Court Opinion

ID: 9458897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:05:01.667282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:56.037658
License: Public Domain

OPINION OF THE COURT
KALODNER, Circuit Judge.
The prime question presented by this appeal is whether enforcement of the federal Medical Care Recovery Act1 (“Act”) is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws and their right-to-sue limitations.
The District Court answered the question in the affirmative in the instant action by the United States, pursuant to the provisions of the Act, to recover from the defendant Leta Moore expenses incurred when it was obliged to provide medical care for her husband, a member of the armed forces, and their three children, for injuries caused by her undisputed negligent driving.
The District Court granted summary judgment against the United States based on its conclusion “that no tort liability exists on the part of Leta Moore arising from this accident,” because, in its view, Maine law, applicable here, does not permit actions for negligent tort by one spouse against the other, or *790by a minor child against a parent. The instant appeal followed.
The accident which is the genesis of this suit occurred on July 15, 1965 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, in Fulton County, Pennsylvania. The defendant was negligently operating an automobile in which her husband and their children were passengers when she lost control of the vehicle. It crashed into a guardrail, left the highway, struck a tree and overturned, injuring its passengers. At the time the accident occurred, the defendant and her family were domicil-iarles of Maine.
The United States supplied medical care to the defendant’s injured husband and children, as required by law. The reasonable value of the medical care amounted to $2,290.75.
In its Memorandum Opinion, 311 F. Supp. 984, accompanying its Order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant against the United States, the District Court held that since the Moore family was domiciled in Maine when the accident occurred, Maine law was applicable to the instant action under Pennsylvania law.
It construed the Maine family immunity law as purging a spouse and parent tortfeasor of any and all liability for negligent tort.
Implicit in the District Court’s stated view is a sub silentio holding that enforcement of the Medical Care Recovery Act is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws.
We disagree with that view.
We are of the opinion that the Medical Care Recovery Act confers on the United States an independent right of recovery which is unimpaired by the vagaries of state family immunity laws; otherwise stated, enforcement of the Act is free of the impact of right-to-sue limitations imposed by a state’s family immunity laws.
We disagree, too, with the District Court’s view that the Maine family immunity laws purge a spouse or parent tortfeasor of any and all tort liability. We do so because the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has expressly held that Maine’s interspousal immunity law does no more than impose a “legal disability” on one spouse to sue another for negligent tort, and that such disability does not operate to “inflict injustice upon outsiders and deprive them of their legal rights.” Bedell v. Reagan, 159 Me. 292, 192 A.2d 24 (1963) (emphasis supplied).2
Since the prime question presented is whether enforcement of the Medical Care Recovery Act is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws and their right-to-sue limitations it will be accorded priority of discussion.
Relevant to its resolution is the recent holding of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Haynes, 445 F.2d 907 (1971), that enforcement of the Act is not subject to the right-to-sue provisions of Louisiana’s community property law.
In Haynes, the wife of a soldier was injured by his negligence. The Government provided her with medical care as a military dependent and then sued the husband and his insurance company 3 for the reasonable value of the care under the Medical Care Recovery Act. The District Court dismissed the Government’s action on the ground that the defendants were free of liability because, under Louisiana’s community property law the claim of an injured wife for medical expenses is a community claim which must be brought by the husband as master of the community ^ and that a suit by the husband against himself would be barred.
The Fifth Circuit reversed on the grounds that the Government’s right of *791recovery under the Medical Care Recovery Act is an independent right free of “the vagaries of state law”; “[t]he government’s right is independent and is not limited by procedural bars to which others — including Mrs. Haynes herself —might be subject”; “[m]oreover, the marital relations policy behind this state procedure is inapplicable to the federal government”; and “[t]he essential element — ‘circumstances creating tort liability’ — is present.” 445 F.2d 910.
The Fifth Circuit further noted that in United States v. Standard Oil Company of California, 332 U.S. 301, 67 S.Ct. 1604, 91 L.Ed. 2067 (1947), (which led to the enactment of the Medical Care Recovery Act because of its holding that then existing federal laws did not confer a right of recovery for medical care extended to a soldier and that it was up to Congress to enact such a law), it was pointed out that the Government’s right of indemnification for medical care (if needed) should “not vary in accordance with the different rulings of the several states, simply because the soldier marches or, . . flies across state lines.” 445 F.2d 910 (emphasis supplied).
In United States v. Merrigan, 389 F.2d 21, 23-24 (1968), we held .that the Medical Care Recovery Act “unmistakably confers on the government what the congressional reports describe as an ‘independent right of recovery,’ ” and, that the Act’s “remedial or procedural” provisions “are not to be construed strictly against the government, but rather in aid of the substantial right which the statute has created.” (emphasis supplied). In support of the latter holding we cited Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191, 88 S.Ct. 379, 19 L.Ed.2d 407 (1967), where it was held that when a specific interest and right has been conferred upon the United States by statute, the remedies and procedures for enforcing that right are not to be narrowly construed so as to prevent the effectuation of the policy declared by Congress.
Significantly relevant here is our holding in United States v. Gera, 409 F.2d 117, 120 (1969), that “the Government’s exercise of its independent right under the Medical Care Recovery Act is free of the restraints imposed by a state statute of limitations.” (emphasis supplied) . It cannot reasonably be contended that a disability to sue by reason of a statute of limitations is different than a disability to sue imposed on a spouse or minor child under a state’s family immunity laws.
Other circuits are in accord with Merrigan and Gera.
Merrigan was cited and followed in United States v. Housing Authority of City of Bremerton, 415 F.2d 239 (9 Cir. 1969). It was there held that the United States could maintain an action against the Housing Authority under the Medical Care Recovery Act, for medical care extended to an infant child of a serviceman, despite the circumstances that the child’s parents could not sue the Housing Authority for its medical expenses by reason of their contributory negligence.
In so holding the Court said at page 241:
“All courts which have considered the question have agreed that the statute gives the United States an independent right of recovery against the tortfeasor; the United States is not merely subrogated to the injured party’s claim.” (emphasis supplied).
In United States v. Fort Benning Rifle and Pistol Club, 387 F.2d 884 (5 Cir. 1967), the Court held, as we did in Gera, that the Medical Care Recovery Act is not subject to the bar of a state statute of limitations which would have precluded the injured party, to whom medical care was extended, from bringing an action.
In so holding the Court said at page 887:
