Court Opinion

ID: 9455357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:19:52.750652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:34.091832
License: Public Domain

FREEDMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The law of Colorado, which we must apply under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is not clear. We therefore are free to choose what we consider the sounder of the competing policies underlying the decisions in cases such as this.
It is artificial at best to think of the normal doctrine of respondeat superior in the relation of military personnel to the Armed Forces. The elements of service and control which determine the relationship of master and servant have a far more comprehensive quality in the authority of military superiors over their subordinate personnel.
Corporal McSwain throughout his journey was a soldier under the control of the militáry authorities and was subject to military discipline, even in the manner in which he drove his automobile.1 It is within the framework of this unique relationship of command and subordination that we must view this ease. If the military authorities wished McSwain to take a direct route, they could have made this requirement in their orders. It is indicative of their intention to the contrary that they not only authorized him to make the journey in his own automobile and agreed to pay for his travel, but also granted him an extra 20 days of “delay” time in addition to the days authorized for travel time.2 One would hardly expect that one who has been ordered to make a transcontinental journey and been authorized to do it in his own automobile accompanied by his wife3 will hug the most direct route wearing blinders against a normal human interest in the country across which he is travelling. In these circumstances, the conclusion is justifiable that his superiors intended him to combine pleasure with his duty and impliedly authorized him to make an appropriate amount of deviation for purposes of sightseeing as he travelled across the continent.
Moreover, the military authorities knew that McSwain would be required to take East with him his wife and child who had been living with him in California. They also knew that his transfer to Memphis, Tennessee, was to be of short duration and that he was to re-transfer from there to Florida. It was a normal act, readily foreseeable, that he would leave his wife and child with relatives while he was temporarily in Memphis. Thus when he took them to Philadelphia to stay with relatives, this was a normal incident to his transfer from *1092Camp Pendleton to Memphis. The “deviation” in so doing, whatever it may have aggregated in mileage, was neither unreasonable nor beyond what military authorities should reasonably have anticipated.
As I see it, therefore, the generality of the orders given to Corporal McSwain, the time period allotted to him within which to make the journey, the authorization to use his own automobile and to be paid mileage for him and his wife, the knowledge of his superiors that he would necessarily make some arrangements for the temporary lodging of his wife and child, all unite to render justifiable the conclusion of the district court that the journey on which he was bound lay within the authorized scope of his employment and within the line of his duty. The United States, therefore, was responsible for any negligence of McSwain during the journey, even though he was actuated in part by personal considerations.4
The choice lies with the military authorities in cases such as this whether the government is to be held liable for the negligence of military personnel which causes injury to others. They have complete command over the activities of their subordinate personnel; they can limit and even curtail entirely their right to drive automobiles when transferring from one base to another; by denying extra leave they can prevent the mingling of recreation or vacation with military duty; and by directing the route of travel they can restrict deviation. With these limitations at their disposal, their failure to employ them here indicates that they intended Corporal McSwain to travel under their orders with a broad delegation of authority while they retained their right of control. This justifies the conclusion of the district court that the journey was made within the scope of McSwain’s employment and within the line of his duty.
I therefore would affirm the judgment of the district court.

. See Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 911, subjecting military personnel to discipline for reckless driving. Cf. O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U.S. 258, 89 S.Ct. 1683, 23 L.Ed.2d 291 (1969).

. In the government’s phraseology McSwain was authorized four days “proceed time,” twenty days “delay to count ás leave,” and eight days “travel time.”

. The district court found that McSwain “was to be reimbursed by his employer for mileage to his new duty station at the rate of six cents a mile for himself and six cents a mile for his wife.”

. See Restatement of Agency, 2d, § 228(c).