Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/360/548
Timestamp: 2019-06-26 02:13:47
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 151', '§ 3', '§ 153', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 54', '§ 359', '§ 309', '§ 228', '§ 153', '§ 151', '§ 228', '§ 153', '§ 153', '§ 153', '§ 16', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 599', '§ 2680']

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. George M. DAY, Administrator Ad Litem of the Estate of Charles A. DePriest. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. George M. DAY, Administrator Ad Litem of the Estate of Charles A. DePriest.
360 U.S. 548 (79 S.Ct. 1322, 3 L.Ed.2d 1422)
Argued: March 26, 1959.
dissent, WARREN, DOUGLAS [HTML]
In April 1955 Charles A. DePriest began an action in the District Court for the District of New Jersey, claiming $27,000 in additional compensation from the Pennsylvania Railroad. DePriest had been employed as a locomotive engineer by the Railroad from May 1918 to March 1955, at which time he resigned his employment and applied for an annuity. He alleged that under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement between the Railroad and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers of which he was a member, he was entitled to an extra day's pay for each of the 1,0001,500 times he had been assigned to leave his switching limits and perform service for his employer on tracks belonging to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. He relied on a provision of the collective bargaining agreement which provided extra compensation for engineers who were used beyond their switching limits under specially defined circumstances. DePriest further alleged that his claim had been rejected by his employer's representatives, including the Railroad's chief operating officer for the region in which he was employed. His retirement from service occurred immediately after this alleged rejection. Jurisdiction was based on diversity of citizenship. The District Court stayed the proceedings awaiting the disposition of similar claims against the Pennsylvania Railroad then pending before the First Division of the National Railroad Adjustment Board, DePriest v. Pennsylvania R. Co., D.C., 145 F.Supp. 596. An appeal from this interlocutory decision, not one granting or denying an injunction, was dismissed. 3 Cir., 243 F.2d 485. In the interim DePriest died and was replaced by an administrator. Following a rejection by the National Railroad Adjustment Board of claims against the Pennsylvania Railroad involving the same provisions of the collective bargaining agreement, the District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the Board's interpretations were final and as such binding on respondent, D.C., 155 F.Supp. 695. The Court of Appeals reversed, 3 Cir., 258 F.2d 62, holding that the determination by the Board of claims to which respondent was not a party was not binding on him, and that the District Court had jurisdiction over the claim. We granted certiorari, 358 U.S. 878, 79 S.Ct. 124, 3 L.Ed.2d 108, since this decision raised an important question in the administration of the Railway Labor Act of 1934. That Act, 48 Stat. 1185, 45 U.S.C. 151 et seq., 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., established a broad framework for the regulation and adjustment of industrial controversies involving railroads.
'The disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, including cases pending and unadjusted on the date of approval of this Act, shall be handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such disputes; but, failing to reach an adjustment in this manner, the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment Board with a full statement of the facts and all supporting data bearing upon the disputes.' Railway Labor Act, § 3, First (i), 45 U.S.C. 153, First (1), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(i).
The clash of economic forces which led to the passage of this Act, the history of its enactment, and the legislative policies which it expresses and which guide judicial interpretation have been too thoroughly and recently canvassed by this Court to need repetition. 1 On the basis of these guides to judicial construction we have held that the National Railroad Adjustment Board had exclusive primary jurisdiction over disputes between unions and carriers based on the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W.R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795. On the same day, we also decided Order of Railway Conductors of America v. Southern Ry. Co., 339 U.S. 255, 70 S.Ct. 585, 94 L.Ed. 811, holding that the principles of Slocum were fully applicable to a claim by a group of conductors that they were entitled to extra compensation for certain 'side trips' under the terms of their agreement with the carrier. That case, like the case now before us, involved claims for compensation which could only be adjudicated by a determination of the relevant facts and construction of the collective bargaining agreement. However, here, as was not the case in Order of Railway Conductors of America the claimant has retired from railroad service. The immediate question is whether that factual difference makes a legal difference.
The National Railroad Adjustment Board was established as a tribunal to settle disputes arising out of the relationship between carrier and employee. All the considerations which led Congress to entrust an expert administrative board with the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements are equally applicable when, as here, the employee has retired from service after initiating a claim for compensation for work performed while on active duty. The nature of the problem and the need for experience and expert knowledge remain the same. The same collective bargaining agreement must be construed with the same need for uniformity of interpretation and orderly adjustment of differences. There is nothing in the Act which requires that the employment relationship subsist throughout the entire process of administrative settlement. The purpose of the Act is fulfilled if the claim itself arises out of the employment relationship which Congress regulated. The Board itself has accepted this construction and ajud icates the claims of retired employees. 2 This uniform administrative interpretation is of great importance, reflecting, as it does, the needs and fair expectations of the railroad industry for which Congress has provided what might be termed a charter for its internal government. Moreover, the discharged employee may challenge the validity of his discharge before the Board, seeking reinstatement and back pay. See Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 79 S.Ct. 1351. Thus it is plain both from a reading of the Act in light of its purpose and the needs of its administration and from the settled administrative interpretation that the Board has jurisdiction over respondent's claim for compensation.
