Court Opinion

ID: 9445038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:18:42.030201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:06.475389
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I do not find myself able to concur in the majority opinion that the trial court ■committed clear error in holding the disability clause of subdivision (a) inapplicable to subdivision (b) of § 2401, Title 28 U.S.C.A.
The revisors of Title 28 of the United States Code undertook to eliminate repetitions and conflicting sections of the code and to that end, sections pertaining to specific factual situations were replaced by sections applying more generally. The subject of limitations was treated under this principle. Thus, they ■encircled “Every civil action commenced .against the United States” by the limitation of six years to begin action. Of course, the revisors were well cognizant of the doctrine that a person with a cause of action should not be deprived of his ■cause by a limitation running while he could not act. Appropriately, then in the same paragraph which contains the limitation, the revisors diluted the full effect of the limitation by providing that it would not run during the period of the ■disability and providing, not the full six years after the disability had been removed, but just half that time.
But it was thought that tort claims .against the government were of such a nature as to merit different treatment, and paragraph (b) became a part of the section providing for different limitations, but it did not touch the subject of disability.
I do not read section 2401 as a whole, as completely shutting those under disability from the right to recover compensation for the government’s wrong and I do not believe Congress, or the re-visors, intended that result.
It was argued that the view I have expressed would lead to an illogical result whereby the one suffering from a disability preventing him from instituting action would have three years after removal of the disability, which is longer than the period others would have to sue. But such result may well be very logical. One recovering from a disability may be under greater handicap in learning as to his rights or in assembling proof with the burden he must bear, than one who is free to act immediately after the injury.
Looking at the problem as a whole, it seems to me, as it seemed to the trial judge, that the plain wording and context of the section supports and requires the holding that one suffering injury by the government’s negligence is not deprived of his day in court because, for a specified time, he could not ask for it.