Source: https://casetext.com/case/federal-crop-ins-corp-v-merrill
Timestamp: 2019-02-18 06:26:25
Document Index: 471538608

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1503', '§ 508', '§ 1508', 'art, 311', '§ 516', '§ 1516', '§ 307', '§ 414']

Federal Crop Ins. Corp. v. Merrill, 332 U.S. 380 | Casetext
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Federal Crop Ins. Corp.v.Merrill
332 U.S. 380•68 S. Ct. 1•
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Portmann v. United States
…01 at 491-92 (1958). See, e.g., Federal Crop Insurance Corp. v. Merrill, 332 U.S. 380, 68 S.Ct. 1, 92 L.Ed.…
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holding that insured must strictly comply with all terms and conditions of federal insurance policy and recognizing duty of courts to observe conditions defined by Congress for charging the public treasury
Summary of this case from Suopys v. Omaha Property & Casualty
holding that a farmer who obtained federal insurance based on improper advice by an agent of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation that his entire crop qualified for insurance could not recover for the loss of his crop because the government could not be estopped from denying the claim by the agent&apos;s erroneous statements
holding that the government is not bound when its agent enters into an agreement that falls outside the agent&apos;s Congressionally delegated authority
Summary of this case from Sangre De Cristo Development Co. v. United States
…332 U.S. 380 (1947).If the Government cannot provide assurances of its performance, can you stop…
1. The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, a wholly government-owned corporation created by the Federal Crop Insurance Act to insure producers of wheat against crop losses due to unavoidable causes, including drought, promulgated and published in the Federal Register regulations specifying the conditions on which it would insure wheat crops, including a provision making "spring wheat which has been reseeded on winter wheat acreage" ineligible for insurance. Without actual knowledge of this provision, a wheat grower applied to the Corporation's local agent for insurance on his wheat crop, informing the local agent that most of it was being reseeded on winter wheat acreage; but this information was not included in the written application. The Corporation accepted the application subject to the terms of its regulations. Most of the crop on the reseeded acreage was destroyed by drought. Held: The Corporation is not liable for the loss on the reseeded acreage. Pp. 381-386. 2. Having been published in the Federal Register, the Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations are binding on all who seek to come within the Federal Crop Insurance Act, regardless of lack of actual knowledge of the regulations. P. 385. 67 Idaho 196, 174 P.2d 834, reversed.
The relevant facts may be briefly stated. Petitioner (hereinafter called the Corporation) is a wholly Government-owned enterprise, created by the Federal Crop Insurance Act, as an "agency of and within the Department of Agriculture." Sec. 503 of Chapter 30, Act of February 16, 1938, 52 Stat. 72, 7 U.S.C. § 1503, as amended. To carry out the purposes of the Act, the Corporation, "Commencing with the wheat . . . crops planted for harvest in 1945" is empowered "to insure, upon such terms and conditions not inconsistent with the provisions of this title as it may determine, producers of wheat . . . against loss in yields due to unavoidable causes, including drought. . . ." 52 Stat. 74, § 508(a) as amended, 55 Stat. 255, in turn amended by the Act of December 23, 1944, Chapter 713, 58 Stat. 918, 7 U.S.C. (Supp. V, 1946), § 1508(a). In pursuance of its authority, the Corporation on February 5, 1945, promulgated its Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations, which were duly published in the Federal Register on February 7, 1945. 10 Fed. Reg. 1586.
The case no doubt presents phases of hardship. We take for granted that, on the basis of what they were told by the Corporation's local agent, the respondents reasonably believed that their entire crop was covered by petitioner's insurance. And so we assume that recovery could be had against a private insurance company. But the Corporation is not a private insurance company. It is too late in the day to urge that the Government is just another private litigant, for purposes of charging it with liability, whenever it takes over a business theretofore conducted by private enterprise or engages in competition with private ventures. Government is not partly public or partly private, depending upon the governmental pedigree of the type of a particular activity or the manner in which the Government conducts it. The Government may carry on its operations through conventional executive agencies or through corporate forms especially created for defined ends. See Keifer Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Corp., 306 U.S. 381, 390. Whatever the form in which the Government functions, anyone entering into an arrangement with the Government takes the risk of having accurately ascertained that he who purports to act for the Government stays within the bounds of his authority. The scope of this authority may be explicitly defined by Congress or be limited by delegated legislation, properly exercised through the rule-making power. And this is so even though, as here, the agent himself may have been unaware of the limitations upon his authority. See, e.g., Utah Power Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 409; United States v. Stewart, 311 U.S. 60, 70, and see, generally, The Floyd Acceptances, 7 Wall. 666.