Since the Board has jurisdiction, it must have exclusive primary jurisdiction. All the considerations of legislative meaning and policy which have compelled the conclusion that an active employee must submit his claims to the Board, and may not resort to the courts in the first instance, are the same when the employee has retired and seeks compensation for work performed while he remained on active service. A contrary conclusion would create a not insubstantial class of preferred claimants. 3 Retired employees would be allowed to bypass the Board specially constituted for hearing railroad disputes whenever they deemed it advantageous to do so, whereas all other employees would be required to present their claims to the Board. This case forcefully illustrates the difficulties of such a construction. Several active workers have had claims similar to that of respondent rejected by the Board. To allow respondent now to try his claim in the District Court would only accentuate the danger of inequality of treatment and its consequent discontent which it was the aim of the Railway Labor Act to eliminate. We can take judicial notice of the fact that provisions in railroad collective bargaining agreements are of a specialized technical nature calling for specialized technical knowledge in ascertaining their meaning and application. Wholly apart from the adaptability of judges and juries to make such determinations, varying jury verdicts would imbed into such judgments varying constructions not subject to review to secure uniformity. Not only would this engender diversity of proceedings but diversity through judicial construction and through the construction of the Adjustment Board. Since nothing is a greater spur to conflicts, and eventually conflicts resulting in strikes, than different pay for the same work or unfair differentials, not to respect the centralized determination of these questions through the Adjustment Board would hamper if not defeat the central purpose of the Railway Labor Act.
The Court holds that the Railway Labor Act gives the National Railroad Adjustment Board exclusive jurisdiction of back-pay disputes between retired railroad employees and their ex-employer railroads. I cannot read the Labor Act that way. The controlling provision, § 3, First (i), confers power on the Board to adjust 'disputes between an employee or a group of employees and a carrier or carriers * * *.' 1 Seemingly to highlight the fact that the Act is to govern active workers only, Congress defined 'employee' as 'every person in the service of a carrier (subject to its continuing authority to supervise and direct the manner of rendition of his service) who performs any work defined as that of an employee * * *.' 2 The railway engineer who brought this suit was not an employee within this definition. Prior to suit he had resigned his job, and had claimed an annuity under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937, which requires a worker making such a claim to relinquish all rights to return to railroad service in the future. 3 Under these circumstances, the retired employee could not be, and was not 'in the service' of the railroad or 'subject to its continuing authority to supervise * * * the manner of rendition of his service.' No other language in the Act brings retired railroad employees within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Adjustment Board. I think the Court's holding represents an altogether unjustifiable interpretative liberty.
The Court finds reasons outside the language of the Act, however, for expanding the Board's jurisdiction beyond thebou ndaries set by the definitions of Congress. These reasons, in my judgment, do not support the expansion of the Act's coverage which the Court makes. The Court argues that 'All the considerations which led Congress to entrust an expert administrative board with the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements are equally applicable when, as here, the employee has retired from service after initiating a claim for compensation for work performed while on active duty.' I am afraid this statement assumes a knowledge which the Court does not and cannot have. Of course some of the same considerations apply. I agree, for example, that the same collective bargaining agreement must be construed whether wages are claimed by an ex-employee or by an active employee. This is equally true, however, when an ex-employee sues for wrongful discharge under a collective bargaining agreement. Yet we have not hesitated on three separate occasions to say that such actions for wrongful discharge can be adjudicated in the courts, and that the courts themselves may construe the bargaining agreement. Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089; Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W.R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795; Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc., v. Koppal, 345 U.S. 653, 73 S.Ct. 906, 97 L.Ed. 1325. Similarly, when the Board makes an award adverse to the railroad and the employee is forced to go to the courts to have the award enforced, courts have felt free to interpret collective bargaining agreements differently from the way the Board had. 4
But if external considerations are to be used to interpret the statute, I think that the 'lop-sided' effect courts have given to the Act's provisions for review of Board awards furnishes a very weighty reason for excluding retired employees from the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board. The Act provides that either a railroad worker or an employee can invoke the compulsory jurisdiction of the Adjustment Board. 5 Section 3, First (m) states that 'awards shall be final and binding upon both parties to the dispute, except insofar as they shall contain a money award.' 6 As constued , this provision prohibits an employee from seeking review of an adverse Board ruling in the courts. 7 And courts, determining that a Board denial of an employee's money claim is not a 'money award' falling within the exception of § 3, First (m), have refused workers a judicial trial of their money claims against the railway after these have been rejected by the Board. 8 Today's decision in Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 79 S.Ct. 1351, appears to adopt this position. In contrast, however, a railroad may obtain a trial substantially de novo of any award adverse to it. For, under § 3, First (p) of the Act, if a carrier does not voluntarily comply with the Board's award, including wage awards for money damages, a wage earner can enforce the Board's order only by bringing, in a United States District Court, a suit which 'shall proceed in all respects as other civil suits, except that on the trial of such suit the findings and order of the division of the Adjustment Board shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated * * *.' 9
