Court Opinion

ID: 9636959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:50:54.732637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:50.894153
License: Public Domain

PARKER, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
These are appeals by the United States from judgments in favor of claimants under the Federal Tort Claims Act of August 2, 1946, 60 Stat. 842, 28 U.S.C.A. § 921. Plaintiffs were a soldier and the administrator of a deceased soldier of the United States Army. The claims were for damages on account of injuries received by the soldier and for the death of the deceased soldier resulting from the negligence of a civilian employee of the United States in the operation of an army truck. The .two soldiers were on furlough and were riding with their father, a civilian, in a private automobile on a public highway and were not engaged in any business connected with their army service. The trial court found that the collision which resulted in the injury of one of the soldiers and the death of the other was due solely to the negligence of the civilian employee of the United States who was operating the army truck which ran into the automobile in which they were riding. Judgments were entered in favor of the soldier plaintiff for $4,000 damages on account of personal injury and in favor of the administrator of the deceased soldier for $25,000 on account of wrongful death and $425 property damage.
The father of the two soldiers was injured as a result of the same collision and he was awarded $5,000 damages; but no appeal was taken from that judgment and no question is raised on the appeals before us as to the finding of the District Judge on the question of negligence. The contention of the United States is that recovery under the Tort Claims Act must be denied to the soldier and the administrator of the deceased soldier on the ground that claims arising out of the injury of or killing of soldiers is not covered by the act. An alternative contention is that plaintiffs are precluded of recovery because the mother of the deceased soldier was awarded a death gratuity under existing law of $468 and the injured soldier was granted $27.60 per month disability compensation by the Veterans Administration on account of the injury that he had received.
The principal question in the case is whether the court shall read into the act an exception excluding soldiers from the right to recover under its provisions. I *847see no basis for reading such an exception into the act. Legislation is a matter for Congress, not for the court; and the language used by Congress dearly covers soldiers as well as civilians.1 It is neither reasonable nor respectful to Congress for the courts to assume that the import of the general language used in the statute was not understood or that language excluding soldiers from the benefit of the act was omitted through inadvertence. The act was passed at a time when the country was deeply conscious of the rights and claims of soldiers. The greatest army in the history of the country was being demobilized but many hundreds of .thousands of men were still under arms, and it is hardly probable -that Congress could have overlooked the fact that claims on their part would be covered by the general language used. Added to this -is the fact that prior bills considered by Congress excluded claims compensable under the World War Veterans Act;2 and it is fair to assume that these bills with their exclusions were before the draftsmen of this act. Then, too, the act itself, in Sec. 402(b), expressly mentions members of the military and naval forces as among those for whose acts liability is established, and in section 424(a) repeals the act of July 3, 1943, 57 Stat. 372, 31 U.S.C.A. § 223<b), which authorized the Secretary of the Army .to settle claims against the United States, not exceeding $1,000, for damage caused by military personnel or civilian employees of the army. It is not reasonable to assume that the claims of soldiers were overlooked at a time when soldiers and their rights were so prominently in the public mind, when prior proposed legislation dealt explicitly with that matter and when the .act itself repealed legislation under which limited relief could be granted them.
And it is not reasonable to assume that at the end of a' victorious war, when the heart of the country was filled with gratitude to the soldiers for their achievements on the field of battle, Congress would have passed a statute discriminating against them and leading to such absurd results as would be presented by the case at bar, if the position of the government is sustained. In this case the position of the soldiers was precisely that of their civilian father. They were not engaged in military duty, but were riding, as he was, *848m a privately owned automobile on a public highway. To say .that he, .the civilian, may recover, hut that they must he denied recovery merely because they are soldiers would certainly come as a shock to one not familiar with legal refinements; and the shock would not he alleviated by the knowledge that the mother of the deceased had been awarded a death gratuity of $468 and the injured man disability compensation of $27.60 per month. It would be thought that they were entitled to these pension benefits under the laws of the United States just as the seaman is entitled to maintenance and cure from his vessel, as a sort of accident and health insurance incident to the relationship3 and that the fact that these were received would constitute no reason for denying to the soldier the more substantial recovery to which any civilian would he entitled under like circumstances.
Another reason for holding that it was not the intention of Congress to exclude soldiers from the protection afforded by the act is that the act itself lists twelve exceptions to its application under the heading of exceptions and no such exception is listed among them.4 Not only i« this true, but one of the exceptions, (j), expressly refers to the military and naval forces and provides that any claim arising out of their combatant activities in time of wa>r shall not be covered by the act. If it had been intended that claims on behalf of members of the military and naval forces should not be covered, the inclusion of exception (j) would certainly have suggested that express language be used for that purpose.5 The rule applicable is elementary law and is well stated with citation of the controlling authorities in 50 Am.Jur. p. 455-456 as follows: “ * * * where express exceptions are *849made, the legal presumption is that the legislature did not intend, to save other cases from the operation of the statute. In such case, the inference is a strong one that no other exceptions were intended, and the rule generally applied is that an exception in a statute amounts to an affirmation of the application of its provisions to all other cases not excepted, and excludes all other exceptions or the enlargement of exceptions made.”
For cases in which the rule has been applied, see Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, Collector, 289 U.S. 373, 377, 53 S.Ct. 620, 77 L.Ed. 1265; Cunard Steamship Co. v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 100, 128, 43 S.Ct. 504, 67 L.Ed. 894, 27 A.L.R. 1306; Lapina v. Williams, 232 U.S. 78, 92, 34 S.Ct. 196, 58 L.Ed. 515; Wood v. Wilbert, 226 U.S. 384, 390, 33 S.Ct. 125, 57 L.Ed. 264; Equitable Life Society v. Clements, 140 U.S. 226, 233, 11 S.Ct. 822, 825, 35 L.Ed. 497. In the case last cited, the Supreme Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Gray, in construing general terms of a statute governing life insurance policies as applicable to the case before the court, had the following to say with regard to the effect of a section prescribing specific exceptions: “This construction is put beyond doubt by section 5986 [Mo.R.S.A. § 5855], which, by specifying four cases (two of which relate to the form of the policy) in which the three preceding sections ‘shall not be applicable,’ necessarily implies that those sections shall control all cases not so specified, whatever be the form of the policy.”
