Source: http://openjurist.org/340/us/15/snyder-v-buck
Timestamp: 2013-05-26 06:22:08
Document Index: 623741321

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 11', '§ 11', '§ 943', '§ 943', '§ 2105', '§ 3770', '§ 3770', '§ 3770', '§ 3220', '§ 3772', '§ 3772', '§ 3772']

The Act of 1899 was a response to this Court's suggestion. See United States ex rel. Bernardin v. Butterworth, 169 U.S. 600, 605, 18 S.Ct. 441, 442, 42 L.Ed. 873.2 This was likewise true of the Act of 1925. See Irwin v. Wright, 258 U.S. 219, 223—224, 42 S.Ct. 293, 295, 66 L.Ed. 753.3 The opinion in that case was rendered on March 20, 1922, but while it was in the bosom of the Court, having been submitted on January 24, Chief Justice Taft sent to Senator Cummins a re sume of what was known as the 'Judges' Bill,' which became the Act of 1925. As to the matter here under discussion, the Chief Justice said that the proposed bill 'extends the right now given by statute, to substitute the successors of certain officers of the United States where the latter have died, resigned, or otherwise vacated their offices pending suit, so as to embrace the successors of officers of the District of Columbia, the Canal Zone, and the Territories and insular possessions of the United States, as well as of a State or political subdivision or agency thereof.' Confidential Committee Print entitled 'Jurisdiction of Circuit Courts of Appeals and of the Supreme Court,' Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 2d Sess. 4. The formulation of what was thus summarized by Chief Justice Taft is the present § 11, and that formulation was in the Judges' Bill from the time it was introduced in the two Houses by Senator Cummins and Congressman Walsh, respectively, on February 17, 1922.4
The correctness of the result in Defense Supplies Corp. v. Lawrence Warehouse Co., supra, does not depend on the misconceived relation indicated in its opinion. But it ought not to form a part of the chain of reasoning in disposing of this case. Therefore, insofar as § 11 of the Act of 19255 is relevant to our present problem, we must reject the notion that, while under the 1899 Act such an action as this, brought against Paymaster General Buck, 'did not abate,' the 1925 Act eliminated this 'command.'
This brings us to the circumstances of the case. The petitioner claims to be the lawful widow of a naval officer. She brought this action to recover a death gratuity allowance, amounting to $1,365, payable under the Act of June 4, 1920, 41 Stat. 824, as amended, 34 U.S.C. § 943, 34 U.S.C.A. § 943. Jurisdiction was alleged under the Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 505, as amended, and other statutes. Nominally, the action was for mandamus to compel Buck, the Paymaster General of the Navy, to make payment. The District Court refused to grant relief by mandamus, but, in accordance with modern practice, granted what it thought to be the proper remedy. The judgment, after enjoining Buck from persisting in his refusal to make payment, concluded: '* * * and the defendant is directed to pay the plaintiff Thirteen Hundred and Sixty-five Dollars ($1,365.00) which is the amount equal to six months' pay at the rate received by the deceased at the time of his death.' The District Court judgment was entered on January 30, 1948. Admiral Buck was retired as Paymaster General on March 1. Notice of appeal was, nevertheless, filed in his name by Government attorneys on March 18. The issue of abatement was not raised until the Government attorney called the fact of Buck's retirement to the attention of the Court of Appeals upon oral argument, which occurred after the six-month period for substitution had passed. The Court of Appeals vacated the judgment of the District Court and remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint as abated.