Respondent argues that giving the Adjustment Board jurisdiction to make a 'final and binding' determination of hiswag e claim deprives him of a jury trial in violation of the Seventh Amendment since wage disputes were 'Suits at common law * * *.' 10 His contention is all the more serious where, as here, he is compelled to submit his claim to the Board andas I understand the Court's holding here and in Priceis never allowed to take it to the courts for trial. In a comparable situation, Congress amended the reparation provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act for the specific purpose of avoiding constitutional difficulties by guaranteeing a railroad a full jury trial of money claims against it. 11 Significantly, § 3, First (p) of the Railway Labor Act, which provides the kind of court trial a railway can get before an award against it can be enforced, is copied substantially verbatim from § 16(2) of the amended Commerce Act. 12 That section (§ 16(2) had been construed by this Court long before the Railway Labor Act was passed so as to assure that it did not 'abridge the right of trial by jury, or take away any of its incidents.' Meeker v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 236 U.S. 412, 430, 35 S.Ct. 328, 335, 59 L.Ed. 644. It is hard for me to believe that Congress enacted the Railway Labor Act on the assumption that a railroad worker is any less entitled to a jury trial under the Constitution than is a railroad. And I would construe the Act on the basis that Congress believed both are entitled to such a trial. See Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 79 S.Ct. 1351, 1360 (dissenting opinion). Instead the Court in Price rejects this construction, from which it must follow that respondent here is deprived of a jury trial, although the railroad can get one.
It would surely not be easy to uphol th e constitutionality of a procedure which takes away from both parties to a wage dispute their ancient common-law right to a trial by court and jury. 13 It should be impossible to uphold it when, as here, the procedure grants both parties an administrative hearing and then gives one of them a second chance before a judge and jury while denying it to the other. Such an unequal procedure cannot be a fair trial since it gives one side a far better chance to win than the other. Analogous practices in both criminal and civil cases have been consistently struck down by this and many other courts. 14 Yet today the Court upholds this procedure without so much as discussing it. It does this although I can hardly think of a case where discrimination between litigants is less justified. Indeed, the only 'justification' that has been attempted is that at the time the Railway Labor Act was passed certain representatives of the Railroad Brotherhoods were willing to forego their right to trial by judge and jury in exchange for certain benefits the law allegedly gave them. See Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 79 S.Ct. 1351. Taken as a whole I do not read the legislative history of the law as supporting any such concession by the unions. But even if it did, I would not be able to uphold the procedure here involved. For, assuming that an individual can contract away his constitutional right to an equal trial, and assuming additionally the still more doubtful proposition that representatives of an organization can, by contract, estop its members from claiming equal treatment in the courts in cases or controversies arising thereafter, I cannot agree that the statements of some union leaders to Congress when it enacted this law can be taken to have such an effect. A fair trial is too valuable a safeguard of our liberty for us to allow it to be so easily discarded. I would hold that respondent has a right to jury trial equal to that accorded the railroad, and that his constitutional contention is well taken.
We are called upon in this case to weigh in a particular context two considerations of high importance which now and again come into sharp conflicton the one hand, the protection of the individual citizen against pecuniary damage caused by oppressive or malicious action on the part of officials of the Federal Government; and on the other, the protection of the public interest by shielding responsible governmental officers against the harassment and inevitable hazards of vindictive or illfounded damage suits brought on account of action taken in the exercise of their official responsibilities.
This is a libel suit, brought in the District Court of the District of Columbia by respondents, former employees of the Office of Rent Stabilization. The alleged libel was contained in a press release issued by the office on February 5, 1953, at the direction of petitioner, then its Acting Drector. 1 The circumstances which gave rise to the issuance of the release follow.
Petitioner, at the time General Manager of the agency, opposed respondnts ' plan on the ground that it violated the spirit of the Thomas Amendment, 64 Stat. 768, 2 and expressed his opposition to the Housing Expediter. The Expediter decided against general adoption of the plan, but at respondent Matteo's request gave permission for its use in connection with approximately fifty employees, including both respondents, on a voluntary basis. 3 Thereafter the life of the agency was in face extended.
On February 4, 1953, Senator Williams delivered a speech on the floor of the Senate strongly criticizing the plan, stating that 'to say the least it is an unjustifiable raid on the Federal Treasury, and heads of every agency in the Government who have condoned this practice should be called to task.' The letter above referred to was ordered printed in the Congressional Record. Other Senators joined in the attack on the plan. 4 Their comments were widely reported in the press on February 5, 1953, and petitioner, in his capacity as Acting Director of the agency, received a large number of inquiries from newspapers and other news media as to the agency's position on the matter.
