Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/749/1530/359574/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 23:55:54+00:00

Document:
Jeffrey D. Fisher, Sp. Asst. U.S. Atty., Linda Collins-Hertz, Jonathan Goodman, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, Fla., for defendant-appellee.
Before FAY and VANCE, Circuit Judges, and MAC MAHON* , District Judge.
Frieda Joyce Johnson, plaintiff, brought this wrongful death action against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346, 2671-2680. She alleges that her husband died as a result of the negligence of air traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The district court, relying on Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135, 71 S. Ct. 153, 95 L. Ed. 152 (1950), granted the Government's motion to dismiss. We reverse.
Plaintiff's decedent, Horton Winfield Johnson, was a helicopter pilot for the United States Coast Guard, stationed in Hawaii. On January 7, 1982, Johnson and his aircraft were dispatched to search for a civilian boat in distress. Because inclement weather made visual navigation impossible, Johnson requested the civilian FAA controllers to assume positive radar control over the helicopter. The controllers did so and undertook guidance from the ground. Unfortunately, the helicopter was vectored into the side of a mountain on the island of Molokai. Johnson was killed in the crash.
Under the common law, the United States was shielded from suit by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. See Feres, 340 U.S. at 139, 71 S. Ct. at 156. In 1946, however, Congress enacted the FTCA, thus marking "the culmination of a long effort to mitigate unjust consequences of sovereign immunity from suit." Id. The FTCA provides that the United States is liable in tort "in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances." 28 U.S.C. § 2674. It also vests in the district courts exclusive jurisdiction over civil actions against the United States based on the alleged negligence of government employees "where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant [under] the law of the place where the [negligence] occurred." Id. Sec. 1346(b). This consent to suit, however, was not unlimited. Congress listed exceptions to the applicability of the FTCA, see id. Sec. 2680, one of which excludes " [a]ny claim arising out of the combatant activities of the military or naval forces, or the Coast Guard, during time of war." Id. Sec. 2680(j). The text of the act does not mention a blanket prohibition on actions brought by servicemen qua servicemen, yet "the courts rushed in where legislators feared to tread." Parker v. United States, 611 F.2d 1007, 1009 (5th Cir. 1980).
Soon after the FTCA was enacted, the Supreme Court was called upon to determine the statute's impact upon suits brought by servicemen or their survivors against the United States. In Brooks v. United States, 337 U.S. 49, 69 S. Ct. 918, 93 L. Ed. 1200 (1949), a serviceman was injured when an army truck collided on a public highway with the civilian automobile in which he was a passenger. The court characterized the injury as one not incurred incident to service, and held that the clear language of the FTCA authorized the serviceman's negligence action against the United States. Id. at 51-52, 69 S. Ct. at 919-920.
Shortly after Brooks was decided, the Supreme Court had occasion to address the applicability of the FTCA to a factual situation not before the Court in Brooks, to wit, a suit against the United States when "each claimant, while on active duty and not on furlough, sustained injury due to the negligence of others in the armed forces." Feres, 340 U.S. at 138, 71 S. Ct. at 155.3 The court in Feres held that the FTCA did not waive the Government's sovereign immunity for injuries to members of the armed services where the injuries arose out of or were in the course of activity incident to service. Id. at 146, 71 S. Ct. at 159. The court offered the following bases for its holding: (1) the absence of parallel private liability; (2) the belief that since state law must be consulted under the FTCA, it would be irrational to leave servicemen injured by others in the military dependent upon geographic considerations over which they have no control; (3) the "distinctively federal character" of the relationship between the United States and those in the military; and (4) the availability of a no-fault compensation system. Id. at 141-46, 71 S. Ct. at 156-59.
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 [Feres ] Court to read that Act as excluding claims of that character.
Brown, 348 U.S. at 112, 75 S. Ct. at 143.
It may be that it is "novel and unprecedented" to hold the United States accountable for the negligence of its firefighters, but the very purpose of the Tort Claims Act was to waive the Government's traditional all-encompassing immunity from tort actions and to establish novel and unprecedented governmental liability.
Rayonier, 352 U.S. at 319, 77 S. Ct. at 377 (emphasis added).
