Court Opinion

ID: 9795296
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:24:44.563642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:29:07.161652
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Chief Justice,
with whom EASTAUGH, Justice, joins, dissenting.
In my opinion the doctrine of intra-mili-tary immunity was properly held to govern this case. The doctrine, an outgrowth of Feres v. United States,1 bars claims by military service personnel against military actors for injuries arising out of activities that are "incident to service."2 It applies to state common law tort claims,3 state statutory claims,4 federal constitutional tort claims,5 and federal statutory claims,6 as well as *44claims brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act.7 It immunizes not only the United States, but individual service personnel and state National Guard agencies.8
In Stauber v. Cline9 the Ninth Circuit applied the doctrine of intra-military immunity to claims that had been brought by one employee of the Alaska Army National Guard against other employees of the Guard and of the State of Alaska. In holding that the doctrine of intra-military immunity applied and barred state law tort claims the court explained the rationale of the doctrine:
[The Feres doctrine has come to rest at least in significant part on the view that the judiciary ought not to intrude in military affairs. Thus the Feres rule has been interpreted as necessary to avoid the courts' second-guessing military decisions, or impairing military discipline. Shearer, 473 U.S. at 57, 105 S.Ct. at 8048; see Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 304, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 2367, 76 LEd.2d 586 (1983). Indeed, courts have even been viewed as @ '«l-equipped to determine the impact upon discipline that any particular intrusion upon military authority might have.'" Chappell, 462 U.S. at 305, 108 S.Ct. at 2868 (quoting Warren, The Bill of Rights and the Military, 87 NY.UL.Rev. 181, 187 (1962)).
Thus the Feres doctrine, as presently interpreted, has far more to do with the proper relation between the courts, Congress and the military than it has to do with individual defendants. It is not a matter of personal immunity of the military personnel who may be defendants in a Bivens-type action incident to military services. United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 107 S.Ct. 3054, 3064, 97 LEd.2d 550 (1987). It is a judicial doctrine leaving matters incident to service to the military, in the absence of congressional direction to the contrary.
6. Declining to permit review of National Guard internal operations on justiciability grounds, in Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 10, 93 S.Ct. 2440, 2445, 37 LEd.2d 407 (1973), the Supreme Court noted that it is difficult to conceive of an area of governmental activity in which the courts have less competence. The complex, subtle, and professional decisions as to the composition, training, equipping, and control of a military force are essentially professional military judgments, subject always to civilian control of the Legislative and Executive Branches.
Id. (emphasis in original), quoted in Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 302, 108 S.Ct. 2862, 2866, 76 LEd.2d 586 (1983)[.]10
The doctrine of intra-military immunity immunizes not only military personnel, but their employers. Thus states, as employers of military personnel in the National Guard, are immunized by the doctrine. This issue was discussed in the context of the Alaska Air National Guard by the Ninth Cireuit in Bowen v. Oistead.11 Bowen involved, among other claims, tort claims by Bowen, a member of the National Guard, against other Guard members and the state. The Ninth Circuit held that the doctrine of intra-mili-tary immunity barred his claims against the state Guard officers and the state, discussing this issue at some length. The court stated:
While Bowen's first argument against the application of the Feres doctrine focuses upon his own status as a state employee, his second argument against Feres focuses upon the status of the defendants. Bowen urges us not to bar his claims against the state officers because, he argues, the Feres doctrine "cannot be applied to the states," i.e., it is applicable only to those actions where federal military personnel are somehow implicated in the alleged unlawful conduct. Thus, Bowen distinguishes Stauber by noting that the parties in that case were "under the *45direct command of a uniformed, full-time U.S. Army lieutenant colonel." See Stauber, 837 F.2d at 897.
In United States v. Johnson, the Supreme Court noted that it had
never suggested that the military status of the alleged tortfeasor is crucial to the application of the [Feres] doctrine. Nor have the lower courts understood this fact to be relevant under Feres. Instead, the Feres doctrine has been applied consistently to bar all suits on behalf of service members against the Government based upon service-related injuries.
481 U.S. 681, 686-88, 107 S.Ct. 2068, 2066-67, 95 L.Ed.2d 648 (1987).
Courts have not interpreted this language to mean that the service person's suit must be against the federal government or federal officers. The overwhelm ing weight of authority indicates that state National Guard officers are protected from suit by fellow Guardsmen by the Feres doctrine. Stauber, for example, applied Feres to a Guardsman's claims against individual members of the Alaska National Guard, the Alaska Adjutant General, the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, and the State of Alaska itself. See also Uhl v. Swanstrom, 79 F.3d 751 (8th Cir.1996) (applying Feres bar to suit by National Guardsman against his commanding state officer, the Adjutant General of the Iowa Air National Guard, and the Towa Air National Guard); Lovell v. Heng, 890 F.2d 68 (8th Cir.1989) (National Guardsman's § 1983 action against state National Guard officers barred under Feres ); Townsend v. Seurer, 791 F.Supp. 227, 229 (D.Minn.1992) ("[Rlegardless of whether the suit is brought against the state National Guard and individual Guard personnel or against the United States and individual Guard personnel, the Feres doctrine will bar the action."). Indeed, we indicated in Stauber that the Feres doctrine "has far more to do with the proper relation between the courts, Congress and the military than it has to do with individual defendants.... It is a judicial doctrine leaving matters incident to service to the military, in the absence of congressional direction to the contrary." Stauber, 837 F.2d at 399.12
