Opinion ID: 474490
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appellants' arguments on appeal

Text: 29 Appellants advance three independent arguments in support of their contention that these statutory changes authorize the payment of post-judgment interest on all federal district court judgments which the federal government unsuccessfully appeals. First, appellants look to the plain language of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961. Second, appellants cite the legislative history as evidencing a clear congressional intent to waive sovereign immunity against post-judgment interest on all unsuccessfully appealed district court judgments. Finally, appellants contend that unless the general language of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(a) is interpreted to provide for post-judgment interest on FTCA and Tucker Act judgments, the repeal of section 2411(b) of Title 28 of the U.S. Code will restrict the previous availability of such post-judgment interest, a clear violation of congressional intent. Ultimately, we reject all three of appellants' arguments: neither the language of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961, as amended, nor its legislative history meets the stringent standards for waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States with respect to post-judgment interest. Absent a clearly manifested congressional decision to waive the traditional no-interest rule in government suits, we cannot award post-judgment interest in this case. We also do not find appellants' ingenious argument based on the repeal of section 2411(b) sufficiently compelling. We simply cannot conclude that Congress meant to effect such a dramatic expansion of government liability for post-judgment interest in so subtle a manner.
30 Although section 1961(a) even as amended still does not expressly refer to judgments awarded against the federal government, appellants argue that the addition in 1982 of subsections (b) and (c) makes an interpretation of section 1961(a) which includes interest on government appeals obligatory under the plain meaning rule. We turn first to the addition of subsection (b) to section 1961. New subsection (b) provides that post-judgment interest shall be computed daily from the date of judgment to the date of payment, except as provided by 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2516(b), which governs the time period for post-judgment interest paid by the United States on unsuccessful appeals to the Supreme Court from Federal Circuit decisions, and as provided by 31 U.S.C. Sec. 1304(b), which governs the time period for the payment of post-judgment interest when otherwise authorized by law on judgments against the United States payable out of the permanent judgment appropriation fund. 1 Under these two exceptions to the daily computation of interest, post-judgment interest is payable only for the limited time period running from the filing of the transcript of the judgment with the Comptroller General to the date of the mandate of affirmance, i.e., only during the period of an appeal by the federal government. Appellants argue that if section 1961(a) did not require the federal government to pay post-judgment interest, it would have been unnecessary to create these exceptions to the daily computation of post-judgment interest in section 1961(b). 31 This argument overreads section 1961(b). Section 1961(b) does not state that interest under section 1961(a) shall be computed daily except as provided in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2516(b) and 31 U.S.C. Sec. 1304(b). Section 1961(b) does not explicitly restrict itself to payments of post-judgment interest under section 1961(a) but rather sets out the time period during which post-judgment interest runs, regardless of the statutory source of the duty to pay such interest. 2 Section 1961(b), at best ambiguous, does not support an express waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States against awards of post-judgment interest in all unsuccessfully appealed district court judgments. 3 A court must construe waivers strictly in favor of the sovereign and may not enlarge a waiver beyond what the language requires. Library of Congress v. Shaw, --- U.S. at ----, 106 S.Ct. at 2962 (quoting Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 685, 103 S.Ct. 3274, 3277, 77 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983)). 32 This principle of statutory construction is mandated by section 1961 itself. Subsection (c)(4) of section 1961 explicitly announces that: 33 This section shall not be construed to affect the interest on any judgment of any court not specified in this section. 34 Section 1961 does not specifically authorize the award of interest on all judgments against the United States. Moreover, even if we ignored our clear obligation to resolve any ambiguities in section 1961 against the waiver of sovereign immunity, we could not adopt appellants' reading of the statute. As we shall demonstrate in Part II.B of this opinion, infra, the legislative history of the Federal Courts Improvement Act supplies virtually no support for appellants' interpretation of this ambiguous provision. 35 Appellants point next to the addition of subsection (c)(1) to section 1961 as an indication that the United States waived its sovereign immunity in section 1961(a). This second plain meaning argument also fails. New subsection (c)(1) of section 1961 provides that section 1961 shall not apply in any judgment of any court with respect to an internal revenue tax case. Section 1961(c)(1) sets the interest rate for such claims at the rate established under 26 U.S.C. Sec. 6621, i.e., the adjusted prime rate. Appellants argue that if new section 1961(a) did not require the payment of post-judgment interest on all district court judgments against the federal government, the exception provided in section 1961(c)(1) would be superfluous. 