Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/405/1361/369853/
Timestamp: 2020-01-21 05:01:10
Document Index: 628163568

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8101', '§ 2671', '§ 36', '§ 7', '§ 757', '§ 8116', '§ 5']

Jerome S. Murray, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee, 405 F.2d 1361 (D.C. Cir. 1968) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › D.C. Circuit › 1968 › Jerome S. Murray, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee
Jerome S. Murray, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee, 405 F.2d 1361 (D.C. Cir. 1968)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - 405 F.2d 1361 (D.C. Cir. 1968) Argued March 6, 1968
Decided October 31, 1968
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Mr. David F. Grimaldi, Washington, D.C., with whom Messrs. Richard W. Galiher, William E. Stewart, Jr., and William H. Clarke, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellant.
As a general rule, workmen's compensation statutes terminate the private employer's common law tort liability and substitute a duty to pay a prescribed compensation not based on fault. That remedy is made exclusive. In such a situation the employer cannot be a joint tortfeasor. Since there is no common liability between the employer and the third-party defendant sued in tort, the employer cannot be forced to contribute to the other defendant. The leading case under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Worker's Compensation Act8 (Longshoremen's Act), denying contribution in view of the exclusivity provision, is American Mutual Liability Co. v. Matthews, 182 F.2d 322 (2d Cir. 1950). We approve the District Court opinions applying the rule of the Mathews case both to private employees in the District of Columbia, who are covered by an extension of the Longshoremen's Act,9 and to government employees, who are covered by the FECA,10 which contains an exclusive liability provision that has been referred to as "nearly identical." See Weyerhaeuser Steamship Co. v. United States, 372 U.S. 597, 602, 83 S. Ct. 926, 10 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1963).
Weyerhaeuser is relied on by appellant, and we have considered it carefully. There the Court held that the exclusivity provision of the FECA could not be interposed as a bar by the government when a government employee on a dredge, who obtained compensation under the FECA, also obtained a judgment from the owner of another ship involved in a collision with the dredge. That owner was held entitled to sue the United States under the Public Vessels Act. The Court noted that the FECA's exclusivity provision did not preclude reimbursement based on a contract to indemnify. Ryan Co. v. Pan-Atlantic Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S. Ct. 232, 100 L. Ed. 133 (1956). And the Court held that the same result ensued where the correlative rights and duties of the two shipowners were established not by contract but by a rule of admiralty law, which for more than 100 years has established a rule of divided damages.11
In 1964 a different result was reached, after extensive discussion, in United Air Lines, Inc. v. Wiener, 335 F.2d 379 (9th Cir. 1964), cert. dismissed sub nom. United Air Lines v. United States, 379 U.S. 951, 85 S. Ct. 452, 13 L. Ed. 2d 549. Following a mid-air collision between a United Air Lines plane, carrying government employees, and a military aircraft, the government employees and representatives sued United Air Lines. United sought contribution or non-contractual indemnity from the government. The Ninth Circuit dismissed United's third-party claim and distinguished Weyerhaeuser, saying (335 F.2d at 403):
The United Air Lines opinion did not reach the Supreme Court,13 but the Ninth Circuit adhered to its United Air Lines opinion in Wien Alaska Air Lines v. United States, 375 F.2d 736 (1967), and certiorari was denied, 389 U.S. 940, 88 S. Ct. 288, 19 L. Ed. 2d 291 (1967). These rulings were relied on for denial of a contribution claim against the United States in Maddux v. Cox, 382 F.2d 119 (8th Cir. 1967).
As Appellant's brief notes (at p. 12), his amended third-party complaint "sought indemnification * * * on the theory that the Government impliedly contracted in the leasing agreement to maintain the premises in a safe manner." This effort to seek indemnity on the basis of consensual obligation is in harmony with the exclusivity provision of the FECA. Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S. Ct. 232, 100 L. Ed. 133 (1956). But that contract action runs into the provision of the Tucker Act which limits the District Court's jurisdiction to claims "not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded * * * upon any express or implied contract with the United States."15 Appellant's brief says it is possible for a verdict to be rendered for less than $10,000, but since there obviously was and is no intent to limit the indemnity claim to this amount, this is without significance. The contract indemnity claim was properly dismissed by the District Court as beyond its jurisdiction.
If this case fairly presented a claim of non-contract indemnity we would be confronted with a difficult question. The cited rulings in the Eighth and Ninth Circuits dismissing indemnity claims as barred by the exclusivity provision of the Employees' Compensation Act assume that indemnity and contribution claims against the government employer necessarily stand on the same footing. That is contrary to the theory put forward (in dictum) by Judge Keech in Coates v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 95 F. Supp. 779, 783-784 (D.D.C. 1951), where contribution against an employer was prohibited but a claim on indemnity was considered maintainable, as resting on an independent duty by indemnitor to the indemnitee.