The continued viability of the Feres doctrine was again questioned, albeit implicitly, in United States v. Muniz, 374 U.S. 150, 83 S. Ct. 1850, 10 L. Ed. 2d 805 (1963), where the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a federal prison inmate could sue under the FTCA for personal injuries sustained while incarcerated. The Government argued that both Feres and the potential adverse effect liability would have on prison discipline warranted implying an exception to the FTCA so as to bar prisoner claims. Although it was careful not to question the Feres doctrine in the military context, see id. at 159, 83 S. Ct. at 1856, the court's reasoning can arguably be seen as further erosion of the doctrine's supporting rationales. The court echoed the Rayonier conclusion that the absence of analogous private liability was no impediment to FTCA liability, id. (citing Brown, 348 U.S. 110, 75 S. Ct. 141, 99 L. Ed. 139), and also noted that "the presence of a compensation system ... does not of necessity preclude a suit for negligence." Muniz, 374 U.S. at 160, 83 S. Ct. at 1856. Further, the court regarded the supposed adverse effect diverse state personal injury laws would have on prison administration as "more a matter of conjecture than reality," id. at 161, 83 S. Ct. at 1856, and the Government's fear that some prisoners might be prejudiced by a non-uniform right to recover was seen by the court as no excuse for denying them recovery altogether. Id. at 162, 83 S. Ct. at 1857. Finally, the court invoked the gloss placed on Feres in Brown, and stated that Feres was "best explained" by the fear of what might happen if FTCA suits questioning orders given or acts committed in the course of military duty were allowed, as well as the effect intramilitary litigation might have on the soldier-superior relationship and military discipline. Id. (quoting Brown, 348 U.S. at 112, 75 S. Ct. at 143). Applying this "explanation" to the facts before it, the court in Muniz concluded that while it was possible that litigating prisoner claims would damage prison discipline, the spectre raised by the Government was more hypothetical than real. Muniz, 374 U.S. at 163, 83 S. Ct. at 1858. The court accordingly allowed the plaintiff to pursue his FTCA claim.
Despite the apparent inroads on the theoretical predicates of the Feres doctrine, Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U.S. 666, 97 S. Ct. 2054, 52 L. Ed. 2d 665 (1977), made it abundantly clear that the doctrine "refused to die the quiet death that some had anticipated." Hunt v. United States, 636 F.2d 580, 588 (D.C. Cir. 1980). In Stencel, a serviceman injured when an aircraft ejection system malfunctioned brought suit against the United States and Stencel, the manufacturer of the system. Stencel cross-claimed against the Government for indemnity alleging, inter alia, that any malfunction in the ejection system was due to the Government's provision of faulty specifications, requirements, and components. Both the district court and the Eighth Circuit concluded that the serviceman's claim against the United States and Stencel's cross-claim were barred by the Feres doctrine. Stencel, 431 U.S. at 669, 97 S. Ct. at 2056. Stencel appealed.
To decide whether to allow Stencel's cross-claim when the serviceman's claim against the Government was barred by the Feres doctrine, see id. at 673, 97 S. Ct. at 2058-2059, the court found it necessary to examine the doctrine's supporting rationales. In doing so, the court "dusted off and reasserted," Parker, 611 F.2d at 1011, some of the factors mentioned in Feres and thought discredited by intervening decisions. See id.; Hunt, 636 F.2d at 588. The court identified three factors it apparently considered controlling in Feres doctrine analysis: (1) the distinctively federal character of the relationship between the soldier and the sovereign; (2) the existence of a no-fault statutory compensation scheme which serves as a substitute for governmental tort liability; and (3) the Brown court's concern about the effect on the military disciplinary structure that would obtain if tort litigation were countenanced. Stencel, 431 U.S. at 670-73, 97 S. Ct. at 2057-59. The court applied each of these factors to the cross-claim indemnity situation, and concluded that the FTCA did not authorize Stencel's claim "for essentially the same reasons that the direct action by [the serviceman] is barred by Feres." Id. at 673, 97 S. Ct. at 2059.
That Stencel was not a jurisprudential aberration was recently confirmed in Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S. Ct. 2362, 76 L. Ed. 2d 586 (1983). In that case, five Navy enlisted men who served on board a combat vessel brought suit against several of their superiors, alleging unconstitutional discrimination. The court acknowledged that Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971), authorized damage suits against federal officials for constitutional violations in the absence of "special factors counselling hesitation." Chappell, 103 S. Ct. at 2364 (quoting Bivens, 403 U.S. at 396, 91 S. Ct. at 2005). The court therefore undertook to locate any such factors. Enter Feres.