There are literally scores of cases applying the doctrine of intra-military immunity to National Guard officers and their employers 13/14
Moreover, as Bowen indicates, the application of the doctrine of intra-military immunity is a question of federal law even when applied to state defendants based on state claims. Discussing some of the numerous *46cases which have applied Feres to Guardsmen's claims, the Bowen court stated:
These cases implicitly recognize that the military apparatus of the United States cannot be divided into strictly state and federal components. We endorse these holdings: Feres applies to the state National Guards and their members due to the integral role they play as part of the nation's defense force and the substantial degree to which the state National Guards are financed, regulated, and controlled by the federal government even when not called into active federal service. Consequently, under Stauber and the clear weight of authority in other circuits, Bowen's constitutional claims and claims sounding in tort are subject to the Feres doctrine.15
Since the doctrine of intra-military immunity is a matter of federal law we need not ask whether state law contains a similar immunity. The federal immunity applies to state law claims for reasons found sufficient under federal law. But even if the immunity were not imposed by federal law, I believe that state law should adopt it for a number of reasons.
First, the basic rationale that military decisions affecting military personnel should not be reviewed in civilian courts is persuasive. The Supreme Court of the United States articulated this rationale in Chappell v. Wallace.16 In so doing the Court included within its discussion state National Guards:
Congress' authority in this area, and the distance between military and civilian life, was summed up by the Court in Orloff v. Willoughby, supra, 345 U.S. at 98-94, 73 S.Ct. at 540:
[JJudges are not given the task of running the Army. The responsibility for setting up channels through which ... grievances can be considered and fairly settled rests upon the Congress and upon the President of the United States and his subordinates. The military constitutes a specializecl community governed by a separate discipline from that of the civilian. Orderly government requires that the judiciary be as serupu-lous not to interfere with legitimate Army matters as the Army must be scrupulous not to intervene in judicial matters.
Only recently we restated this principle in Rostker v. Goldberg, 458 U.S. 57, 64-65, 101 S.Ct. 2646, 2651, 69 LEd.2d 478 (1981):
The case arises in the context of Congress' authority over national defense and military affairs, and perhaps in no other area has the Court accorded Congress greater deference.
In Gilligan v. Morgan, 418 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2440, 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (19783), we addressed the question of whether Congress' analogous power over the militia, granted by Art. I, § 8, el. 16, would be impermissi-bly compromised by a suit seeking to have a Federal District Court examine the "pattern of training, weaponry and orders" of a state's National Guard. In denying relief we stated:
It would be difficult to think of a clearer example of the type of governmental action that was intended by the Constitution to be left to the political branches directly responsible-as the Judicial Branch is not-to the electoral process. Moreover, it is difficult to conceive of an area of governmental activity in which the courts have less competence. The complex, subtle, and professional decisions as to the composition, training, equipping, and control of a military force are essentially professional military judgments, subject always to civilian control of the Legislative and Executive Branches. The ultimate responsibility for these decisions is appropriately vested in branches of the gov*47ernment which are periodically subject to electoral accountability.
Id., at 10, 98 S.Ct. at 2446 (emphasis in original).17
Second, the Alaska Claims Against the State Act was first adopted by the territorial legislature in 1957 18 and was recodified without substantial change by the state legislature in 1962.19 The Alaska act was closely modeled on the Federal Tort Claims Act. We have recognized this in a number of cases,20 noting that we "rely heavily on federal cases interpreting the Federal Tort Claims Act." 21 There is "[a] rebuttable presumption ... that when Alaska bases a statute on one from another jurisdiction, it adopts into the Alaska statute all previous cases from the other jurisdiction's statute." 22 The Feres decision was handed down in 1950. Another notable case interpreting Feres and the Federal Tort Claims Act, United States v. Brown,23 was published in 1954. Thus the Feres doctrine was a well-established feature of the Federal Tort Claims Act when the territorial legislature decided to adopt a similar act for Alaska. Since there is no basis for rebutting the presumption that a borrowed statute carries with it prior judicial interpretations, Alaska's Claims Against the State Act should be construed as adopting the interpretation which Feres gave to the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The Supreme Court in Feres gave as one reason for its decision that "no American law . ever has permitted a soldier to recover for negligence, against either his superior officers or the Government he is serving." 24 Further, the Feres Court observed that it knew of no state "which has permitted members of its militia to maintain tort actions for injuries suffered in the service...."25 The Court thus concluded that to permit service personnel to sue their commanders in tort would be "to visit the Government with novel and unprecedented liabilities" beyond the purposes of the Federal Tort Claims Act.26 It is hard to believe that the legislature in modeling the Alaska Claims Act on the Federal Tort Claims Act meant to permit the kind of claim that Feres, in interpreting the Federal Tort Claims Act, had already rejected as novel and unprecedented.
Further, AS 26.05.060 explicitly provides that the Alaska National Guard and its members "are subject to all federal laws and regulations relating to the National Guard and Naval Militia of the several states and territories of the United States." The Feres doctrine applies to the National Guards of the several states. The doctrine is a matter of federal law. By application of AS 26.05.060 it should also apply to the Alaska National Guard.