On that day petitioner served upon respondents letters expressing his intention to suspend them from duty, and at the same time ordered issuance by the office of the press release which is the subject of this litigation, and the text of which appears in the margin. 5
The law of privilege as a defense by officers of government to civil damage suits for defamation and kindred torts has in large part been of judicial making, although the Constitution itself gives an absolute privilege to members of both Houses of Congress in respect to any speech, debate, vote, report, or action done in session. 6 This Court early held that judges of courts of superior or general authority are absolutely privileged as respects civil suits to recover for actions taken by them in the exercise of their judicial functions, irrespective of the motives with which those acts are alleged to have been performed, Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 20 L.Ed. 646, and that a like immunity extends to other officers of government whose duties are related to the judicial process. Yaselli v. Goff, 2 Cir., 12 F.2d 396, 56 A.L.R. 1239, affirmed per curiam, 275 U.S. 503, 48 S.Ct. 155, 72 L.Ed. 395, involving a Special Assistant to the Attorny G eneral. 7 Nor has the privilege been confined to officers of the legislative and judicial branches of the Government and executive officers of the kind involved in Yaselli. In Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U.S. 483, 16 S.Ct. 631, 40 L.Ed. 780, petitioner brought suit against the Postmaster General, alleging that the latter had maliciously circulated widely among postmasters, past and present, information which he knew to be false and which was intended to deceive the postmasters to the detriment of the plaintiff. This Court sustained a plea by the Postmaster General of absolute privilege, stating that 161 U.S. at pages 498499, 16 S.Ct. at page 637:
'In exercising the functions of his office, the head of an executive department, keeping within the limits of his authority, should not be under an apprehension that the motives that control his official conduct may, at any time, become the subject of inquiry in a civil suit for damages. It would seriously cripple the proper and effective administration of public affairs as entrusted to the executive branch of the government, if he was subjected to any such restraint. He may have legal authority to act, but he may have such large discretion in the premises that it will not always be his absolute duty to exercise the authority with which he is invested. But if he acts, having authority, his conduct cannot be made the foundation of a suit against him personally for damages, even if the circumstances show that he is not disagreeably impressed by the fact that his action injuriously affects the claims of particular individuals.' 8
The reasons for the recognition of the privilege have been often stated. It has been thought important that officials of government should be free to exercise their duties unembarrassed by the fear of damage suits in respect of acts done in the course of those dutiessuits which would consume time and energies which would otherwise be devoted to governmental service and the threat of which might appreciably inhibit the fearless, vigorous, and effective administration of policies of government. The matter has been admirably expressed by Judge Learned Hand:
We do not think that the principle announced in Vilas can properly be restricted to executive officers of cabinet rank, and in fact it never has been so restricted by the lower federal courts. 9 The privilege is not a badge or emolument of exalted office, but an expression of a policy designed to aid in the effective functioning of government. The complexities and magnitude of governmental activity have become so great that there must of necessity be a delegation and redelegation of authority as to many functions, and we cannot say that these functions become less important simply because they are exercised by officers of lower rank in the executive hierarchy. 10
To be sure, the occasions upon which the acts of the head of an executive department will be protected by the privilege are doubtless far broader than in the case of an officer with less sweeping functions. But that is because the higher the post, the broader the range of responsibilities and duties, and the wider the scope of discretion, it entails. It is not the title of his office but the duties with which the particular officer sought to be made to respond in damages is entrustedthe relation of the act complained of to 'matters committed by law to his control or supervision,' Spalding v. Vilas, supra, 161 U.S. at page 498, 16 S.Ct. at page 637,which must provide the guide in delineating the scope of the rule which clothes the official acts of the executive officer with immunity from civil defamation suits.
Judged by these standards, we hold that petitioner's plea of absolute privilege in defense of the alleged libel published at his direction must be sustained. The question is a close one, but we cannot say that it was not an appropriate exercise of the discretion with which an executive officer of petitioner's rank is necessarily clothed to publish the press release here at issue in the circumstances disclosed by this record. Petitioner was the Acting Director of an important agency of government, 11 and was clothed by redelegation with 'all powers, duties, and functions conferred on the President by Title II of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947 * * *.' 12 The integrity of the internal operations of the agency which he headed, and thus his own integrity in his public capacity, had been directly and severely challenged in charges made on the floor of the Senate and given wide publicity; and without his knowledge correspondence which could reasonably be read as impliedly defending a position very different from that which he had from the beginning taken in the matter had been sent to a Senator over his signature and incorporated in the Congressional Record. The issuance of press releases was standard agency practice, as it has become with many governmental agencies in these times. We think that under these circumstances a publicly expessed statement of the position of the agency head, announcing personnel action which he planned to take in reference to the charges so widely disseminated to the public, was an appropriate exercise of the discretion which an officer of that rank must possess if the public service is to function effectively. It would be an unduly restrictive view of the scope of the duties of a policy-making executive official to hold that a public statement of agency policy in respect to matters of wide public interest and concern is not action in the line of duty. That petitioner was not required by law or by direction of his superiors to speak out cannot be controlling in the case of an official of policy-making rank, for the same considerations which underlie the recognition of the privilege as to acts done in connection with a mandatory duty apply with equal force to discretionary acts at those levels of government where the concept of duty encompasses the sound exercise of discretionary authority. 13
Mr. Barr was peculiarly well qualified to inform Congress and the public about the Rent Stabilization Agency. Subjecting him to libel suits for criticizing the way the Agency or its employees perform their duties would certainly act as a restraint upon him. So far as I am concerned, if federal employees are to be subjected to such restraints in reporting their views about how to run the government better, the restraint will have to be imposed expressly by Congress and not by the general libel laws of the States or of the District of Columbia. * How far the Congress itself could go in barring federal officials and employees from discussing public matters consistently with the First Amendment is a question we need not reach in this case. It is enough for me here that the press release was neither unauthorized nor plainly beyond the scope of Mr. Barr's official business, but instead related more or less to general matters committed by law to his control and supervision. See Spalding v. ila s, 161 U.S. 483, 493, 498499, 16 S.Ct. 631, 635637, 40 L.Ed. 780.
