Court Opinion

ID: 9479195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:10:54.24161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:52.647432
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would deny the petition for mandamus because I think that a judge of the Claims Court may take evidence outside the United States.
A. The settled practice of the Court of Claims of conducting evidentiary hearings outside the United States, which Congress recognized and apparently approved, and did not change when it created the Claims Court in 1982, authorizes the judges of the Claims Court to conduct such proceedings.
1. Section 2505 of Title 28 (1982) provides:
Any judge of the United States Claims Court may sit at any place within the United States to take evidence and enter judgment.
This section had its origin in a 1930 statute that authorized the judges of the Court of Claims themselves to conduct evidentia-ry hearings. Prior to that time, only the trial commissioners of the Court of Claims, whom the court appointed, held evidentiary hearings. From the time of its establishment in 1855, the Court of Claims utilized commissioners to preside at the taking of depositions. At least three of those com*1574missioners were stationed in England. See 2 W. Cowen, P. Nichols, Jr., M. Bennett, The United States Court of Claims: A History 92 (1978) (hereinafter Court of Claims History). In 1925 Congress authorized the commissioners to preside at formal trials and prepare formal findings of fact, but did not preclude them from taking evidence overseas. Act of Feb. 24, 1925, ch. 301, 43 Stat. 964-65.
The 1930 Act provided that “The Chief Justice [as the Chief Judge of the Court of Claims was then called], or any judge of the Court of Claims, may sit at any place within the United States to take evidence in any case instituted in said court.” Act of June 23, 1930, ch. 573, 46 Stat. 799. The legislative history of that Act indicates that the provision was designed to permit the judges of the Court of Claims themselves to take testimony, in order to alleviate the heavy backlog of cases on the commissioners’ dockets. As the House Report explained:
The amendment ... provides that the chief justice or any associate judge may take testimony in any case pending,.... The purpose and necessity for this provision, suggested by the court itself, is found in the existing situation as to the commissioners’ present docket and anticipated increases_
The court, rather than ask for an increase in the number of commissioners, feels that the granting of this power to the judges will render the aid essential to meet the existing situation with respect to the preparation of cases for prompt disposition.
H.R.Rep. No. 274, 71st Cong., 2d Sess. 1-2 (1930).
This provision thus was not intended to control the places where the Court of Claims could hold evidentiary hearings, but to expand the category of individuals who could conduct those hearings.
The provision was codified in 1948 at 28 U.S.C. § 2505 and the wording changed to read: “Any judge of the Court of Claims may sit at any place within the United States to take evidence and report findings.” Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 976. The language remained the same until it was changed to its present form in the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, Pub.L. No. 97-164, 96 Stat. 25.
The Federal Courts Improvement Act created this court and the Claims Court, transferred to the latter court the trial jurisdiction that the trial commissioners of the Court of Claims previously had exercised, and gave the judges of the Claims Court authority to enter final judgment. The Federal Courts Improvement Act made two changes in section 2505: (1) It substituted “United States Claims Court” for “Court of Claims,” and (2) it changed the authority of the judges from “report[ing] findings” to “entering] judgment.”
2. In its amicus brief, the Bar Association submitted an affidavit by the clerk of the former Court of Claims and now the clerk of the Claims Court, Frank T. Pear-tree, describing his review of “the dockets and official records maintained in the Clerk’s office showing reimbursements made for expenses of commissioners and judges of the United States Court of Claims incurred in foreign travel in connection with evidentiary proceedings held abroad since 1960.” Mr. Peartree attached “[a] representative listing of cases involving such travel and hearings.” He listed 13 cases (4 of which were congressional reference cases) in which evidentiary proceedings were held in Italy, Austria, Germany, England, Sweden, France, and Spain. Similarly, the Court of Claims History, written by three judges of that court and published in 1978, reported that “[b]y agreement of the parties and permission of foreign governments, the trial judges have also taken proof in Australia, Canada, the Philippine Islands, England, and most of the countries of Western Europe.” Court of Claims History at 168.
In creating the Claims Court in 1982, Congress intended that court to have the same trial jurisdiction and, with two exceptions not here pertinent (entering final judgment and issuing injunctions against pre-award challenges to government contracts), the same authority the Court of Claims had exercised through its Trial Division. H.R.Rep. No. 312, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 46 (1982). The Trial Division, and *1575sometimes the judges themselves, frequently conducted evidentiary hearings abroad. Apparently there was no question about or challenge to the authority of the Court of Claims to conduct such hearings. In his affidavit Mr. Peartree stated: “My records as to the listed cases do not reflect any objections being raised by any party regarding the propriety of conducting said evidentiary proceedings abroad or of reimbursement of such travel expenses.”
Considering all the circumstances, I conclude that Congress intended the judges of the Claims Court to have the same authority to take evidence abroad that the trial commissioners and judges of the Court of Claims had exercised without challenge for many years. There is no indication, or even suggestion, that in routinely changing the applicability of Section 2505 from the Court of Claims to the Claims Court, Congress intended to alter the judges’ authority to take evidence abroad.
B. The 1970 statute creating the Court of International Trade, as the successor to the Customs Court, stated:
Upon application of a party or upon his own initiative, and upon a showing that the interests of economy, efficiency, and justice will be served, the chief judge may issue an order authorizing a judge of the court to preside in an evidentiary hearing in a foreign country whose laws do not prohibit such a hearing.
28 U.S.C. § 256(b). In explaining the advantages of giving the judges of the Court of International Trade this authority, the House Committee Report stated:
The authority to conduct evidentiary hearings in foreign countries has been exercised in the past by the commissioners (and by at least one judge) of the United States Court of Claims. It does not appear to have ever been questioned.
H.R.Rep. No. 1067, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 15, reprinted, in 1970 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3188, 3202.
During the hearing on the legislation, reference was made to this practice of the Court of Claims. See Hearings on S. 2624 Before the Subcomm. on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 74-75 (1969) (statement of Rao, C.J., Ct. Int’l Trade); Hearings on S. 2624 Before the Subcomm. No. 3 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 149 (1970) (statement of Rep. Kastenmeier).
Since Congress was giving the judges of the new court a power that the judges of the predecessor Customs Court had not had or exercised, it was not surprising that Congress explicitly provided for it. The significant fact about this provision, however, is that in adopting it, Congress recognized that it was conferring the same authority that the commissioners and at least one judge of the Court of Claims previously had exercised.
C. The court stresses that the Claims Court is one of limited authority and concludes that because Congress has not explicitly authorized the judges of that court to conduct evidentiary hearings abroad, that power should not be inferred. The commissioners of the Court of Claims, however, and even the judges themselves, over a substantial period of time conducted evi-dentiary hearings abroad, and did so without apparent challenge to the propriety of that practice. “[Established practice may shed light on the extent of power conveyed by general statutory language.” Federal Trade Comm’n v. Bunte Bros., 312 U.S. 349, 352, 61 S.Ct. 580, 582, 85 L.Ed. 881 (1941).