It may be interjected that in Slattery v. Marra Bros., 186 F.2d 134, 138-139 (2d Cir. 1951), cert. denied 341 U.S. 915, 71 S. Ct. 736, 95 L. Ed. 1351, Judge Learned Hand saw a distinction between an indemnity claim based merely on differences in degree of fault between joint tortfeasors having no other connection with each other, which would be barred by the exclusivity provisions, and an indemnity claim based on their legal relationship — arising out of facts and circumstances other than their linkage with the same victim and establishing an independent duty based in contract or possibly in tort. Curiously this aspect of Slattery seems to have been bypassed by the Ninth Circuit in United Air Lines v. Wiener, supra.21
5 U.S.C. § 8101 et seq. (Supp. III, 1968).
28 U.S.C. § 2671 et seq. (1964), as amended (Supp. III, 1968).
United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543, 71 S. Ct. 399, 95 L. Ed. 523 (1951). Cf. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. v. United States, 187 F.2d 925 (5th Cir. 1951)
United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543, 71 S. Ct. 399 (1951); United States v. Inmon, 205 F.2d 681 (5th Cir. 1953); Ford v. United States, 200 F.2d 272 (10th Cir. 1952)
The law extending the Longshoremen's Act to employees in the District of Columbia appears in D.C.Code, § 36-501 (1967). The relevant opinions are those of Judge Holtzoff in Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Vallendingham, 94 F. Supp. 17 (D. D.C.1950), and of Judge Keech in Coates v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 95 F. Supp. 779 (D.D.C. 1951)
Busey v. Washington, 225 F. Supp. 416, 423 (D.D.C. 1964)
372 U.S. at 603, 83 S. Ct. 926. As to the FECA, the Court noted in a dictum stressed by appellant, "there is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties." 372 U.S. at 601, 83 S. Ct. at 929
Within a month after deciding Weyerhaeuser the Court issued an order in Treadwell Constr. Co. v. United States, 372 U.S. 772, 83 S. Ct. 1102, 10 L. Ed. 2d 136 (1963), which vacated the judgment in Drake v. Treadwell Constr. Co., 299 F.2d 789 (3d Cir. 1962), and remanded for further consideration in the light of Weyerhaeuser. In Treadwell the Third Circuit had held the exclusivity provision of the FECA to preclude a claim in contribution against the government by a joint tortfeasor who had been successfully sued by a government employee. On the remand the District Court allowed contribution and the government did not appeal. Other actions taken at about this time by the government as litigant and affected district judges seem to have assumed, without further discussion, that Weyerhaeuser-Treadwell permitted a contribution claim notwithstanding the FECA's exclusivity provision. See Hart v. Simons, 223 F. Supp. 109 (E.D. Pa. 1963), and particularly fn. 1 of that case, giving the history of Treadwell in the Western District of Pennsylvania.
However, the Government brief advises us that in the Hart case the Government persisted in its claim that FECA barred contribution, and that the ultimate settlement between Hart and Simons provided that the third-party complaint should be dismissed. Civil No. 27953 (E.D. Pa.), Stipulation of Dismissal filed Nov. 2, 1964.
As mentioned above, certiorari was dismissed sub nom. United Air Lines v. United States, 379 U.S. 951, 85 S. Ct. 452 (1964).
United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543, 71 S. Ct. 399. 95 L. Ed. 523 (1951); D. C. Transit System, Inc. v. Slingland, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 266 F.2d 465, 72 A.L.R.2d 1290 (1959)
Slattery v. Marra Bros., Inc., 186 F.2d 134 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 341 U.S. 915, 71 S. Ct. 736, 95 L. Ed. 1351 (1951)
That court points out (335 F.2d at 403) that Slattery says that mere differences in degree or kind of fault ("passive" versus "active" negligence) should not strip a joint tortfeasor of the protection of the exclusivity provision. The doctrine used in the dictum of Coates, 95 F. Supp. at 783-784, is that an independent duty may be owed by the tortfeasor who "was the active wrongdoer and was primarily liable for the injury sustained," citing, inter alia, Washington Gas Light Co. v. District of Columbia, 161 U.S. 316, 16 S. Ct. 564, 40 L. Ed. 712 (1896).
The Coates dictum provides a basis for indemnity claims against employers. Yet in Christie v. Powder Tool Corp., 124 F. Supp. 693 (D.D.C. 1954), Judge Pine dismissed a non-contract indemnity claim where the employer was the Government. Judge Pine noted a difference in wording and implied there was a distinction in meaning between the exclusivity provisions of § 7(b) of the Federal Employees Compensation Act, 5 U.S.C. § 757(b) (1964), now 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c) (Supp. III, 1968), and § 5 of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. But as already noted in Weyerhaeuser, the Supreme Court later referred to these provisions as "nearly identical" (372 U.S. at 602, 83 S. Ct. 926, 10 L. Ed. 2d 1), and in United Air Lines v. Wiener, supra, the Ninth Circuit referred to them as "indistinguishable."