I could understand itthough I could not agreeif the Court adopted a broad absolute privilege for certain classes of government officials, or indeed for the entire executive, by broadly extending Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U.S. 483, 16 S.Ct. 631, 40 L.Ed. 780. At least that result would yield certainty by allowing government officials to know in advance whether they might issue absolutely privileged statements. But the opinion's tests sets no standard to guide executive conduct. As the Government acknowledged on oral argument, Congress, when it creates executive agencies, almost never expressly authorizes the new agency to issue press releases as part of its functions. Nor does it decree which employees of the new agency will have such duties and which will not. By necessity, therefore, the decision will require a de novo appraisal of almost every charge of defamation by a government official. The records will probably be no more satisfactory than the one now before uswith little more than bald assertions that a specific official has the power to do what resulted in the defamation. The principal opinion cannot even say that Barr's position authorized the press release; the most it can and does say is that it cannot say that the release was not an appropriate exercise of discretion by Barr in this precise situation. 360 U.S. at page 575, 79 S.Ct. at page 1341. This creates a presumption that the challenged action is within the officer's scope of duty unless the plaintiff can prove otherwise. Since it has been admitted that, as in this case, these duties are rarely enumerated, an executive assertion on the official's bahalf may place an impossible burden of proof on the plaintiff seeking to avoid the defense of absolute privilege. By this unusual approach, the traditional rule that it is the defendant who must sustain his affirmative defense of privilegeand not the plaintiff who must negate that defenseis apparently disregarded. 1
The history of the privileges conferred upon the three branches of Government is a story of uneven development. Absolute legislative privilege dates back to at least 1399. 2 This privilege is given to Congress in the United States Constitution 3 and to State Legislatures in the Constitutions of almost all of the States of the Union. 4 The absolute immunity arising out of judicial proceedings existed at least as early as 1608 in England. 5
But what of the executive privilege? Apparently, the earliest English case presenting the problem of immunity outside the legislative and judicial branches of government is Sutton v. Johnstone, 1 T.R. 493, decided in 1786. There, the plaintiff, captain of a warship, sued the commander-in-chief of his squadron for charging plaintiff, maliciously and without probable cause, with disobedience of orders and putting him under arrest and forcing him to face a court-martial. The Court of Exchequer took jurisdiction of the case but was reversed, 1 T.R. 510, on the ground that purely military matters were not within the cognizance of the civil courts. 6 During the next century several other military cases were decided. 7
'For reasons of public policy the same protection would, no doubt, be given to anything in the nature of an act of state, e.g., to every communication relating to state matters made by one minister to another, or to the Crown.' 8
Spalding v. Vilas, supra, presents another situation in which absolute privilege may be justified. There the Court was dealing with the Postmaster Generala Cabinet officer personally responsible to the President of the United States for the operation of one of the major departments of government. Cf. Glass v. Ickes, 73 App.D.C. 3, 117 F.2d 273, 132 A.L.R. 1328; Mellon v. Brewer, 57 App.D.C. 126, 18 F.2d 168, 53 A.L.R. 1519. The importance of their positions in government as policymakers for the Chief Executive and the fact that they have the expressed trust and confidence of the President who appointed them and to whom they are personally and directly responsible suggest that the absolute protection partakes of presidential immunity. Perhaps the Spalding v. Vilas rationale would require the extension of such absolute immunity to other government officials who are appointed by the President and are directly responsible to him in policy matters even though they do not hold Cabinet positions. 9 But this extension is not now before us, since it is clear that petitioner Barr was not appointed by the President nor was he directly responsible to the President. Barr was exercising powers originally delegated by the President to the Director of Economic Stabilization who redelegated them to the Director of Rent Stabilization. 10 And it is not contended that petitioner was under any order to issue a statement in this matter.