Today's opinion does not appear to completely reject all forms of intra-military immunity. Instead, the court suggests that where an action is "uniquely military" or requires "military expertise" to evaluate, a case for immunity might exist.27 As a dividing line separating immune from non-im*48mune conduct, the majority's "uniquely military/military expertise" test strikes me as being very difficult to apply. In a way it resembles the now thoroughly discredited "governmental/proprietary" dichotomy formerly used to determine municipal immunity28 No case of which I am aware uses a "uniquely military/military expertise" test as a means to separate immune from non-immune activity.
Further, the test proposed by the majority would result in inappropriate intrusion into the affairs of military discipline and decision-making in a great many instances. For example, if one National Guard member sued another National Guard member in tort for a battery which occurred while the two were filing documents in an office, such a suit would be permitted under the test proposed by the majority. Filing is clearly not a "uniquely military" activity. Yet, the activity (battery by one serviceperson against another) clearly and directly implicates military discipline and command structure. It would be inappropriate for a civilian court to step in and adjudicate the dispute, because to do so could compromise the National Guard's ability to discipline its own members.29
Moreover, it is unclear which side of the "uniquely military/military expertise" line the present case should fall. We are told that the plane, a C-12 transport, was a military aircraft owned by the United States, that it was piloted by military personnel, and that all the passengers were military under military orders. I assume that the navigation and communication systems on the plane were military, that the plane was built to specifications under a military contract, and that military standards exist governing how planes such as this should be flown. If this is true, then to some degree military uniqueness and expertise will be present, but it will remain unclear as to whether that degree is sufficient to impart immunity.
It seems to me that the uncertainty implicit in the suggested "uniquely military/military expertise" test of the majority is a good reason to adhere to the "incident to service" test which distinguishes immune from non-immune activities under the doctrine of intra-military immunity. Even if the majority's test were certain of application, it would still be necessary to litigate each case fairly extensively in order to develop the necessary facts to apply the test. Avoidance of such litigation is one of the reasons for the intra-military immunity doctrine. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in United States v. Stanley,30 discussed and rejected other proposed tests more inclusive of liability than the "incident to service" test. He wrote:
Stanley underestimates the degree of disruption that would be caused by the rule he proposes. A test for liability that depends on the extent to which particular suits would call into question military discipline and decisionmaking would itself require judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters Whether a case implicates those concerns would often be problematic, raising the prospect of compelled depositions and trial testimony by military officers concerning the details of their military commands. Even putting aside the risk of erroneous judicial conclusions (which would becloud military deci-sionmaking), the mere process of arriving at correct conclusions would disrupt the military regime. The "incident to service" test, by contrast, provides a line that is relatively clear and that can be discerned with less extensive inquiry into military matters." 31
*49Although the majority accurately cites State, Department of Military & Veteram's Affairs v. Bowen32 for the unexceptional proposition that not all questions that involve military people require "military expertise" or will interfere with a particular military mission,33 it does not follow that Bowen rejected the doctrine of intra-military immunity. Bowen in fact does not mention this doctrine, or Feres, and none of the briefs filed before this court in that case did so either. Bowen was an administrative appeal in which the question was whether a National Guard officer who was involuntarily terminated had a right to a pre-termination hearing. We answered that question in the affirmative based on a federal statute permitting termination of Guard personnel "as provided by the laws of the State"34 we construed the reference to the laws of the state in the federal statute to include the due process clause of the state constitution which requires pre-termination hearings for government employees.35
In conclusion, more than fifty years after Feres v. United States was decided, the observations of Justice Jackson, writing for a unanimous Court in Feres, remain true. No state has permitted members of its National Guard to maintain incident to service tort claims against the state. To do so would still be both "novel and unprecedented." I believe that we should continue to follow the accumulated wisdom implicit in more than half a century of decisional law.
Today's decision sets off on a course that conflicts with the doctrine of intra-military immunity. That doctrine must be followed, in my opinion, because it is a matter of federal law based on federal policies protective of military autonomy. Further, the Feres doctrine was implicitly adopted as a matter of territorial and state law when the Alaska Claims Act, modeled on the Federal Tort Claims Act, was adopted. Today's opinion also seems to adopt a confusing and unworkable test which purports to distinguish between uniquely military activities and those involving military expertise, immune to civilian judicial oversight, and activities which are not uniquely military and do not require military expertise, which civilian courts may review. The distinction is not only unmanageable as a practical matter, but it also inappropriately exposes military discipline, command structure, and decision-making to civilian scrutiny-precisely what the Feres doctrine is designed to prevent.
I therefore dissent.

