989 Page: 1 
of the tramway, and about two-thirds of the cable (including the 

point of impact), extended over federal land. 

Weiss sued de~endant-appellee United States of America, seeking damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA") for the 

injuries he sustained in the crash. Plaintiff-appellant Brigitte 

Weiss sought damages for loss of consortium. They made two claims 

for relief. ·Their negligence claim based upon the failure of the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ("NOAA") to depict 

the cable as an obstruction on the Denver Sectional Aeronautical 

Chart was dismissed under the discretionary function exception to 

the FTCA. Their premises liability claim was dismissed on the· 

grounds that Colorado law imposed no duty on-the United States 

Forest Service ( "Forest Service" or "USFS"} to remov_e the cable or 

warn the public of its existence. On appeal, the dismissal of the 

first claim was affirmed, but the court found that a Colorado 

landowner could have a duty in this situation and reinstated the 

second claim. See Weiss v. United States, 787 F.2d 518 (10th Cir. 

1986). 

On remand, the government raised the discretionary function 

exception. After a hearing, the United States District Court for 

the District of Colorado dismissed the suit. The only issue 

before us is the applicability of the discretionary function 

exception. The district court's determination that it lac~ed 

subject matter jurisdiction under the exception is reviewed de 

novo. McMichael v. United States, 856 F.2d 1026, 1031 (8th Cir. 

1988); Starrett v. United States, 847 F.2d 539, 541 (9th Cir. 

1988). We affirm the judgment against the Weisses. 

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The FTCA authorizes suits to recover for personal injuries 

caused by federal employees in cases "where the United States, if 

a private person, would be liable." 28 u.s.c. § 1346(b). One 

exception to this waiver of sovereign immunity is "[a]ny claim 

••• based u~on the exercise or performance or the failure to 

exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty." 28 u.s.c. 

§ 2680(a). 

I. 

"[T]he discretionary function exception will not apply when a 

federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescribes a 

course of action for an employee to follow." Berkovitz by 

Berkovitz v. United States, 108 S. Ct. 1954, 1958 (1988) (emphasis 

added)~~ also Ayal~ v. Joy Manufacturing Co., 877 F.2d 846, 848 

(10th Cir. 1989). The Weisses contend that the discretionary 

function exception does not bar their claim because the failure to 

mark or remove the tramway cable violated section 5714.16 of the 

Forest Service Manual. We agree with the trial court's decision 

that that section had "no applicability to this case." Memorandum 

Opinion and Order, Jan. 6, 1988, R. Vol. I at Tab 11, p. 4. 

Section 5714.16, part of Title 5700--Air Operations, provides 

as follows: 

"Hazards. The officer in charge, with the assistance of 

the Regional, Forest, or project air officer, will make 

every effort to locate and eliminate air hazards. This 

applies to natural and manmade hazards. If they cannot 

be eliminated, they will be marked, and air personnel 

informed of the potential danger. Future construction 

of powerlines, towers, tall buildings, and similar 

structures on National Forest land, should be planned so 

as to minimize or elimihate air hazards. 

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Each Forest should maintain a current flight hazard map 

showing flight hazards marked in red ink and located as 

accurately as possible. This should be used for briefing tlight crews for any low-level air ~peration. 

In event two or more aircraft on different missions 

arrive over a fire simultaneously without preestablished 

priorities, the following will be the standard order of 

mission priority: smokejumpers and their equipmentu 

air-tanker operations, helicopter operations, aircargo, 

and reconnaissance. As each mission is completed, the 

pilot thereof will inform remaining crews. 

Other areas should be restricted if, in the opinion of 

the air officer or pilots, a special hazard exists." 

Were.we to accept the Weisses' invitation to read the highlighted language out of context, we might agree that the Forest 

Service lacked discretion to leave the tramway unmarked. However, 

ostensibly mandatory provisions must be read""in their entirety," 

Dube v. Pittsburgh Corning, 870 F.2d 790, .793 (ls·t Cir, 1989), and 

such a reading.indicates that section 5714.16 applies only to 

operations, such as fire suppression missions, conducted by the 

Forest Service or its contractors. This can be seen from the 

reference in the first paragraph to the "officer in charge," which 

means the officer in charge of a particular mission, see,~, R. 

Vol. II at 52-53 (testimony of William Munro, Forest Service 

aviation specialist); id. at 80 (testimony of Gary Cargill, 

Regional Forester for the Rocky Mountain Region), 1 and from the 

third and fourth paragraphs. 