Judging from the legislative history of the Act, the Government engaged in crop insurance as a pioneer. Private insurance companies apparently deemed all-risk crop insurance too great a commercial hazard. See Report and Recommendations of the President's Committee on Crop Insurance, H. Doc. No. 150, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2-4, 11-12; H.R. Rep. No. 1479, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2; 81 Cong. Rec. 2866, 2867, 2887, 2891, 2893, 2895; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry on S. 1397, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 125, 185. But this does not affect the legal issues. It merely underscores the fact that the undertaking by the Government is not an ordinary commercial undertaking, and thereby reenforces the conclusion that the rules of law whereby private insurance companies are rendered liable for the acts of their agents are not bodily applicable to a Government agency like the Corporation, unless Congress has so provided.
If the Federal Crop Insurance Act had by explicit language prohibited the insurance of spring wheat which is reseeded on winter wheat acreage, the ignorance of such a restriction, either by the respondents or the Corporation's agent, would be immaterial and recovery could not be had against the Corporation for loss of such reseeded wheat. Congress could hardly define the multitudinous details appropriate for the business of crop insurance when the Government entered it. Inevitably "the terms and conditions" upon which valid governmental insurance can be had must be defined by the agency acting for the Government. And so Congress has legislated in this instance, as in modern regulatory enactments it so often does, by conferring the rule-making power upon the agency created for carrying out its policy. See § 516(b), 52 Stat. 72, 77, 7 U.S.C. § 1516 (b). Just as everyone is charged with knowledge of the United States Statutes at Large, Congress has provided that the appearance of rules and regulations in the Federal Register gives legal notice of their contents. 49 Stat. 502, 44 U.S.C. § 307.
Accordingly, the Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations were binding on all who sought to come within the Federal Crop Insurance Act, regardless of actual knowledge of what is in the Regulations or of the hardship resulting from innocent ignorance. The oft-quoted observation in Rock Island, Arkansas Louisiana Railroad Co. v. United States, 254 U.S. 141, 143, that "Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government," does not reflect a callous outlook. It merely expresses the duty of all courts to observe the conditions defined by Congress for charging the public treasury. The "terms and conditions" defined by the Corporation, under authority of Congress, for creating liability on the part of the Government preclude recovery for the loss of the reseeded wheat no matter with what good reason the respondents thought they had obtained insurance from the Government. Indeed, not only do the Wheat Regulations limit the liability of the Government as if they had been enacted by Congress directly, but they were in fact incorporated by reference in the application, as specifically required by the Regulations.
"H. Acceptance by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. — It is understood and agreed that upon acceptance of the application by a duly authorized representative of the Corporation as evidenced by his approval below, the insurance contract shall be in effect, provided the application has been submitted in accordance with the provisions of the application and the applicable Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations. It is further understood and agreed that the accepted application and the applicable Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations, including any amendments thereto, constitute the contract between the Corporation and the insured."
"§ 414.3 Acceptance of applications by the Corporation. (a) Upon acceptance of an application by a duly authorized representative Page 386 of the Corporation, the insurance contract shall be in effect, provided such application is submitted in accordance with the provisions of the application and of these regulations, including any amendments thereto." 10 Fed. Reg. 1586. The regulation defined "insurance contract" as "the contract of insurance entered into between the applicant and the Corporation by virtue of the application for insurance and these regulations and any amendments thereto." 10 Fed. Reg. 1591.
We have thus far assumed, as did the parties here and the courts below, that the controlling regulation in fact precluded insurance coverage for spring wheat reseeded on winter wheat acreage. It explicitly states that the term "wheat crop shall not include . . . winter wheat in the 1945 crop year, and spring wheat which has been reseeded on winter wheat acreage in the 1945 crop year." (Sec. 414.37(v) of Wheat Crop Insurance Regulations, 10 Fed. Reg. 1591.) The circumstances of this case tempt one to read the regulation, since it is for us to read it, with charitable laxity. But not even the temptations of a hard case can elude the clear meaning of the regulation. It precludes recovery for "spring wheat which has been reseeded on winter wheat acreage in the 1945 crop year." Concerning the validity of the regulation, as "not inconsistent with the provisions" of the Federal Crop Insurance Act, no question has been raised.