36 This argument is flawed in numerous respects: First, it ignores the fact that subsection (c)(1) is necessary to exempt private taxpayers from the interest provisions of subsection (a). Since 1975, taxpayers have been required to pay interest on underpayments of taxes at the rate specified in section 6621 of the Internal Revenue Code. See 26 U.S.C. Sec. 6601(a); see also Pub.L. No. 93-625, Sec. 7(a)(2)(A), 88 Stat. 2108, 2115 (1975). Subsection (c)(1) is not therefore relegated to the category of mere surplusage if section 1961(a) does not apply to the federal government. 37 Appellants' argument also misreads section 1961(c)(1) as operating solely to exclude tax cases from the application of the interest rate contained in subsection (a). Section 1961(c)(1) excludes the application not only of the rate announced in subsection (a), however, but also of the timing provisions announced in subsection (b) of section 1961. Section 1961(c)(1) is further necessary to exempt tax cases from section 1961(c)(2), which provides the general terms on which the United States shall be liable for post-judgment interest on appeals which it takes from decisions in the Federal Circuit. Section 1961(c)(1) would be necessary even if there was no section 1961(a) at all. In sum, we find in section 1961(b) and section 1961(c)(1) no persuasive indication that section 1961(a) waives sovereign immunity for post-judgment interest on all judgments against the United States in district court. Appellants' reading of the statute is not necessary to avoid making either subsection superfluous. 4 We therefore cannot find in the plain meaning of section 1961 any waiver of the no-interest rule for unsuccessful appeals from all district court judgments. 38
39 An examination of the legislative history of the Federal Courts Improvement Act, moreover, indicates that any ambiguity in the language of section 1961 should be resolved against expansion of the liability of the United States for post-judgment interest. The intent of Congress in adopting this portion of the Federal Courts Improvement Act was only to set a nationally uniform rate governing post-judgment interest in all cases, except tax cases, where post-judgment interest was already available. Congress gave no indication that it intended for the first time to make such interest uniformly available against the United States. Appellants would unjustifiably escalate the modest legislative goal of a uniform rate for post-judgment interest into an unprecedentedly broad goal of universal entitlement to awards of post-judgment interest against public and private litigants alike. 40 The changes effected by the Federal Courts Improvement Act on which appellants rely for purposes of this appeal are found exclusively in section 302 of Title III of that Act. We shall accordingly limit our examination of the legislative history to Title III. See Pub.L. No. 97-164, Sec. 302, 96 Stat. 25, 55-56 (1982). The House version of what eventually became the Federal Courts Improvement Act, H.R. 4482, contained no provision comparable to the eventual Title III. See H.R. 4482, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., 127 Cong.Rec. 27,785-91 (1981). The original Senate bill, S. 1700, contained detailed provisions establishing a nationally uniform interest rate on federal court judgments that was keyed to the prime interest rate. The bill also provided for the award of pre-judgment interest and made changes in the provisions governing awards of post-judgment interest against the federal government. See S. 1700, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. Sec. 302, 127 Cong.Rec. 23,093-94 (1981). 41 Appellants' legislative history argument depends on a single clause in the original Senate bill that would have amended 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961 to include a provision that: 42 Except [in tax cases], interest shall be allowed on all final judgments against the United States (including judgments of the United States Claims Court) as provided in subsections (a) [setting the rate of post-judgment interest equal to the prime interest rate] and (b) [providing for pre-judgment interest]. 43 S. 1700, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. Sec. 302(a)(3), 127 Cong.Rec. 23,093 (1981) (emphasis supplied). Appellants argue that this provision in the original Senate bill evidences a clear congressional intent to waive sovereign immunity which should inform our interpretation of any ambiguities in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961. 44 This clause, however, was amended out of existence on the Senate floor by unprinted amendment 766. That amendment substituted in its stead the language presently contained in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(c)(2). That language provides: 45 Except [in tax cases], interest shall be allowed on all final judgments against the United States in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, at the rate provided in [28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(a) ] and as provided in [28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(b) ]. 46 See 127 Cong.Rec. 29,865-67 (1981) (emphasis supplied). It was this amended version of S. 1700 that was considered by the House at the informal House-Senate staff conference that resolved the differences between S. 1700 and H.R. 4482, see 127 Cong.Rec. 29,875 (1981), and it was also this version that the House eventually passed. See 128 Cong.Rec. 3,562-72 (1982). 