. 340 U.S. 135, 71 S.Ct 153, 95 LEd. 152 (1950).

. Id. at 146, 71 S.Ct. 153; see Durant v. Neneman, 884 F.2d 1350, 1352 (10th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1024, 110 S.Ct. 728 (1990).

. See, eg., Wade v. Gill, 889 SW.2d 208, 214 (Tenn.1994) (Feres doctrine precludes state claim for battery.).

. See, e.g., Newth v. Adjutant Gen.'s Dep't of Texas, 883 SW.2d 356, 359-60 (Tex.App.1994) (Feres doctrine precludes claim alleging violation of state whistleblower act.).

. See, eg., Crawford v. Texas Army Nat'l Guard, 794 F.2d 1034 (5th Cir.1986) (Constitutional claims barred by Feres doctrine.).

. See, eg., Uhl v. Swanstrom, 79 F.3d 751, 756 (8th Cir.1996) (Civil rights and Privacy Act suit barred by Feres doctrine.); see also Watson v. Arkansas Nat'l Guard, 886 F.2d 1004, 1008-09 (8th Cir.1989) (Race discrimination suit brought *44by National Guard member under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983 barred by Feres doctrine.).

. See, eg., United States v. Johnson, 481 U.S. 681, 692, 107 S.Ct. 2063, 95 L.Ed.2d 648 (1987); see also Feres, 340 U.S. at 146, 71 S.Ct. 153.

. See Crawford, 794 F.2d 1034 (Dismissing claims of constitutional violations against Texas Army National Guard and individual military personnel.).

. 837 F.2d 395 (9th Cir.1988).

. Id. at 398-99.

. 125 F.3d 800 (9th Cir.1997).

. Id. at 804-05 (emphasis added).

. See, eg., Speigner v. Alexander, 248 F.3d 1292, 1298 (11th Cir.2001); Meister v. Texas Adjutant Gen.'s Dep't, 233 F.3d 332, 338 (5th Cir.2000); Jones v. State, Div. of Military & Naval Affairs, 166 F.3d 45, 52 (2nd Cir.1999); Wright v. Park, 5 F.3d 586, 590-91 (1st Cir.1993); Knutson v. Wisconsin Air Nat'l Guard, 995 F.2d 765, 770-71 (7th Cir.1993); Wood v. United States, 968 F.2d 738, 740 (8th Cir.1992); Watson v. Arkansas Nat'l Guard, 886 F.2d 1004, 1009 (8th Cir.1989); Crawford v. Texas Army Nat'l Guard, 794 F.2d 1034, 1035-36 (5th Cir.1986); Brown v. United States, 739 F.2d 362, 366 (8th Cir.1984); Martelon v. Temple, 747 F.2d 1348, 1350-51 (10th Cir.1984); Mollnow v. Carlton, 716 F.2d 627, 629-30 (9th Cir.1983); Gordon v. Illinois Nat'l Guard, 46 F.Supp.2d 817, 819 (C.D.Ill.1999); Uhl v. Swanstrom, 876 F.Supp. 1545, 1570 (N.D.Iowa 1995); Egloff v. New Jersey Air Nat'l Guard, 684 F.Supp. 1275, 1283 (D.N.J.1988); Williams v. Colorado Air Nat'l Guard, 821 P.2d 922, 925 (Colo.App.1991); Estate of Burris v. State, 360 Md. 721, 759 A.2d 802, 814 (2000); Harris v. Missavage, 165 Mich.App. 96, 418 N.W.2d 687, 690 (1987); Zaccaro v. Parker, 249 A.D.2d 1003, 671 N.Y.S.2d 362 (N.Y.App.Div.1998); Newth v. Adjutant Gen.'s Dep't of Texas, 883 S.W.2d 356, 360 (Tex.App.1994).