What seems a conclusive reason for not reading into the act the exception suggested, however, is that this exception was originally contained in the tort claims act which was introduced into Congress as H.R. 181 January 3, 1945, and was omitted, with apparent deliberation, when that bill was incorporated as the Tort Claims Section of the Legislative Reorganization Act. See H. R. 181 and Report No. 1400 on the Legislative Reorganization Act, p. 30, where the following language appears:
“Attention is called to the fact that there is now on the House Calendar a bill (H. R. 181, 79th Cong.) almost identical with this title. The essential difference is that the House bill puts a maximum limitation ■of $10,000 on claims for which suit may be brought, whereas this title as reported by your committee contains no such limitation. The committee is of the opinion that in view of the banning of private claim bills in the Congress no such limitation should he imposed, and that with respect to this type of claim the Government should be put in the same position as any private party. For the information of the Senate the following statement from the House Committee report on H.R. 181 ‘H. Rept.No. 1287, 79th Cong., 1st sess.), covering the history of this legislation and a summary of existing law is incorporated and made a part of this report:”.
H. R. 181 contained thirteen exceptions in the section which became section 421 of the Tort Claims Act, one of which was as follows:
“(8) Any claim for which compensation is provided by the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, as amended, or by the World War Veterans’ Act of 1924, as amended.”'
This exception was omitted from the Tort Claims Act when the others were written in as Section 421. In my opinion the court is without power to write back into an act by interpretation a section which Congress has thus deliberately omitted. The only excuse for reading in an exception by interpretation is that Congress must be presumed to have intended that an exception apply; but Congress could not be presumed to intend that an exception apply, when it deliberately struck the exception from the act upon its passage.
The foregoing conclusion is not answered by the fact that the exception in H.R. 181 related to claims for which compensation is provided by the World War Veterans Act of 1924 as amended, and not to soldiers eo nomine. The only argument advanced for excluding soldiers from the benefit of the act is that provision is made for them elsewhere. The only provision made for them elsewhere, so far as compensation for injuries is concerned, is in *850■the World War Veterans Act of 1924 as amended; and when Congress had before it a provision excluding -claims covered by this act -as amended -and deliberately omitted it from the legislation as passed, the conclusion is inescapable that it was not intended to exclude soldiers from the benefit of the act even as to claims so covered.
The government places special -reliance upon the decisions in Dobson v. United States, 2 Cir., 27 F.2d 807 and Bradey v. United States, 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 742. These cases were sufficiently distinguished by Judge Chesnut in his opinion in Jefferson v. United States, 74 F.Supp. 209, 212, 213, where he said: “But aside from the difference -in wording between the Public Vessels Act and the Suits in Admiralty Act and the Tort -Claims Act, it is to be importantly borne i-n mind that the last mentioned Act represents a marked departure by the United States with respect to the waiving of sovereign immunity. It is a comprehensive Act which, subject to the exceptions therein contained, acknowledges liability of the sovereign for -injuries and damages to property and persons generally where the damage -results from negligence in t-he performance -of duties by its employees. This comprehensive Act was passed subsequent to the various special Acts waiving immunity under certain conditions and to a limited extent, as in the Public Vessels Act and the Suits in Admiralty Act. ’ By one -of the exceptions it does not -apply to claims or suits in admiralty against the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 741-752 inclusive, or the Public Vessels Act, 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 781-790 inclusive. But outside of the specific exceptions, as already noted, it does apply to 'any claim against the United States, for money only, accruing -on and after January 1, 1945’ ”
It should be -noted that -the claims in suit -here do not arise out of injuries connected with the military service of plaintiffs, as was the case in Jefferson v. United States, D.C., 77 F.Supp. 706. Entirely different considerations might -operate to deny recovery in such -case, as is suggested -in -the ■opinion of Judge C'hesnut. Since the act does n-o more than, give the right to sue the'government -and adopts -the law of the state in which the injury has occurred with respect to -the establishing of liability, the question arises, -as to an injury caused by -army service, whether under the law of the state there is any liability for such an injury. No such question is presented here; and the only ground upon which it could be answered in the negative does not exist with respect to an injury which -has no connection wit-h army service. In -that -case, liability would be held not to exist because of lack of basis in state law. Here, the only way in which liability can be avoided is to read into the statute an -exception to language which admittedly ■covers the case, an exception which Congress evidently considered and decided not to incorporate in the act.
I-t is urged that, if the act is construed to cover -claims of military and naval personnel, it will result in a flood of litigation and disrupt discipline in the army and navy; but, even if this -be true, the language of the act, being -clear as' it is, the matter is one for Congress and not for the courts. It may well be doubted, however, that -any such fear is well founded. A reading of the exceptions will demonstrate •that most claims which could cause trouble along the lines feared are expressly excepted; and, as for other claims it might well be thought that less harm would -result from -allowing a soldier -to sue on them than from denying him the rights accorded to every civilian. Certainly this is true of claims not arising out of service, which would -be comparatively few in number and should not cause trouble. It is true, of course, that statutes are -to -receive a -reasonable -construction and -that, in determining the legislative intent, -exceptions are to be read into their language to avoid -injustice, oppression or absurd consequences. United States v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482, 19 L.Ed. 278; Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144 U.S. 47, 12 S.Ct. 517, 36 L.Ed. 340; Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 446-448, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413, 86 A.L.R. 249. In this case, however, it can well be ar-gued that *851more injustice and absurd consequences would result from -the exception than from its omission. Congress evidently thought so when it omitted the exception contained in the text of H.R. 181 when adopting the text of that bill as the Tort Claims Act.