Joseph Weiss was not on a Forest Service operation when the 

accident occurred. Buckskin Canyon was not the site-of any such 

1 Of course, we are not bound by the subjective interpretations 

of the officials operating pursuant to the Manual. See Dube~-

Pittsburgh Corning,_ 8.70 F.2d at 793 n.4. In this case, though, 

our understanding of the directive comports with theirs. 

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operation at that time. Section 5714.16 did not govern the situation and consequently was not violated. Therefore, it cannot be 

the basis of a finding that the Forest Service's.conduct was not 

discretionary. See Dube v. Pittsburgh Corning, 870 F.2d at 793. 

II. 

Under 14 C.F.R. § 77.23(a)(l), a Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA") regulation, no object less than 500 feet above ground 

level is an obstruction. This was the Forest Service's policy 

regarding what objects should be removed for the safety of civil 

aviation. See,~, R. Vol. II at 44-47 (testimony of Munro). 

Because the cable was only 150 feet in the air, it was consonant 

with Forest Service policy for it to be left unmarked. 

The decision to adopt the FAA provision was an exercise of 

"discretionaiy regulatory authority of the most basic kirid." 

United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense (Varig 

Airlines), 467 U.S. 797, 819-20 (1984); accord,~, Collins v. 

United States, 783 F.2d 1225, 1229 (5th Cir. 1986); Comment, The 

Discretionary Function Exception and Mandatory Regulations, 54 u. 

Chi. L. Rev. 1300, 1332 (1987) ("The discretion of the government 

in promulgating, o·r failing to promulgate, regulations is unquestioned."). Conforming with a discretionary policy "insulates 

the governmental action from review." Allen v. United States, 816 

F.2d 1417, 1426 n.2 (10th Cir. 1987) (McKay, concurring), cert • 

. denied, 108 s. Ct. 694 (1988). 

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III. 

Finally, the Weisses argue that notwithstanding the discretionary nature of the Forest Service's decision to abide by the 

FAA regulation, this court's decision in Smith v. United States, 

546 Fo2d 872 (10th CirQ 1976), prevents us from deeming the 

failure to remove or highlight the cable to be a discretionary 

function. 

In Smith, the plaintiff was burned when the ground on which 

he was standing over a hot thermal pool in Yellowstone National 

Park collapsed. This occurred in a portion of the park which the 

Park Service had decided to leave undeveloped. No warning signs 

were posted. The court decided that even if the decision to leave 

the area undeveloped was an exercise of discretion, the government 

was not necessarily relieved of its duty to er~ct warnings or 

safety devices. The court then held that the decision not to warn 

did not involve the exercise of discretion. Id. at 877; see also 

Boyd v. United States ex rel. United States Army, Corps of 

Engineers, 881 F.2d 895, 898 (10th Cir. 1989). In a footnote, the 

court noted that "policy decisions are within the [discretionary 

function] exception. However, separate determinations on 

individual safety devices and warnings [sic] signs are not on the 

same footing." Smith v. United States, 546 F.2d at 877 n.5-a 

(emphasis added). 

The Weisses argue that the Forest Service's failure 2 to 

remove the tramway cable or mark it so as to make it more visible 

2 ·rt is irrelevant whether the Forest Service deliberately 

decided to leave the cable as it was or simply neve·r ·considered 

the issue. Allen v. United States, 816 F.2d at 1422 n.5. 

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to air traffic must be considered independently of the decision to 

abide by the FAA regulation, and cannot be deemed an exercise of 

discretion. 

We disagree. The court in Smith found that the general decision to leave an area undeveloped was separate from the specific 

decision that the crust covering the thermal pools was not so 

dangerous that warnings or other remedial measures were needed. 

In this case, however, the decision that all objects less than 500 

feet above the ground were not obstructions inherently involved a 

decision that the tramway cable was not a hazard which required 

action by the Forest Service. Unlike the two decisions in Smith, 

the decision to.leave the cable as it was was a direct and 

inevitable consequence of the decision to -abide by the FAA 

regulation. 

To apply Smith in such a situation would render the decision 

to adopt the FAA policy, which clearly was an exercise of discretion, completely irrelevant. "The discretionary policy choice 

itself included the choice not to warn," so the failure to warn 

was also an exercise of discretion. Boyd v~ United States ex rel. 

United States Army, Corps of Engineers, 881 F.2d at 901 (Tacha, 

dissenting). The Forest Service decision does not lose its 

discretionary nature simply because an effect of that decision 

would be considered non-discretionary in other circumstances. 

For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district 

court is AFFIRMED. 

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