I would not extend Spalding v. Vilas to cover public statements of lesser officials. Releases to the public from the executive branch of government imply far greater dangers to the individual claiming to have been defamed than do internal libels. First, of course, a public statementespecially one arguably libelousis normally intended for and reaches a larger audience than an internally communicated report. Even if the release can later be shown libelous, it is most unusual for a libeled person to obtain the same hearing that was available for the original press release. Second, a release is communicated to a public in no position to evaluate its accuracy; where the report is made internally, the superior is usually in a position to do so. If the report is false, the superior can undo much of the harm of the report by countermanding it or halting its spread.
The foregoing discussion accepted for the purpose of argument the majority's statement of the interest involved here. But as so often happens in balancing cases, the wrong interests are being balanced. Cf. Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 134, 79 S.Ct. 1081, 1097 (dissenting opinion). This is not a case where the only interest is in plaintiff's obtaining redress of a wrong. The public interest in limiting libel suits against officers in order that the public might be adequately informed is paralleled by another interest of equal importance: that of preserving the opportunity to criticize the administration of our Government and the action of its officials without being subjected to unfairand absolutely privilegedretorts. If it is important to permit government officials absolute freedom to say anything they wish in the name of public information, it is at least as important to preserve and foster public discussion concerning our Government and its operation.
It is clear that public discussion of the action of the Government and its officials is accorded no more than qualified privilege. In most States, even that privilege is further restricted to situations in which the speaker is accurate as to his facts and where the claimed defamation results from conclusions or opinions based on those facts. Only in a minority of States is a public critic of Government even qualifiedly privileged where his facts are wrong. 11 Thus, at best, a public critic of the Government has a qualified privilege. Yet here the Court has given some amorphous group of officialswho have the most direct and personal contact with the publican absolute privilege when their agency or their action is criticized. In this situation, it will take a brave person to criticize government officials knowing that in reply they may libel him with immunity in the name of defending the agency and their own position. This extension of Spalding v. Vilas can only have the added effect of deterring the desirable public discussion of all aspects of our Government and the conduct of its officials. It will sanctify the powerful and silence debate. This is a much more serious danger than the possibility that a government official might occasionally be called upon to defend his actions and to respond in damages for a malicious defamation.
The principal opinion, while attempting to balance what it thinks are the factors to be weighed, has not effectuated the goal for which it originally strove. Rather, its rsul t has been an uncertain standard whose effect can unfold only on a case-to-case basis, and which does not provide a guide for executive conduct. But more important, the opinion has set out the wrong interests and by its extension of absolute privilege in this case has seriously weakened another great public interesthonest and open discussion and criticism of our Government.
I think it is demonstrable that the solution of Mr. Justice HARLAN's opinion to the question whether an absolute privilege should be allowed in these cases is not justified by the considerations offered to support it, and unnecessarily deprives the individual citizen of all redress against malicious defamation. Surely the opinion must recognize the existence of the deep-rooted policy of the common law generally to provide redress against defamation. But the opinion in sweeping terms extinguishes that remedy, if the defamation is committed by a federal official, by erecting the barrier of an absolute privilege. In my view, only a qualified privilege is necessary here, and that is all I would afford the officials. A qualified privilege would be the most the law would allow private citizens under comparable circumstances. 1 It would protect the government officer unless it appeared on trial that his communication was (a) defamatory, (b) untrue, and (c) 'malicious.' 2 We write on almost a clean slate here, and even if Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U.S. 483, 16 S.Ct. 631, 40 L.Ed. 780, allows a Cabinet officer the defense of an absolute privilege in defamation suits, 3 I see no warrant for extending its doctrine to the extent doneapparently to include every official having some color of discretion to utter communications to Congress or the public. As Judge Magruder pointed out below, 1 Cir., 250 F.2d 912, 915, present applications of the doctrine of absolute privilege of public officials are narrowly confined, 4 and I think in the light of the considerations involved very rightly so. But Mr. Justice HARLAN's approach seems to clothe with immunity the most obscure subforeman on an arsenal production line who has been delegated authority to hire and fire and who maliciously defames one he discharges.
A qualified privilege, as I have described, would, in giving the official protection against the consequences of his honest mistakes, give him all the protection he could properly claim. As is quoted, if that were all that there were to the matter, it would be indeed 'monstrous' to grant the absolute defense and preclude all examination of the matter at the suit of a citizen claiming legal injury. But what more is involved? The opinion's position is simply that there are certain societal interests in relieving federal officials from judicial inquiry into their motives that outweigh all interest in affording relief. There is adopted Judge Learned Hand's statement of this added factor that is said to make an absolute privilege imperative: 'it is impossible to know whether the claim is well founded until the case has been tried, and that to submit all officials, the innocent as well as the guilty, to the burden of a trial and to the inevitable danger of its outcome, would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties.' Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579, 581. In the first place, Professors Harper and James have, I think, squarely met and refuted that argument on its own terms: 'Where the charge is one of honest mistake we exempt the officer because we deem that an actual holding of liability would have worse consequences than the possibility of an actual mistake (which under the circumstances we are willing to condone). But it is stretching the argument pretty far to say that the mere inquiry into malice would have worse consequences than the possibility of actual malice (which we would not, for a minute, condone). Since the danger that official power will be abused is greatest where motives are improper, the balance here may well swing the other way.' Harper and James, Torts (1956), p. 1645. And in the second place, the courts should be wary of any argument based on the fear that subjecting government officers to the nuisance of litigation and the uncertainties of its outcome may put an undue burden on the conduct of the public business. Such a burden is hardly one peculiar to public officers; citizens generally go through life subject to the risk that they may, though in the right, be subject to litigation and the possibility of a miscarriage of justice. It is one of the goals of a well-operating legal system to keep the burden of litigation and the risks of such miscarriages to a minimum; in this area, which is govened by federal law, proof of malice outside of the bare fact of the making of the statement should be forthcoming, 5 and summary judgment practice offers protection to the defendant; but the way to minimizing the burdens of litigation does not generally lie through the abolition of a right of redress for an admitted wrong. The method has too much of the flavor of throwing out the baby with the bathtoday's sweeping solution insures that government officials of high and low rank will not be involved in litigation over their allegedly defamatory statements, but it achieves this at the cost of letting the citizen who is defamed even with the worst motives go without remedy.