The court in Chappell found that " [t]he 'special factors' that bear on the propriety of [plaintiffs'] Bivens action also formed the basis of this Court's decision in Feres." Chappell, 103 S. Ct. at 2364. It then catalogued three of the bases of the Feres doctrine: (1) the lack of congressional intent to create a new cause of action with the FTCA; (2) the existence of a statutory compensation system for members of the armed services who are injured or killed; and (3) the unique relationship of the soldier to his superior, and the effect of intramilitary litigation on discipline. Id. at 2364-65. Although the court in Chappell referred to these three rationales for the Feres doctrine as guiding its analysis, its emphasis was clearly on the third factor. See Brown v. United States, 739 F.2d 362, 365 (8th Cir. 1984). The court focused its analysis on the military's unique need for discipline, the existence of military alternatives to civilian judicial review, and Congress' plenary constitutional authority over the military, and concluded that "special factors" did indeed militate against providing enlisted military personnel a Biven's -type remedy against their superiors. Chappell, 103 S. Ct. at 2367.
Regardless of the "widespread, almost universal criticism of Feres by the lower federal courts and commentators," In re "Agent Orange" Product Liability Litigation, 580 F. Supp. 1242, 1246-47 (E.D.N.Y. 1984) (citing Hinkie v. United States, 715 F.2d 96 (3d Cir. 1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S. Ct. 1276, 79 L. Ed. 2d 680 (1984); Scales v. United States, 685 F.2d 970 (5th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1082, 103 S. Ct. 1772, 76 L. Ed. 2d 344 (1983); Hunt, 636 F.2d 580; Veillette v. United States, 615 F.2d 505 (9th Cir. 1980); Peluso v. United States, 474 F.2d 605 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 879, 94 S. Ct. 50, 38 L. Ed. 2d 124 (1973); Hitch, The Federal Tort Claims Act and Military Personnel, 8 Rutgers L. Rev. 316 (1954); Rhodes, The Feres Doctrine After Twenty-Five Years, 18 A.F.L.Rev. 24 (1976); Note, From Feres to Stencel: Should Military Personnel Have Access to FTCA Recovery?, 77 Mich. L. Rev. 1099 (1977)), it nonetheless "is beyond question that it is the law." Brown, 739 F.2d at 365 (quoting Laswell v. Brown, 683 F.2d 261, 265 (8th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1210, 103 S. Ct. 1205, 75 L. Ed. 2d 446 (1983)). We now turn to its application to the facts of this case.
Plaintiff asserts that, despite Stencel, we should bite the bullet, so to speak, and jettison those rationales for the Feres doctrine which have been criticized over the years. According to plaintiff, whenever a court is faced with a Feres doctrine defense, the inquiry should be limited to the effect maintenance of the suit would have on the military disciplinary structure.4 Since litigating her FTCA claim, which is based solely on the conduct of civilians performing a civilian service, see infra note 10, will not implicate " [t]he most compelling rationale for the Feres doctrine," Brown, 739 F.2d at 365, plaintiff contends that the district court should be reversed. The Government, on the other hand, essentially argues that plaintiff's suit is barred simply because her decedent was killed while performing a Coast Guard mission;5 that the alleged tortfeasors are civilian employees of the FAA who were acting in purely civilian capacities when the alleged tort occurred is, in the Government's view, wholly irrelevant. Although we reach the result sought by the plaintiff, we need not decide whether the approach she advances is appropriate when the tort sued upon is based on the conduct of a member of the military.6 We also decline the Government's invitation to affirm the district court in automaton fashion.
Parker, 611 F.2d 1007, is the appropriate analytical point of departure. In that case, Parker, an off-duty serviceman who was driving a civilian vehicle to his off-base home, was killed in a collision with a military vehicle driven by another serviceman. The accident occurred on an army maintained road within the confines of the military base where Parker was stationed. Earlier that day, Parker had received permission to be away from his duties for the next four days. The court framed the issue as whether, in these circumstances, Parker was engaged in activities incident to his military service at the time of his death. Id. at 1009. After examining Parker's duty status at the time of the accident, the location of the accident, and what he was doing when the accident happened, the court concluded that the wrongful death action was not barred by the Feres doctrine. Id. at 1013-15.
Both parties rely on Parker in support of their positions.7 Contrary to plaintiff's understanding of that decision, however, the Parker court did not hold as it did because allowance of the suit would not directly implicate any of the Feres doctrine rationales as elucidated in Stencel. Rather, the court specifically noted that the "Distinctively Federal Character" and "Relation of Soldier to Superiors" rationales are more relevant to the wisdom of implying an exception to the FTCA in the first instance, than they are to determining whether, given a particular factual situation, a serviceman was injured "incident to service." Id. at 1012-13. Similarly, the alternative compensation rationale was of no particular relevance to the court's inquiry since the compensation system is deemed to be the exclusive remedy for a serviceman's injuries only when the injuries are a result of activity that is incident to service. Id. at 1012.