 The pertinent language of the statute, 60 Stat. 843-844, is as follows:
“Sec. 410. (a) Subject to the provisions of this title, the United States district court for the district wherein the plaintiff is resident or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred, including the United States district courts for the Territories and possessions of the United States, sitting without a jury, shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on any daim against the United States, for money only, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of 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 dreumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the daimant for such damage, loss, injury, or death in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. Subject to the provisions of this title, the United States shall be liable in respect of such claims to the same daimants, in the same manner, and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances. * * *
“(b) The judgment in such an action shall constitute a complete bar to any action by the daimant, by reason of the same subject matter, against the employee of the Government whose act or omission gave rise to the claim.”

 H.R. 5373, introduced into the House July 21, 1941, 77 Cong. 1st Sess., S. 2221, introduced into the Senate, 77 Cong. 2d Sess., H.R. 6463 introduced into the House, 77 Cong. 2d Sess., January 26, 1942, and H.R. 181, introduced into the House January 3, 1945 and committed to the Committee of the Whole House and ordered to be printed Nov. 26, 1945, 79 Cong. 1st Sess., Union Calendar No. 392, all were tort claims bills and all contained a section setting forth exceptions in practically the same language as section 421 of the Federal Tort Claims Act hereinafter quoted, except that all of them contained an additional exception in the following language: “(8) Any daim for which compensation is provided by the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, as amended, or by the World War Veterans’ Act of 1924, as amended.”

 See Smith v. United States, 4 Cir., 167 F.2d 550.

 The text of the act, 60 Stat. 845-846, is as follows:
“Exceptions. Sec. 421. The provisions of this title shall not apply to — ■ (a) Any claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not such statute or regulation be valid, or based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a Federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused. (b) Any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter, (c) Any claim arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty, or the detention of any goods or merchandise by any officer of customs or excise or any other law-enforcement officer. (d) Any claim for which a remedy is provided by the Act of March 9, 1920 (U.S.O., title 46, secs. 741-752, inclusive) or the Act of March 3, 1925 (U.S.O., title 46, secs. 781-790, inclusive), relating to claims or suits in admiralty against the United States. (e) Any claim arising out of an act or omission of any employee of the Government in administering the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act, as amended, (f) Any claim for damages caused by the imposition or establishment of a quarantine by the United States, (g) Any claim arising from injury to vessels, or to the cargo, crew, or passengers of vessels, while passing through the locks of the Panama Canal or while in Canal Zone waters, (h) Any claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights. (i) Any claim for damages caused by the fiscal operations of the treasury or by the regulation of the monetary system. (j) Any claim arising out of the combatant activities of the military or naval forces, or the Coast Guard, during time of war. (k) Any claim arising in a foreign country. (1) Any claim arising from the activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority.”
The language of the Act is precisely the language contained in H.R. 181 to which reference has heretofore been made except that it omits the exception as to claims for which compensation is provided and in section (j) inserts the word “combatant” before activities.

 Section 421 (j) as originally drawn excluded any claim arising out of “activities” of the military and naval forces or coast guard during time of war. It was amended on its passage through Congress to exclude only claims arising out of “combatant activities”, (See 92 Cong. Record 10143), thus showing that the mind of Congress was expressly drawn to liabilities arising in connection with the military and naval forces.