“We . . . hold that the right of the United States to recover the reasonable value of medical care given *792to an injured person as a result of negligence of a third person is not subject to the state statutes of limitation applicable to local personal injury actions. Limitations■ has nothing to do with whether the circumstances surrounding the injury create a tort liability in that third person.” (emphasis supplied).
The Achilles heel of the District Court’s position is its critical implicit holding that enforcement of the Medical Care Recovery Act is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws. That holding eclipses its earlier discussed erroneous concepts that (1) right-to-sue limitations of family immunity laws operate to purge a spouse or parent tortfeasor of all tort liability; and (2) the right of recovery accruing to the Government under the Act is nothing more than a right of subrogation.
The holding that enforcement of the Act is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws is grievous error, in utter disregard of the Congressional intent in enacting the Medical Care Recovery Act. Subjection of enforcement of the Act to vagaries of state laws would make a shambles of the Act. As matters now stand, nine of the fifty states in the Union have abolished all family immunity laws, interspousal and parental; seven of the fifty have abolished interspousal immunity only, and four of the fifty have abolished parental immunity. Most of these abandonments of immunity have occurred since enactment of the Medical Care Recovery Act in 1962; a number of them as recently as the past two years.4
*793The vice of the District Court’s position that the Medical Care Recovery Act is subject to the vagaries of state family immunity laws disregards these simple elementary facts, namely:
The Act is a federal law which creates an independent substantive federal right, enacted by Congress pursuant to its constitutional powers in matters of military affairs and federal fiscal policy.
In ruling that “the scope, nature, legal incidents and consequences of the relation between persons in service and the Government are fundamentally derived from federal sources and governed by federal authority,” the Court, in United States v. Standard Oil of California, said:
“Perhaps no relation between the Government and a citizen is more distinctively federal in character than that between it and members of its armed forces. To whatever extent state law may apply to govern the relations between soldiers or others in the armed forces and persons outside them or nonfederal governmental agencies, the scope, nature, legal incidents and consequences of the relation between persons in service and the Government are fundamentally derived from federal sources and governed by federal authority. See Tar-ble’s Case, 13 Wall. 397, 20 L.Ed. 597; Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U.S. 487, 6 S.Ct. 148, 29 L.Ed. 458. So also we think are interferences with that relationship such as the facts of this case involve. For, as the Federal Government has the exclusive power to establish and define the relationship by virtue of its military and other powers, equally clearly it has power in execution of the same functions to protect the relation once formed from harms inflicted by others.
“Since also the Government’s purse is affected, as well as its power to protect the relationship, its fiscal powers, to the extent that they are available to protect it against financial injury, add their weight to the military basis for excluding state intrusion. Indeed, in this aspect the case is not greatly different from the Clearfield [Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U.S. 363, 63 S.Ct. 573, 87 L.Ed. 838 (1943)] case or from one involving the Government’s paramount power of control over its own property, both to prevent its unauthorized use or destruction and to secure indemnity for those injuries.” 332 U.S. 305-306, 67 S.Ct. 1607 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis supplied).
In its further ruling that a claim by the United States for recovery of its medical care expense, arising by reason of a wrongdoer’s conduct, should not be subjected to the vagaries of state law, the Court said:
“Whether or not, therefore, state law is to control in such a case as this is not at all a matter to be decided by application of the Erie [Erie R. R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938)] rule. For, except where the Government has simply substituted itself for others as successor to rights ' governed by state law, the question is one of federal policy, affecting not merely the federal judicial establishment and the groundings of its action, but also the Government’s legal interests and relations, a factor not controlling in the types of cases producing and governed by the Erie ruling. And the answer to be given necessarily is dependent upon a variety of considerations always relevant to the nature of the specific governmental interests and to the effects upon them of applying state law. These include not only considerations of federal supremacy in the performance of federal functions, but of the need for uniformity and, in some instances, inferences properly to be drawn from the fact that Congress, though cognizant of the particular problem, has taken no action to change long-settled ways of handling it.
“Leaving out of account, therefore, any supposed effect of the Erie decision, we nevertheless are of opinion *794that state law should not be selected as the federal rule for governing the matter in issue. Not only is the government-soldier relation distinctively and exclusively a creation of federal law, but we know of no good reason why the Government’s right to be indemnified in these circumstances, or the lack of such a right, should vary in accordance with the different rulings of the several states, simply because the soldier marches or today perhaps as often flies across state lines.” 332 U.S. 309-310, 67 S.Ct. 1609.
Coming now to the District Court’s holding that under Maine law “no tort liability exists on the part of Leta Moore arising from this accident” :
The District Court premised its holding on its construction of Bedell v. Reagan, swpra. The long and short of it is that the District Court misconstrued the Bedell decision to hold that Maine’s in-terspousal immunity law purges a spouse tortfeasor of any and all tort liability towards all and sundry.
Bedell did not hold that the Maine immunity law purges a tortfeasor of all liability towards all and sundry. It specifically held that (1) the Maine law does no more than impose a “legal disability” on one spouse to sue the other for negligent tort; and (2) a third party could pursue legal rights of recovery against a tortfeasor although the tort-feasor’s wife could not sue him by reason of her “legal disability” to do so.
In making the latter stated holding the Court said in Bedell:
“ ‘The legal unity of husband and wife and the preservation of domestic peace and felicity between them are desirable things to maintain where they do not produce injustice to the wife and where they do not inflict injustice upon outsiders and deprive them of their legal rights’ Fisher v. Diehl, 156 Pa.Super. 476, 40 A.2d 912, 917. See, also Kiser v. Schlosser, 389 Pa. 131, 132 A.2d 344, 346.” 192 A.2d 26-27 (emphasis supplied).
The District Court, regrettably, overlooked the foregoing holding in Bedell.
Under Bedell, the Maine family immunity laws do not operate to “inflict injustice upon outsiders and deprive them of their legal rights.” Here, the United States is an “outsider” possessed of “legal rights” conferred by the Medical Care Recovery Act, and Bedell accordingly would not bar the instant action.5
In summary, we are of the opinion that (1) enforcement of the Medical Care Recovery Act is free of the impact of right-to-sue limitations imposed by a state’s family immunity laws, and (2) Maine law does not purge a spouse or parent tortfeasor of liability towards all and sundry.
For each of these reasons, standing alone and independently, the Order of the District Court granting the defendant’s motion for summary judgment against the United States will be reversed, and the cause remanded to the District Court with directions to proceed in accordance with this opinion.