This does not mean, however, that Parker supports the Government's position. The facts in Parker, and nearly all the cases decided by reference to Feres, involved the typical Feres factual paradigm--an FTCA suit for injuries or death allegedly caused by the negligence of a serviceman or an employee of the armed forces. See, e.g., Brooks, 337 U.S. at 50, 69 S. Ct. at 919 (negligence of civilian employee of the United States Army); Feres, 340 U.S. at 138, 71 S. Ct. at 155 ("negligence of others in the armed forces"); Brown, 348 U.S. 110, 75 S. Ct. 141, 99 L. Ed. 139 (negligence of Veterans Administration medical personnel). As we see it, the teaching of Feres and its progeny, notably Parker, is that when the Feres factual paradigm is present, the issue is whether the injury arose out of or during the course of an activity incident to service. See Feres, 340 U.S. at 146, 71 S. Ct. at 159. If, however, the alleged tortfeasor is not a member of the armed forces or a civilian employee engaged in activities usually associated with the armed forces, we conclude that a court should consult the Feres doctrine rationales as set forth in Stencel "to determine to what extent, if any, allowance of [the] claim would circumvent the purposes of the [FTCA] as ... construed by the [Supreme] Court." Stencel, 431 U.S. at 670, 97 S. Ct. at 2057. This approach is not novel. The Supreme Court, in those situations not fitting neatly into the Feres factual paradigm, has found it entirely appropriate to inquire if the doctrine's rationales applied with equal vigor to the facts before it so as to justify immunizing the government or a governmental official from liability. The Chappell, Stencel, and Muniz courts employed this analysis.
Our decision to employ such an approach is further buttressed by a particularly instructive case, Hunt v. United States, 636 F.2d 580 (D.C. Cir. 1980). In Hunt, three plaintiffs brought suit alleging that mandatory swine flu inoculations received while on active duty caused them serious illness. As in this case, a rigid literal reading of Feres would have required barring the plaintiffs' claims against the United States since the plaintiffs were on active duty when required to do that which eventually caused them the harm sued upon. Yet the Hunt court resisted the temptation to automatically extend the Feres bar to a factual situation not akin to the Feres factual paradigm.8 The court instead found that the Feres doctrine was not directly applicable. Id. at 597. It therefore felt impelled to "examine the policies on which the [Feres ] doctrine rests to determine whether its application would be appropriate," id., given the unique facts presented. The court concluded that none of the policies behind the Feres doctrine, " [a]s recapitulated in Stencel," id., supported exempting the Government from liability simply because the United States was the defendant, and accordingly held that the doctrine was no bar to governmental liability.9 Id. at 597-600.
We also conclude, employing this analysis, that the Feres doctrine does not bar plaintiff's FTCA claim. This much-maligned doctrine, as we have seen, is best explained by the desire to avoid civilian court inquiry into matters that the Supreme Court views as best left beyond the pale of judicial scrutiny. This desire is understandable, given the fact that "the military is, of necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society." Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 743, 94 S. Ct. 2547, 2555, 41 L. Ed. 2d 439 (1974). Recognizing the uniqueness of the military, the Supreme Court has consistently been chary of countenancing civilian court litigation brought by servicemen against fellow soldiers or superior officers. For example, the court recently reasoned that "the need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel," Chappell, 103 S. Ct. at 2367, militated against exposing officers sued by their subordinates to a Bivens remedy. Id. In Stencel, the court disallowed third-party indemnity claims against the United States arising out of service-connected injuries to soldiers, in part because " [t]he trial [s] would ... involve second-guessing military orders, and would often require members of the Armed Services to testify in court as to each other's decisions and actions." Stencel, 431 U.S. at 673, 97 S. Ct. at 2059. Similarly, the Brown court expressed its concern over the effect intramilitary litigation might have on discipline, particularly when the suit involved "negligent orders given or negligent acts committed in the course of military duty." Brown, 348 U.S. at 112, 75 S. Ct. at 143. The common thread running through these cases is the reluctance to upset, via the civilian forum, the delicate relationships which must exist for the military system to properly function.
We acknowledge that the Ninth Circuit, in a case strikingly similar to this one, has reached the opposite conclusion. In Uptegrove v. United States, 600 F.2d 1248 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1044, 100 S. Ct. 732, 62 L. Ed. 2d 730 (1980), a Navy lieutenant flying home on leave as a military space available passenger aboard an Air Force C-141 transport was killed when it crashed into a mountain. His wife brought a negligence action against the United States and three FAA air traffic controllers. The Ninth Circuit, concluding that the lieutenant was killed while engaging in activity incident to service, held that the Feres doctrine barred the suit. The court reasoned that the Supreme Court has never indicated that the Feres doctrine applies only to situations involving a threat to military discipline, Uptegrove, 600 F.2d at 1250 (citing United States v. Lee, 400 F.2d 558, 564 (9th Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1053, 89 S. Ct. 691, 21 L. Ed. 2d 695 (1969)), and the focus in a Feres doctrine case should be solely on the serviceman's military status, not the status of the tortfeasor. Uptegrove, 600 F.2d at 1251 (citing Lee, 400 F.2d at 562).
