Opinion ID: 796376
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Special Concurrence Regarding Part II(B) (Regence Immunity)

Text: 106 I agree that Regence is not immunized by 42 U.S.C. § 1395u(e) (1994) from all liability arising from its payment of claims. As I shall try to explain, I think that the most reasonable reading of § 1395u(e)(3) is that it immunizes the carrier from liability for an employee's act when the employee is immunized from liability for that act by paragraph (1) or (2) of § 1395u(e). Section 1395u(e) states: 107 (1) No individual designated pursuant to a contract under this section as a certifying officer shall, in the absence of gross negligence or intent to defraud the United States, be liable with respect to any payments certified by him under this section. 108 (2) No disbursing officer shall, in the absence of gross negligence or intent to defraud the United States, be liable with respect to any payment by him under this section if it was based upon a voucher signed by a certifying officer designated as provided in paragraph (1) of this subsection. 109 (3) No such carrier shall be liable to the United States for any payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2). 110 The thrust of subsection (e) is to eliminate suits based on errors committed without gross negligence or fraudulent intent. Paragraph (1) says that the certifying officer is not liable for certifying a payment unless the officer acted with gross negligence or fraudulent intent. Paragraph (2) states that the disbursing officer is not liable for making a certified payment unless the officer acted with gross negligence or fraudulent intent. Then, to avoid suits that skip the middleman and go directly against the carrier, paragraph (3) immunizes the carrier from liability when its employee is immune. 111 To be sure, paragraph (3)'s language poses difficulties. For one thing, it is unclear what the antecedent of such is in the phrase such carrier. Much more importantly, the phrase any payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2) is ambiguous. Regence would have us read the phrase as encompassing all payments, or at least all payments certified by a certifying officer. This is a possible reading. After all, paragraphs (1) and (2) describe payments certified by a certifying officer for which a certifying or disbursing officer may be liable (when the certifying or disbursing officer acts with gross negligence or intent to defraud) and payments certified by a certifying officer for which the certifying or disbursing officer is immune from liability (when there is no such gross negligence or fraudulent intent). Thus, paragraphs (1) and (2) can be said to refer to certified payments for which the officers are immune and certified payments for which they are not—that is, all certified payments. Under Regence's reading, carriers would be immune under paragraph (3) from liability for all payments certified by a certifying officer. 112 But if the intent of paragraph (3)—No . . . carrier shall be liable . . . for any payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2)—were to immunize carriers for all payments certified by certifying officers, one wonders why the drafters chose such a peculiar way to say it. A more natural mode of expression would have been, no carrier shall be liable for any payments certified by a certifying officer.  And if the payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2) are both payments for which an officer may be liable and payments for which an officer is immune, why include or (2) at the end of the quoted phrase? Nothing would be lost by saying merely any payment referred to in paragraph (1), because—if one says that each paragraph refers to payments for which there may be liability as well as payments for which there is immunity—the same payments are referred to in both paragraphs (1) and (2). Each paragraph, under Regence's reading, addresses all certified payments: For each payment, the certifying officer is either subject to liability or immune, and the same goes for the disbursing officer; paragraph (1) addresses the certified payments for which certifying officers are immune or may be liable (that is, all certified payments), and paragraph (2) addresses certified payments for which disbursing officers are immune or may be liable (that is, all certified payments). Thus, in the phrase payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), the words or (2) are surplusage. Ordinarily, we should avoid a construction of a statute that renders portions of the statutory language superfluous. See Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, ___ U.S. ___, ___ n. 1, 126 S.Ct. 2455, 2460 n. 1, 165 L.Ed.2d 526 (2006) (but noting that instances of surplusage are not unknown). 113 I would interpret paragraph (3) differently. First, one must read § 1395u(e) in context. That context is liability for erroneous payments. It makes no sense to provide immunity unless the immunized conduct may otherwise generate liability. Correct payments do not generate liability. The risk of liability arises only when a certifying or disbursing officer, through fault (negligence or otherwise), does something leading to an erroneous payment. Accordingly, when paragraph (1) says that a certifying officer shall not be liable with respect to any payments certified by him under this section, it is implicitly referring only to payments for which the officer would otherwise be liable—that is, payments based on certifications that were erroneous because of the officer's fault. Immunity would be unnecessary with respect to any other payments. 114 The purpose of paragraph (1), then, is to carve out from the set of payments for which the certifying officer may be liable those payments for which the officer is immune. Those payments are payments that were erroneously made because of the certifying officer's fault, but when the fault did not rise to gross negligence or intentional fraud. Given that purpose, it is natural to say that the payments referred to in paragraph (1) are the carved-out payments, those for which the certifying officer might have been liable (because of fault) but for the immunity provided when the officer did not act with gross negligence or fraudulent intent. 115 Similarly, the payments referred to in paragraph . . . (2) are the certified payments for which the disbursing officer might have been liable but for his statutory immunity. And paragraph (3)'s protection of carriers from liability for any payments referred to in paragraph (1) or (2) therefore provides essentially respondeat-superior immunity. If the carrier would otherwise be liable for an erroneous certified payment because of the fault of a certifying or disbursing officer, the carrier is immune when the officer did not act with gross negligence or intent to defraud. 116 Accordingly, I join the majority in rejecting Regence's defense that it is immune under § 1395u(e) from Sikkenga's claim. 117