Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/348/110/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:21:08+00:00

Document:
A discharged veteran may maintain an action against the United States under the Tort Claims Act for an injury suffered, after his discharge, in a Veterans Administration hospital as a result of negligent treatment of a service-connected disability, although his compensation under the Veterans Act has already been increased because of such injury. Brooks v. United Sate, 337 U. S. 49, followed; Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135, distinguished. Pp. 348 U. S. 110-113.
in respondent's leg were seriously and permanently injured.
The Independent Offices Appropriation Act, 1935, 48 Stat. 526, 38 U.S.C. § 501a, allows compensation both where the veteran suffers injury during hospitalization and where an existing injury is aggravated during the treatment. Each is considered as though it were "service-connected." Respondent received a compensation award for his knee injury when he was honorably discharged, and that award was increased after the 1951 operation.
The District Court agreed with the contention of petitioner that respondent's sole relief was under the Veterans Act, and dismissed his complaint under the Tort Claims Act. The Court of Appeals reversed. 209 F.2d 463. The case is here on a petition for certiorari which we granted, 347 U.S. 951, because of doubts as to whether Brooks v. United States, 337 U. S. 49, or Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135, controlled this case.
The Brooks case held that servicemen were covered by the Tort Claims Act where the injury was not incident to or caused by their military service. 337 U. S. 337 U.S. 49, 337 U. S. 52. In that case, servicemen on leave were negligently injured on a public highway by a government employee driving a truck of the United States. The fact that compensation was sought and paid under the Veterans Act * was held not to bar recovery under the Tort Claims Act. We refused to "pronounce a doctrine of election of remedies when Congress has not done so." Id. at 337 U. S. 53.
negligence alleged in each case was on the part of other members of the Armed Forces. The Feres decision did not disapprove of the Brooks case. It merely distinguished it, holding that the Tort Claims Act does not cover "injuries to servicemen where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service." 340 U. S. 340 U.S. 135, 340 U. S. 146. The peculiar and special relationship of the soldier to his superiors, the effects of the maintenance of such suits on discipline, and the extreme results that might obtain if suits under the Tort Claims Act were allowed for negligent orders given or negligent acts committed in the course of military duty, led the Court to read that Act as excluding claims of that character. Id. at 340 U. S. 141-143.
The present case is, in our view, governed by Brooks, not by Feres. The injury for which suit was brought was not incurred while respondent was on active duty or subject to military discipline. The injury occurred after his discharge, while he enjoyed a civilian status. The damages resulted from a defective tourniquet applied in a veterans' hospital. Respondent was there, of course, because he had been in the service and because he had received an injury in the service. And the causal relation of the injury of the service was sufficient to bring the claim under the Veterans Act. But, unlike the claims in the Feres case, this one is not foreign to the broad pattern of liability which the United States undertook by the Tort Claims Act.
the Government with novel and unprecedented liabilities." 340 U. S. 340 U.S. 135, 340 U. S. 142. But that cannot be said here. Certainly this claim is one which might be cognizable under local law if the defendant were a private party. Responsibility of hospitals to patients for negligence may not be as notorious as the liability of the owners of automobiles. But the doctrine is not novel, or without support. See, for example, Sheehan v. North Country Community Hosp., 273 N.Y. 163, 7 N.E.2d 28, and the cases collected in 25 A.L.R.2d 29.
* We indicated that recovery under the Tort Claims Act should be reduced by the amounts paid by the United States as disability payments under the Veterans Act. 337 U. S. 337 U.S. 52, 337 U. S. 53-54. See the case on remand, United States v. Brooks, 176 F.2d 482, 484.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE REED and MR. JUSTICE MINTON join, dissenting.
for injuries to one soldier and the death of another due to negligent operation of an army truck. But we pointed out that the accident there had nothing to do with the "army careers" of the soldiers, and was neither caused by nor incident to their military service. When injured, the two soldiers were off duty, and were riding along a state highway in their own car, on their own business, which bore no relationship of any kind to any past, present, or future connection with the army. Thus, the two soldiers would have been injured had they never worn a uniform at all. In this case, however, the injury is inseparably related to military service, and the Brooks case should not be held controlling. But for his army service, this veteran could not have been injured in the veterans hospital, as he was eligible and admitted for treatment there solely because of war service, which gave him veteran status. Moreover, he was actually being treated for an army service injury.
For a hospital injury, a veteran is entitled to precisely the same disability benefits as if the injury had been inflicted while he was a soldier.* We have previously held, I think correctly, that a soldier injured in a hospital cannot also sue for damages under the Tort Claims Act. Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135. But the Court now holds that a veteran can. To permit a veteran to recover damages from the Government in circumstances under which a soldier on active duty cannot recover seems like an unjustifiable discrimination which the Act does not require.
"Where any veteran suffers . . . an injury, or an aggravation of any existing injury, as the result of . . . hospitalization, or medical or surgical treatment . . . benefits . . . shall be awarded in the same manner as if such disability, aggravation, or death were service connected. . . ."
48 Stat. 526, 38 U.S.C. § 501a.

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