. By contrast, so far as I am aware, only two jurisdictions, Montana and Washington, reject the doctrine of intra-military immunity with respect to the National Guard. See Trankel v. State, Dep't of Military Affairs, 282 Mont. 348, 938 P.2d 614, 621 (1997); Emsley v. Army Nat'l Guard, 106 Wash.2d 474, 722 P.2d 1299 (1986); Kirtley v. State, 49 Wash.App. 894, 748 P.2d 1128 (1987). But the courts of these states nonetheless make clear that claims by Guard personnel arising out of their Guard employment against the state are not permitted for other reasons. See Trankel, 938 P.2d at 617-18, 623; and see Schuff v. A.T. Klemens & Son, 303 Mont. 274, 16 P.3d 1002, 1021 (2000) (explaining Tramkel); Emsley, 722 P.2d at 1304 (concurring opinion of Justice Callow); Kirtley, 748 P.2d at 1130.

. Bowen, 125 F.3d at 805. See also Day v. Massachusetts Air Nat'l Guard, 167 F.3d 678, 684-85 (1st Cir.1999) (where the First Circuit indicated that there is a consensus view that supports a federal immunity, based on "federal policies to protect military autonomy," applicable to state claims where the defendants' conduct is within the scope of their employment by the National Guard).

. 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 LEd.2d 586 (1983).

. Id. at 301-302, 103 S.Ct. 2362 (emphasis added).

, Ch. 170, § 1, SLA 1957.

. Ch. 101, § 26.01-06, SLA 1962.

. See, eg., State v. Abbott, 498 P.2d 712, 720 (Alaska 1972); State v. I'Anson, 529 P.2d 188, 192 (Alaska 1974).

. P.G. v. State, Dep't of Health & Human Servs., Div. of Family & Youth Servs., 4 P.3d 326, 335 (Alaska 2000); see also State, Dep't of Transp. & Pub. Facilities v. Sanders, 944 P.2d 453, 457 (Alaska 1997).

. City & Borough of Sitka v. Construction & Gen. Laborers Local 942, 644 P.2d 227, 231 n. 8 (Alaska 1982). We also recognized and applied this rule in City of Fairbanks v. Schaible, 375 P.2d 201, 207-08 (Alaska 1962) ("It [an interpretation by the Oregon Supreme Court] then became the law in Alaska by reason of the well established rule that a statute adopted from another state, which has been construed by that state's highest court, is presumed to be adopted with the construction thus placed upon it.").

. 348 U.S. 110, 75 S.Ct. 141, 99 L.Ed. 139 (1954) (Discharged veteran could maintain malpractice action against VA hospital because the injuries resulting from the malpractice were not received incident to military service.).

. Feres, 340 U.S. at 141, 71 S.Ct. 153.

. Id. at 142, 71 S.Ct. 153.

. Id.

. See Op. at 40-41.

. The latter dichotomy has generally been abandoned because of the great difficulty that courts had in determining when a municipality was acting in a governmental capacity and when it was acting in a proprietary capacity. Prosser, discussing some of the imponderable questions posed by this dichotomy concluded that [there is little that can be said about such distinctions except that they exist, that they are highly artificial, and that they make no great amount of sense." William L. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 131, at 982 (4th ed.1971).

. Cf. Wade v. Gill, 889 S.W.2d 208 (Tenn.1994) (ruling that Feres doctrine precluded suit under factual situation described above).

. 483 U.S. 669, 107 S.Ct. 3054, 97 L.Ed.2d 550 (1987).

. Id. at 682-83, 107 S.Ct. 3054.

. 953 P.2d 888, 896 (Alaska 1998).

. See Op. at 41.

. See 32 U.S.C. § 324(b).

. Bowen, 953 P.2d at 894, 894-95,