There is an even more basic objection to the opinion. It deals with large concepts of public policy and purports to balance the societal interests involved in them. It denies the defamed citizen a recovery by characterizing the policy favoring absolute immunity as 'an expression of a policy designed to aid in the effective functioning of government.' The explanation is said to be that it is 'important that officials of government should be free to exercise their duties unembarrassed by the fear of damage suits in respect of acts done in the course of those dutiessuits which would consume time and energies which would otherwise be devoted to governmental service and the threat of which might appreciably inhibit the fearless, vigorous, and effective administration of policies of government.' This, I fear, is a gossamer web self-spun without a scintilla of support to which one can point. To come to this conclusion, and to shift the line from the already extensive protection given the public officer by the qualified privilege doctrine, demands the resolution of large imponderables which one might have thought would be better the business of the Legislative Branch. To what extent is it in the public interest that the Executive Branch carry on publicity campaigns in relation to its activities? (Without reviewing all the history, one can say this is a matter on which Congress and the Executive have not always seen eye to eye. See 38 Stat. 212, 5 U.S.C. 54, 5 U.S.C.A. § 54.) To what extent does fear of litigation actually inhibit the conduct of officers in carrying out the public business? To what extent should it? Where does healthy administrative frankness and boldness shade into bureaucratic tyranny? To what extent is supervision by an administrator's superiors effective in assuring that there will be little abuse of a freedom from suit? To what extent can the referral of constituent complaints by Congressmen to the executive agencies (already myriad in number and quite routinized in processing) take the place of actions in the courts of law in securing the injured citizen redress? Can it be assumed, as the opinion appears to assume, that an absolute privilege so broadly enjoyed will not be subject to severe abuse? Does recent history afford instructive parallels in the experience with constitutionally recognized forms of governmental privilegesay the legislative privilege? I do not purport to know the answers to these questions, and I simply submit that the nature of the questions themselves should lead us to forsake any effort on our own to modify over so wide an area the line the common law generally indicates is to be drawn here. This is particularly so in an area not foreclosed by our previous cases, and one combining the maximum exposure of the citizen's reputation with the most attenuated of interests in the operation of the Government.
The courts, it must be remembered, are not the only agency for fashioning policy here. One would think, in fact, if the solution afforded through a qualified privilege (which would apply between private parties under analogous circumstances) 6 were to be modified on the strength of considerations such as those discussed today, that Congress would provide a more appropriate forum for the determination. The preenc e of the imponderables I have discussed, their political flavor, and their intimate relation to the practicalities of government management would support this conclusion. If the fears expressed materialized and great inconvenience to the workings of the Government arose out of allowing defamation actions subject to a showing of malice, Congress might well be disposed to intervene. And its intervention might take a less drastic form than the solution today. Pursuant to an Act of Congress, the inconvenience to the government officials made defendants in these suits has been alleviated through the participation of the Department of Justice. Rev.Stat. § 359, as amended, 5 U.S.C. 309, 5 U.S.C.A. § 309; Booth v. Fletcher, 69 App.D.C. 351, 101 F.2d 676. Congress might be disposed to intervene further and pay the judgments rendered against executive officers, or provide for a Tort Claims Act amendment to encompass such actions, 7 eliminating the officer as a formal party. We ought not, as I fear we do today, for all practical purposes foreclose such consideration of the problem by expanding on the comparable common-law privilege and wholly immunizing federal officials from defamation suits whenever they can show that their act was incidental to their jobs. 8
In the year 19561957 there were 361,000 retired railroad employees receiving benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 228a et seq. H.R.Doc. No. 278, 85th Cong., 2d Sess.
48 Stat. 1191, 45 U.S.C. 153, First (i), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(i).
44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U.S.C. 151 Fifth, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151, subd. 5.