1. I agree with the Court that this was not a personal action against Admiral Buck, and that the judgment was not against him as an individual. That suits against a collector of revenue for illegal exactions under the Revenue Acts are deemed personal actions enforceable as such against the collector is an anomalous situation in our law which calls for abrogation instead of extension. For the history of these actions, see Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236, 11 L.Ed. 576, and United States v. Nunnally Investment Co., 316 U.S. 258, 62 S.Ct. 1064, 86 L.Ed. 1455.6
The intrinsic and not merely formalistic answer to this question is of course entangled with the doctrine of sovereign immunity from suits. In scores of cases this Court has had to consider when a suit, though nominally against one holding public office, is in fact a suit against the Government and as such barred by want of the sovereign's consent to be sued. See Larson v. Domestic and Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, App. 729, 69 S.Ct. 1457, 1481, 93 L.Ed. 1628. The subject, it has been recognized, is not free from casuistry because of the natural, even if unconscious, pressure to escape from the doctrine of sovereign immunity which—whatever its historic basis—is hardly a doctrine based upon moral considerations. The trend of deep sentiment, reflected by legislation and adjudication, has looked askance at the doctrine. See Keifer & Keifer v. R.F.C., 306 U.S. 381, 390—392, 59 S.Ct. 516, 83 L.Ed. 784. If astuteness has been exercised to deny the representative character of an official in order to avoid his identification as the sovereign ad hoc, it runs counter to the rational administration of justice not to find an official the sovereign ad hoc and the suit against him, in effect, a suit against the sovereign when sovereign immunity is not circumscribed thereby.
Under the Court of Claims Act, 12 Stat. 765, as amended, the plaintiff here could have gone to the Court of Claims.7 By the Act of march 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, as amended, she could have brought suit in the District Court. When the sovereign has in fact given consent formally to be sued as such on the very claim and to allow, in the same court and by the same procedure (trial without a jury), precisely the same relief as was sought and obtained against the official in his representative capacity, it would needlessly enthrone formality to deny the intrinsic nature of the suit to be a suit against the sovereign. And that is this situation. Certainly those charged with the duty of defending the interests of the United States so conceived it. By denominating Admiral Buck as 'Paymaster General of the Navy' in his notice of appeal, the United States Attorney recognized that Paymaster General Buck was, as it were, merely an alias for the United States, the real client of the United States Attorney. The Government, indeed, has consistently recognized that justice does not call for abatement of the suit. Both here and below it has disavowed a disire for abatement. Of course, if it were a fixed rule of law that a suit such as this should die when the nominal defendant dies, the Court would have to bow to it, however harsh and futile the rule. It required legislation represented by Lord Campbell's Act to make tort liability survive the death of the victim. But it is not the controlling policy of the law that such actions die upon change of office-holders. The policy of the law is to the contrary, even as to suits which could not be brought against the Government directly. So also, it has long been the policy of our law to look behind an office-holder nominally a party litigant in order to find that, for all practical purposes, it is a suit against the Government and therefore not maintainable. Justice should be equally open-eyed in order to find behind the nominal official defendant the United States as the real defendant.
Accordingly, I would recognize that the judgment of the District Court is in effect a money judgment against the United States and would allow the Government's notice of appeal the force it was intended to have as an effective instrument whereby the United States might obtain a review of that judgment. It would be nothing novel in the observance of decorous form by courts to note as a matter of record that the name of the Paymaster General of the Navy is now Fox and to proceed with the appeal on that basis.8
A final question has to be faced—a question which should, in logic, have been treated first, for it concerns the power of this Court to decide the case. Section 2105 of 28 U.S.C., 28 U.S.C.A. § 2105, provides: 'There shall be no reversal in the Supreme Court or a court of appeals for error in ruling upon matters in abatement which do not involve jurisdiction.' I agree with the Court that this statute is not applicable, but not on the ground that lack of substitution is a question of 'jurisdiction.' Section 2105 relates only to the modern equivalent of a common law plea in abatement, which was made in the trial court before issue was joined on the merits of the case.9 It can have no effect upon a decision by an appellate court that a suit has abated.
Since the duty sought to be enforced in this action attached to the office of Paymaster General and rested upon Admiral Buck only so long as he held the office, it is clear that petitioner's claim is against Buck in his representative capacity, not personally. After his retirement it was not within his power to comply with the District Court's injunction, and the judgment ceased to be enforceable against him.1 Consequently Buck lacked standing to obtain review of the judgment on appeal.2 Thus far I agree with the conclusions of the Court.
