Court Opinion

ID: 9443895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:33:25.456687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:38.343963
License: Public Domain

HARRISON, District Judge
(dissenting).
T am of the opinion that Rule 14, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should apply in tort claims actions. The Federal Tort Claims Act waives the government’s immunity from suit but nowhere does the government waive its right to sue.
The majority opinion concedes that under the common law and under the law of California, a private employer may recover from his negligent employee for losses sustained by the employer by reason of the negligent acts of the employee. Bradley v. Rosenthal, 154 Cal. 420, 97 P. 875; see also Spruce v. Wellman, 98 Cal.App.2d 158, 219 P.2d 472.
If under United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543, 71 S.Ct. 399, 95 L.Ed. 523, the government is liable for contribution under the law of the State of Pennsylvania, the same reasoning should apply in *850this case. Tort Claims Act liability is in all events secondary. The only difference as to the government’s liability between the case at bar and the Yellow Cab case, supra, is that in the Yellow Cab case the government was a joint tort-feasor and as a result paid only its portion of the liability but in this case it must -pay all and cannot, according to the majority seek recoupment from the one who is primarily liable.
It must be remembered that much of the litigation under the Tort 'Claims Act arises while the employee, in the course of his employment, is using a privately owned automobile fully covered by insurance. The ruling of the majority permits such insurance carriers to escape liability at the expense of the government. See U. S. v. Aetna Cas. & Surety Co., 338 U.S. 366, 70 S.Ct. 207, 94 L.Ed. 171.
It is my view that to permit an employee of the government to escape liability for his tort is to place a premium on negligence and encourage collusion between the employee and the claimant. It also places the government employee in a different class from that of a private employee.
I believe that the Yellow Cab case supports my conclusions. It will be noted that the Supreme Court, on page 554 of 340 U. S., on page 406 of 71 S.Ct., approves the language of Judge (later Justice) Cardozo in Anderson v. John L. Hayes Construction Co., 243 N.Y. 140, 153 N.E. 28, 29, when it quotes him as follows:
“ * * * ‘No sensible reason can be imagined why the state, having consented to be sued, should thus paralyze the remedy.’ ”
By a parity of reasoning no sensible reason can be imagined why the State should paralyze its own remedy.
See also Judge Cardozo’s opinion in Schubert v. August Schubert Wagon Co., 249 N.Y. 253, 164 N.E. 42, 64 A.L.R. 293, in which he held that the employer’s right of recoupment from his negligent employee is based on breach of an independent duty owed the employer by the employee, and not on subrogation or quasi-contract.
It should also be noted that the Supreme Court cites in the Yellow Cab case 3 Moore’s Federal Practice (2d ed. 1948), page 507, with approval, and I quote from the same because I feel it correctly states my conclusions:
“Par. 1429. Impleader By and Against the United States.
“Where the United States is the defendant it should be able to implead a third party in a case within Rule 14, to wit, where the United States as third-party plaintiff asserts that the third-party defendant ‘is or may be liable’ to it for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim against it. This follows from the fact that the Rules are generally applicable to actions by and against the United States, subject to jurisdictional limitations. And where the United States is the third-party plaintiff there is no problem of sovereign immunity from suit — the sovereign is the claimant. This principle should be true (1) whether the original plaintiff’s claim against the United States is one under the Tucker Act, which claim for convenience may be described as ex contractu, or (2) whether the claim is one under the Federal Tort Claims Act, ex delicto.”
It is difficult for me to reconcile that Rule 14 can be used against the government and employee but cannot be used by the government against the employee.
The Tort Claims Act itself militates against this result:1
• 28 U.S.C.A., § 1346(b) — “* * * the District Court * * * shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, * * * for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the *851claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred(Emphasis supplied.)
28 U.S.C.A., § 2674 — “The United States shall be liable, respecting the provisions of this title relating to tort claims, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances * *
Paraphrasing Mr. Chief Justice Taft in Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, at page 611, 47 S.Ct. 531, 71 L.Ed. 793 — if it was the intention of Congress to waive the government’s common law rights, why should it not have been expressed?
To place the government as a target without the ability to defend itself leaves the government as a litigant, subject to the laws of the State of California without the right to rely upon the laws of California as a defensive measure.

. Dalehite v. U. S., 1953, 346 U.S. 15, 73 S.Ct. 956.