Court Opinion

ID: 9442452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:48:47.661441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:07.895644
License: Public Domain

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge
.(dissenting) .
The plaintiff was compelled to pay a claim for damages for personal injury to one of its switchmen caused by the negligence of government employees in the operation of plaintiff’s railroad property then in government possession, and it brought this action against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act to recover the amount of its payment and expenses as indemnity which plaintiff would have been entitled to sue for and recover under the law of the state where the accident occurred if its loss had been caused by the negligence of a private party.. The negligence and injury occurred prior to the effective date of the Federal Tort Claims Act but the plaintiff was not required to and did not make payment of the damages and its claim for indemnity did not accrue until after that date. It seems to me that it should be held that the Federal Tort Claims Act withdrew the government’s immunity and conferred jurisdiction of the action.. ■
The plaintiff is the innocent party who has in fact suffered the loss resulting from negligence of government employees and on the face of this record it has a just claim against the government that ought to be considered either by a court or by Congress. It seems to me that it was the intent of the Act to relegate it to the court and to permit the plaintiff as the party who actually and in fact suffered the loss to sue the government for "it. Also that the date of the occurrence of the negligence and injury is irrelevant and the date of -the accrual of the claim to the plaintiff who suffered the loss brings it within the Act.
It seems to me that the Supreme Court’s declarations as to the purpose and effect of the Act in the subrogation cases (United States v. Aetna Surety Co., 338 U.S. 366, 70 S.Ct. 207) justify and sustain the jurisdiction in this suit against the government by this indemnitee. The claims of subrogees and indemnitees are alike derivative but it is apparent from the Supreme Court’s opinion that it found nothing in the mere fact of subrogee claims being derivative to even merit discussion. Its concern as to the subrogees’ right to sue the government on the -claims before the court was whether the claims had been derived within the intendment of R.S. § 3477, 31 U.S.C.A. § 203. On concluding that the subrogees’ claims accrued to them by operation of law and were not within R.S. § 3477, the court found nothing in the Act to prevent the subrogees from maintaining their suits under it. There are no express words in the Act relative to derivative claims but the court made its declaration of the intendment and purpose of the Act with the derivative character of the subrogees’ claims directly before it. It said, 338 U.S. page 370, 70 S.Ct. page 210, that “the language of the Act indicates a -congressional purpose that the United States be treated as if it were a * * * person in respect of torts committed by its employees” (with exceptions not relevant) and that understanding of the meaning and purport of the Act led the court to declare that “the Government must defend suits by subrogees as if it were a private person.” The same interpretation of the Act necessitates the same declaration as to suits by indemnitees who have become by operation of the law of the state of the occurrence of the negligence and injury the sole parties interested in and vested with a claim in respect of the torts committed iby the government’s employees. I see no. reason to discriminate between subrogees and indemnitees in applying the Act and I think there is none. They are alike innocent bystanders upon whom loss from tortious conduct has ricocheted and by operation of law they both have claims against the tort feasor. The steps of reasoning by which their status in law has come about is immaterial. In good conscience the tort feasor ought to repay them and the law says he must.
*153The subrogation cases apparently did not include any where the government employee’s tort antedated the date of January 1, 1945, fixed in the Act and the subrogee’s right accrued and was sued on after that date. But if “the government must be treated as if it were a private person in respect of the torts committed by its employees” and must defend suits by indemnitees as if it were a private person, then the date when the claim accrued to the indemnitee must settle whether or not there is jurisdiction. The claim here involved accrued to the plaintiff on April 2, 1948, and at that time the government had no immunity from the suit and the District Court was vested with jurisdiction over it.