With all due respect to the Ninth Circuit, it is our view that Uptegrove was wrongly decided. As an initial matter, the court accorded no weight at all to the fundamental fact that in Stencel, Brown, Feres, and Brooks, the relevant Supreme Court benchmarks antedating the Uptegrove decision, the alleged tortfeasor was a serviceman or an employee of the military, not an employee of a civilian branch of the Government performing a civilian task. Ignoring this distinction and blindly applying a rule to a factual scenario materially different from that which spawned the rule itself "has the virtue of easy application, [but is not] the better jurisprudential course." Brown, 739 F.2d at 366 (quoting Miller v. United States, 643 F.2d 481, 493 (8th Cir. 1981) (en banc)). Moreover, the Ninth Circuit's statement that a threat to military discipline need not be present for Feres to apply reveals a misunderstanding of the third rationale for the Feres doctrine.12 By definition, whenever the lawsuit is based on injuries incurred incident to service, and the Feres factual paradigm is present, the "military discipline" rationale is implicated because the Supreme Court "has found it unseemly to have military personnel, injured incident to service, asserting claims that question the propriety of decisions or conduct by fellow members of the military." Hunt, 636 F.2d at 599. Additionally, in the post-Brown Supreme Court cases where the Feres doctrine was consulted for guidance, the doctrine's third rationale figured prominently in the court's decisions. See Chappell, 103 S. Ct. at 2365, 2367; Stencel, 431 U.S. at 673, 97 S. Ct. at 2058; Muniz, 374 U.S. at 162-63, 83 S. Ct. at 1857-58. Finally, while the Ninth Circuit's position that the status of the tortfeasor need not be examined may be defensible when the Feres factual paradigm is present, it is not as defensible when the facts permit the court to decide whether to imply an exception to the FTCA. Cf. Feres, 340 U.S. at 142, 71 S. Ct. at 157 (Court, when discussing analogous private liability, cautioned against "ignor [ing] the status of both the wronged and the wrongdoer").
Despite the barrage of criticisms leveled at the Feres doctrine and its theoretical predicates over the years, the fact remains that it still is the law.13 We accordingly must adhere to it until instructed to do otherwise by the Supreme Court or Congress. That does not mean, however, that we should blindly hand to the Government judicially-created immunity from suit in a factual situation not present in, nor contemplated by, the Feres decision. Having determined that the principal raison d'etre of the Feres doctrine will not be implicated by allowing plaintiff to pursue her claim against the Government, we decline to extend the doctrine to bar her suit. Therefore, the fact that serviceman Johnson was killed while on a Coast Guard mission is simply not controlling. We are mindful of an observation made by the Supreme Court in a related context: "There is no justification for this court to read exemptions into the [FTCA] beyond those provided by Congress. If the [FTCA] is to be altered that is a function for the same body that adopted it." Muniz, 374 U.S. at 166, 83 S. Ct. at 1859 (quoting Rayonier, 352 U.S. at 320, 77 S. Ct. at 377).
The judgment of the district court is REVERSED, and this case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Sound as this approach might be, we do not feel it is necessary in this instance because we are not faced with a typical Feres factual paradigm. We do note that some courts have not embraced a case-by-case inquiry into whether allowing a particular suit would threaten military discipline. See Hunt, 636 F.2d at 599 n. 51; Hall, 451 F.2d at 354 ("If every injury 'aris [ing] out of or ... incident to service,' [Feres ], 340 U.S. at 146, 71 S. Ct. at 159, must invite inquiry, not only would the difficulties of what, legally, would constitute discipline-connected be substantial, but the Armed Services would be faced with maintaining a claims department."). Arguably, Parker, 611 F.2d 1007, also suggests that any such case-by-case inquiry is inappropriate when the alleged tortfeasor is a member of the armed services. See infra pp. 1537-1538. We feel free to conduct such an inquiry here, however, since we must determine "whether, as a general question of law, the Feres doctrine should be extended to", Hunt, 636 F.2d at 599 n. 51 (emphasis added), a factual situation radically different from the typical Feres doctrine case, where the alleged tortfeasor is a member of the armed services. See infra pp. 1538-1539. The alleged tortfeasor here is a civilian.

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