But I think that when the attorney for the Government called to the Court of Appeals' attention—after this suit had been pending there for more than a year—that the appeal had been taken by buck after his retirement and that no appeal had been perfected by or on behalf of his successor, the court should have dismissed the appeal on its own motion.3 That is the action which this Court took in Davis v. Preston, 1930, 280 U.S. 406, 50 S.Ct. 171, 74 L.Ed. 514, when review had been allowed at the instance of a federal officer who, it later appeared, because of separation from office had not had standing to petition for certiorari. A unanimous court dismissed the writ as improvidently granted, stating:
'A motion is now made by Andrew W. Mellon, as Federal Agent, for his substitution in the present proceeding in the place of Davis. But the motion must be denied. The succession in office, as now appears, occurred before there was any effort to obtain a review in this Court. After the succession Davis was completely separated from the office and without right to invoke such a review * * *. Therefore his petition must be disregarded. The time within which such a review may be invoked is limited by statute and that time has long since expired. To grant the motion in these circumstances would be to put aside the statutory limitation and to subject the party prevailing in the (court below) to uncertainty and vexation which the limitation is intended to prevent.' Id., 280 U.S. at page 408, 50 S.Ct. at page 172, 74 L.Ed. 514.4
This Court now concludes that Davis v. Preston is inapposite because in that case, unlike the situation before us, applicable legislation prevented abatement of the suit against Davis following his separation from office. But the point made in the Davis case was simply that the succession in office had preceded Davis' effort to obtain review by this Court and pertinent statutes did not enable the former federal officer to invoke review of a judgment which was of no legal concern to him. And in this case since an appeal was not properly taken within the time allowed, it does not matter at this time whether the District Court judgment could be enforced by plaintiff against Buck's successor, by substitution of the latter as defendant or by other action.5
An exception was a suit to enforce an obligation of the corporation or municipality to which the office was attached. See Thompson v. United States, 103 U.S. 480, 483, 26 L.Ed. 521, as explained in United States ex rel. Bernardin v. Butterworth, supra, 169 U.S. at page 603, 18 S.Ct. at page 442, 42 L.Ed. 873, and in Murphy v. Utter, 186 U.S. 95, 101—102, 22 S.Ct. 776, 778 779, 46 L.Ed. 1070.
I am partly responsible for the misconception of finding a substantive change between the significance of the 1899 Act and the 1925 Act because I joined in Defense Supplies Corp. v. Lawrence Warehouse Co., 336 U.S. 631, 69 S.Ct. 762, 93 L.Ed. 931. It is not by way of extenuating my responsibility that I deem it pertinent to suggest that the nature and volume of the Court's business proclude examination of all the judicial and legislative materials of all opinions in which one concurs. In order that the energies of the Court may be concentrated on those cases for which adjudication by this Court is indispensable, I have been insistent in my view that the Court should be rigorous in limiting the cases which it will allow to come here. That it may so control its business, the Congress, by the Act of 1925, gave the Court—for all practical purposes—a free hand. See Ex parte Republic of Peru, 318 U.S. 578, 602—604, 63 S.Ct. 793, 806, 807, 87 L.Ed. 1014.
The problems raised by the personal liability of collectors have necessitated special legislation. See I.R.C. § 3770(b), 26 U.S.C. § 3770(b), 26 U.S.C.A. § 3770(b), R.S. § 3220, as amended (authority to reimburse collectors), and I.R.C. § 3772(d), 26 U.S.C. § 3772(d), 26 U.S.C.A. § 3772(d), 56 Stat. 956. (Suits against collectors are treated as suits against the United States for purposes of res judicata.)
It seems that plaintiff would not be without a remedy which would give life to her judgment obtained in a court of competent jurisdiction against a federal officer who at the time of judgment had full authority in the premises. In Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 1940, 310 U.S. 381, 402—403, 60 S.Ct. 907, 917, 84 L.Ed. 1263, the Court said: 'There is privity between officers of the same government so that a judgment in a suit between a party and a representative of the United States is res judicata in relitigation of the same issue between that party and another officer of the government. See Tait v. Western Maryland R. Co., 289 U.S. 620, 53 S.Ct. 706, 77 L.Ed. 1405. The crucial point in whether or not in the earlier litigation the representative of the United States had authority to represent its interests in a final adjudication of the issue in controversy.'
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