47 The simplest explanation for the Senate's deletion of the provision relied on by appellants is that the Senate chose not to expand the availability of post-judgment interest against the federal government. Appellants assert, however, that the failure of either house of Congress to adopt the provision explicitly requiring the government to pay post-judgment interest in all unsuccessful appeals from district court judgments was a mere technical omission. Under this theory, the original Senate bill provision continues to be probative of the final congressional intent expressed in the Federal Courts Improvement Act. Appellants' argument misses the mark in numerous respects. In the first place, appellants have provided no theory by which we could impute to the House of Representatives the Senate's inadvertence in deleting its provision for the award of post-judgment interest against the United States in all unsuccessful appeals from district court judgments. The legislative history provides no indication that the House ever considered a provision similar to the Senate's. This by itself is sufficient to bar appellants' argument, as a statute must, of course, be ratified by both congressional houses. 48 Additionally, however, the appellants have offered no compelling evidence that the Senate acted inadvertently when it deleted its general provision for post-judgment interest against the United States. We note at the outset the highly unusual nature of what appellants are asking this court to do. When faced with a congressional amendment deleting a provision from a bill under consideration, courts typically assume that Congress knows the content of its amendment and therefore intends the deletion. In support of their argument that the deletion of the provision requiring payment of post-judgment interest by the federal government in all cases was a mere technical omission, appellants cite the debate over unprinted amendment 766. This amendment was offered by Senator Grassley in response to concerns expressed by the Office of Management and Budget (OBM). Appellants first point out that the OMB correspondence which provided the impetus for the amendment did not request the disallowance of such post-judgment interest and that deletion of the provision was not necessary to take account of any concern actually expressed by the administration. Appellants also offer as evidence of inadvertence the fact that the sponsor of amendment 766 never disclosed to his Senate colleagues that the effect of his amendment would be to overrule the Senate bill provision awarding post-judgment interest against the government on all district court judgments. 49 This evidence in support of the purported technical omission is wholly insufficient to overcome the traditional rule that Congress understood the content of its amendment. Where Congress has deleted an explicit substantive provision of a bill, appellants must come up with some stronger indication of inadvertence than mere silence. This is especially true where appellants are asking this court to read a waiver of sovereign immunity back into a statute where Congress explicitly deleted that waiver. The general rule is that congressional silence does not permit a court to find the requisite waiver of sovereign immunity with respect to awards of post-judgment interest. See Library of Congress v. Shaw, --- U.S. at ----, 106 S.Ct. at 2962. Appellants' inadvertence argument perverts the traditional rule that waivers of sovereign immunity must be express and must be strictly construed. E.g., Holly v. Chasen, 639 F.2d at 796-97. 50 The only other potential evidence of inadvertence available to appellants is one ambiguous statement by Senator Grassley. In his explanation of the present provision codified at 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(c)(2) providing that the United States shall pay post-judgment interest on unsuccessful appeals to the Supreme Court from Federal Circuit judgments, Senator Grassley said: 51 Thus, interest would accumulate only from the date of final judgment by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Although the new Claims Court would be placed in the unique position that does not apply to the judgments of the several district courts, the amendment does retain the status quo with respect to accumulation of interest on judgments of the Court of Claims. 52 127 Cong.Rec. 29,865 (1981) (emphasis supplied). 53 This statement does not explicitly say that all district court judgments against the United States will bear post-judgment interest. Given its context, we find more plausible an interpretation of Senator Grassley's remark as a reference to the fact that some district court judgments against the United States continued to bear post-judgment interest while no Claims Court judgment did. At any rate, this single ambiguous remark cannot overcome the deadening silence surrounding the deletion of the Senate provision relied on by appellants to show that at least one branch of Congress meant to broaden the post-judgment interest coverage against the United States. 54 Rather than revealing a technical omission in the deletion of the general provision for post-judgment interest against the government, the legislative history actually reinforces the obvious import of the Senate's deletion of its waiver of sovereign immunity. The legislative history suggests that the never-enacted provision might itself have been a technical omission. Although the evidence of such inadvertance in the legislative history would almost assuredly be insufficient to permit a court to set aside the obvious meaning of a statute actually passed by Congress, it need not be totally ignored when appellants ask us to set aside Senator Grassley's amendment and restore to the bill a deleted provision. 