50 Stat. 309, as amended, 45 U.S.C. 228b, 45 U.S.C.A. § 228b.
48 Stat. 1191, 45 U.S.C. 153, First (m), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(m).
48 Stat. 1192, 45 U.S.C. 153, First (p), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(p).
See Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Clark, 3 Cir., 207 F. 717; Western New York & P.R. Co. v. Penn Refining Co., Limited, 3 Cir., 137 F. 343, 349350. See also United States v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 337 U.S. 426, 444, 454455, 69 S.Ct. 1410, 1420, 1425, 93 L.Ed. 1451 (dissenting opinion); Councill v. Western & A.R. Co., 1 I.C.C. 339, 344345; Heck v. East Tennessee, V. & G.R. Co., 1 I.C.C. 495, 502. And in his dissent in Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 617, 79 S.Ct. 1360, Mr. Justice Douglas calls attention to the fact that the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act have been construed, in United States v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 337 U.S. 426, 69 S.Ct. 1410, 93 L.Ed. 1451, to provide for review of Commission reparation orders by shippers as well as by the railways.
Section 3, First (p) of the Railway Labor Act reads in part: 'Such suit in the District Court of the United States shall proceed in all respects as other civil suits, except that on the trial of such suit the findings and order of the division of the Adjustment Board shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated * * *.' 48 Stat. 1192, 45 U.S.C. 153, First (p), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(p).
Section 16(2) of the Interstate Commerce Act reads in part: 'Such suit in the district court of the United States shall proceed in all respects like other civil suits for damages, except that on the trial of such suit the findings and order of the commission shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated.' 34 Stat. 590, as amended, 49 U.S.C. 16(2), 49 U.S.C.A. § 16(2).
The plan was referred to by various Senators as 'a highly questionable procedure,' a 'raid on the Federal Treasury,' 'a conspiracy to defraud the Government of funds,' 'a new racket,' and as 'definitely involv(ing) criminal action.' It was suggested that it might constitue 'a conspiracy by the head of an agency to defraud the Government of money,' and that 'it is highly irregular, if not actually immoral, for the heads of agencies to use any such device * * *.' 90 Cong.Rec. 868871.
See the striking description in Cummings and McFarland, Federal Justice (1937), pp. 8081, quoted in Cooper v. O'Connor, supra, 69 App.D.C. 100, 107, 99 F.2d 135, 142, note 28, of the office of Attorney General of the United States in the early days of the Republic:
Compare United States v. Macdaniel, 7 Pet. 1, 14, 8 L.Ed. 587; United States v. Birdsall, 233 U.S. 223, 230231, 34 S.Ct. 512, 514, 58 L.Ed. 930.
'The person unjustly accused is not without his remedy. He has the properest among military men. Reparation is done to him by an acquittal. And he who accused him unjustly is blasted for ever, and dismissed from the service.' 1 T.R., at 549550.
This might well, for example, include Barr's superior in 1953the Director of Economic Stabilization.
Barr's position as Deputy Director was such, on the date of the libel, that he recognized that he was not then entitled to suspend or fire the respondents and could not do so until several days later. (The Government asserted on oral argument that the full powers of the Director would devolve upon anyone whoby virtue of his superiors' leaving townwas in fact the highest ranking member of the agency at the moment. It was in this light that Barr was 'Acting' Director on the date of the libel.) Even after Barr officially because Acting Director on February 9, 1953, the Government admitted that the Director of Economic Stablization 'could have' directed Barr either to make or not to make press releases. When Barr took action against respondents, they appealed the decision to the Director of Economic Stabilization and ultimately wre reinstated.
An extensive compilation of which States adhere to each view may be found in Noel, Defamation of Public Officers and Candidates, 49 Col.L.Rev. 875, 896897, n. 102106.
Actual 'malice' is required to vitiate a qualified privilege, not simply the 'constructive' malice that is inferred from the publication. See Harper and James, Torts (1956), § 5.27. Definitions of actual 'malice' are essayed in Prosser, Torts (2d ed. 1955), pp. 625629; Harper and James, Torts (1956), § 5.27. See Restatement, Tots, §§ 599605.
The suit in Spalding seems to have been as much, if not more, a suit for malicious interference with advantageous relationships as a libel suit. The Court reviewed the facts and found no false statement. See 161 U.S. at pages 487493, 16 S.Ct. at pages 633635. The case may stand for no more than the proposition that where a Cabinet officer publishes a statement, not factually inaccurate, relating to a matter within his Department's competence, he cannot be charged with improper motives in publication. The Court's opinion leaned heavily on the fact that the contents of the statement (which were not on their face defamatory) were quite accurate, in support of its conclusion that publishing the statement was within the officer's discretion, foreclosing inquiry into his motives. Id., 161 U.S. at pages 489 493, 16 S.Ct. at pages 633635. Different considerations suggest themselves where a statement is defamatory and untrue; it is one thing to say that public officers must answer as to their motives for any official action adversely affecting private interests and another that they must as to the publication of defamatory, untrue matter.
They presently are excluded. 28 U.S.C. 2680(h), 28 U.S.C.A. § 2680(h).