Court Opinion

ID: 9444035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:38:59.287021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:16.325008
License: Public Domain

BRATTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The United States is immune from suit except as it consents to be sued. It has power to attach conditions and limitations of its own choice to its consent. And the terms of its consent to be sued in any court define the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the suit. United *717States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 61 S. Ct. 767, 85 L.Ed. 1058.
It is provided in one section of the Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1346(b), that, subject to the provisions of chapter 171 of the title, the district courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States for money damages for personal injury caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the government while acting within the scope of his employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the state where the act or omission occurred. And it is provided by another section of the Act, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1402(b), that any civil action on a tort claim against the United States under subsection (b) of section 1346 of the title may be prosecuted only in the judicial district where the plaintiff resides or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred. Plainly, the first section gives the consent of the government to be sued upon a claim for tort, and the second section limits or restricts that consent to be sued only in the district in which plaintiff resides or in the district in which the tort occurred. Aeord, the injured person and the plaintiff in the original action, resided in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and the tort occurred in that district. The original suit against the railroad •company was filed in the Western District of Oklahoma; and by the third-party complaint, the government was im-pleaded in that action.
Except as otherwise provided by statute, the Rules of Civil Procedure apply to actions under the Tort Claims Act. United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543, 553, 71 S.Ct. 399, 95 L.Ed. 523. Rule of Civil Procedure 14 authorizes a defendant in an action to assume the position of third-party plaintiff, bring in a third-party defendant, and assert a claim against him. But Rule 82 provides that the rules shall not be construed to extend the jurisdiction of the district court or the venue of actions. Since the plaintiff resides in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and the tort occurred in that district, it seems clear to me that to sustain jurisdiction of the court in the Western District of Oklahoma to entertain the third-party complaint nullifies the controlling special statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1402(b), and also gives no effect whatever to Rule 82.
It is my view that the court below was without jurisdiction of the cause of action pleaded in the third-party complaint; and that instead of considering the third-party proceeding on its merits and determining whether under the doctrine of indemnity the railroad company is entitled to recover against the government, the judgment against the United States should be reversed and the cause remanded with directions to dismiss the third-party complaint without prejudice to the right, if any, of the railroad company to proceed against the government in a court of competent jurisdiction.