Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/98899/united-states-vs-gilman
Timestamp: 2016-10-25 21:35:53
Document Index: 792145930

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1346', '§ 2676', '§ 2672', '§ 2672', '§ 2672', '§ 2676']

United States Vs Gilman - Citation 98899 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize United States Vs. Gilman - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/98899CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnMay-17-1954Case Number347 U.S. 507AppellantUnited StatesRespondentGilmanExcerpt:.....indemnity from one of its employees for whose negligence it has been held liable under the federal tort claims act. pp.
the single question in the case is whether the united states may recover indemnity from one of its employees after it has been held liable under the federal tort claims act, [
] 60 stat. 842, 28 u.s.c. §§ 1346, 2671
for the negligence of the employee.
respondent, an employee of the united states, had a collision with the car of one darnell, while respondent was driving a government automobile. darnell sued the united states under the tort claims act. the united states filed a third-party.....Judgment:
United States v. Gilman - 347 U.S. 507 (1954)
The United States is not entitled to recover indemnity from one of its employees for whose negligence it has been held liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Pp.
the negligent employee which private employers have.
, is said to show the way. For there, we held that the United States could be sued as a third-party defendant for contributions claimed by a joint tortfeasor, though no specific provision of the Tort Claims Act provided for such suits.
The present case is quite different. We deal not with the liability of the United States, but with the liability of its employees. The Tort Claims Act does not touch the liability of the employees except in one respect: by 28 U.S.C. § 2676, it makes the judgment against the United States "a complete bar" to any action by the claimant against the employee.
§ 2672.
We had an analogous problem before us in
, where the United States sued the owner and driver of a truck for the negligent injury of a soldier in the Army of the United States, claiming damages for loss of the soldier's service during the period of his disability. We were asked to extend the common law action of
to the government-soldier relation. We declined, stating that the problem involved federal fiscal affairs over which Congress, not the Court, should formulate the policy.
The reasons for following that course in the present case are even more compelling. Here, a complex of relations between federal agencies and their staffs is involved. Moreover, the claim now asserted, though the product of a law Congress passed, is a matter on which Congress has not taken a position. It presents questions of policy on which Congress has not spoken. [
] The selection of that
Though the legislative history of the Act is not too helpful on this issue, such indications as there are point toward the result we reach. The Court recently made an extensive review of the history of the Tort Claims Act in
346 U. S. 24
-30. As there explained, much of its relevant history appears in the Seventy-seventh Congress, rather than in the Seventy-ninth Congress, which enacted it. In the Seventy-seventh Congress, the bill took substantially the form in which it was finally enacted by the Seventh-ninth Congress.
At the hearings before the House Judiciary Committee of the Seventy-seventh Congress, the question of the liability of government employees arose. Mr. Francis M. Shea, then Assistant Attorney General, explained the Government's position. In discussing the provision for administrative settlement of small claims (which is now 28 U.S.C. § 2672), Mr. Shea was questioned concerning the clause under which acceptance of an award by the claimant constitutes a release of all claims against the employee, as well as against the United States. The present § 2672 has much the same effect as § 2676, which makes a judgment against the United States a bar to action against the employee.
Mr. Shea's statements concerning the administrative settlement provision therefore have some relevance to the issue in the present case.
Hearings before the House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373 and H.R. 6463, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 9-10.
S.Rep. No. 1196, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 5.