55 Every item in the legislative history other than the language of the deleted provision indicates that the Senate itself was unaware that its original bill would have expanded the liability of the federal government for post-judgment interest. Senator Dole's introductory statement describes the provisions for post-judgment interest against the government as a consolidation, not as an expansion. The bill consolidate[d] into one statute the three provisions of Title 28 of the United States Code dealing with the award of interest on judgments. Consequently the provisions of this bill for ... a new interest rate on judgments will apply uniformly to suits between private litigants and to suits against the government. 127 Cong.Rec. 23,097 (1981) (statement of Sen. Dole). Senator Dole's introductory remarks demonstrate that a single uniform rate would apply to all awards of post-judgment interest. 5 They in no way suggest that post-judgment interest would become available against the federal government in every case in which it would be available against a private party. 56 The Committee Report accompanying S. 1700 similarly refers to the bill only as a consolidation of existing provisions. See S.Rep. No. 275, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 12, 30 (1981) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, pp. 11, 22, 40. 6 Again, it is the rate rather than the availability of post-judgment interest that has been made uniform. The Senate Report, moreover, contains two significant indications that the Senate never did contemplate expanding the waiver of sovereign immunity. First, the Report contains a letter from the Congressional Budget Office estimating the expenses associated with the bill. According to this letter, the only expenses associated with the bill will be for travel and transportation, attorney fees, and some personnel changes. These items are expected to total less than $70,000. S.Rep. No. 275, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 32 (1981), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, p. 42. The Congressional Budget Office's letter took no account of the massive increase in the government's liability for post-judgment interest which appellants would read into the bill. 57 The second important manifestation of the Senate's actual intention with regard to a waiver of sovereign immunity is found in a section of the Report entitled Changes in Existing Law. In this section the Senate is usually required by its own Standing Rules to explicate all changes in existing laws made by the bill. The Judiciary Committee, however, felt justified in dispensing with this requirement because the statement contained in the House Report on H.R. 4482, the House version of S. 1700, would be essentially the same as S. 1700. S.Rep. No. 275, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 33 (1981), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, p. 43. The Senate committee was able to arrive at this conclusion even though H.R. 4482 contained absolutely no provisions concerning payment of post-judgment interest by the United States or private litigants. 58 To sum up, we cannot view the Senate's deletion of the provision relied on by appellants as any mere technical omission to be overlooked in the face of an otherwise clear congressional intent to waive the no-interest rule in all district court judgments appealed by the United States. The technical omission theory finds no support in the legislative history. Instead, the overall legislative history, including the deletion of the provision relied on by appellants, persuades us that Congress never intended to expand its waiver of sovereign immunity but only to consolidate its already existing waivers.
59 Appellants' final argument on appeal hinges on the repeal of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2411(b). Before Congress passed the Federal Courts Improvement Act, section 2411(b) provided for the award of post-judgment interest against the United States in all actions, except tax actions, instituted under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346. This meant liability for post-judgment interest primarily in FTCA cases and Little Tucker Act cases. According to the appellants, the repeal of this provision simultaneously with the amendment of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961 suggests that Congress intended section 1961(a) as amended to include the award of post-judgment interest on FTCA and Tucker Act judgments against the federal government. Appellants invoke the presumption against implied repeal of remedial provisions and argue that it is extremely unlikely that Congress intended to furtively eliminate the right to receive post-judgment interest on FTCA and Tucker Act judgments, where such interest had been available for years. According to appellants, unless the general language of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(a) extends to judgments against the United States under the Tucker Act and the FTCA, which it could only do if it applied to all judgments against the United States in district court, the Federal Courts Improvement Act secretly effected an anomalous retrenchment on the availability of post-judgment interest awards against the United States. 60 Library of Congress v. Shaw forecloses this argument. We need not today decide the extent, if any, to which the Federal Courts Improvement Act curtails previously available post-judgment interest on judgments against the United States under the FTCA and the Tucker Act. 7 Even if Congress did not intend to eliminate the liability of the United States for post-judgment interest in FTCA and Tucker Act cases, this does not mean that Congress affirmatively contemplated an expansion of the liability of the United States for post-judgment interest. The waiver of immunity for an award of interest must be affirmatively and separately contemplated by Congress. See Library of Congress v. Shaw, --- U.S. at ----, 106 S.Ct. at 2961. Appellants' argument, however, rests on a waiver by implication and must therefore be rejected. 8