. The Medical Care Recovery Act provides in relevant part: 42 U.S.C. § 2651(a) : “In any case in which the United States is authorized or required by law to furnish hospital, medical, surgical, or dental care and treatment * * * to a person who is injured or suffers a disease * * * under circumstances creating a tort liability upon some third person (other than or in addition to the United States * * *) to pay damages therefor, the United States shall have a right to recover from said third person the reasonable value of the care and treatment so furnished or to be furnished and shall, as to this right be subrogated to any right or claim that the injured or diseased person * * * has against such third person to the extent of the reasonable value of the care and treatment so furnished or to be furnished. * * *”

. In Bedell, only the Maine interspousal immunity law was involved. In Downs v. Poulin, 216 A.2d 29 (Me.1966), it was held that Maine’s parental immunity law is analogous to its interspousal immunity law.

. Louisiana law peisjnits joinder of a defendant’s insurance (company as a defendant.

. STATES WHICH HAVE ABOLISHED ALL INTRA-FAMILY IMMUNITY:
ALASKA: Cramer v. Cramer, 379 P.2d 95 (Alas.1963) (Interspousal); Hebel v. Hebel, 435 P.2d 8 (Alas.1967) (Parent-child).
CALIFORNIA: Klein v. Klein, 58 Cal.2d 692, 26 Cal.Rptr. 102, 376 P.2d 70 (1962) (Interspousal); Gibson v. Gibson, 3 Cal.3d 914, 92 Cal.Rptr. 288, 479 P.2d 648 (1971) (Parent-child).
KENTUCKY: Layne v. Layne, 433 S.W.2d 116 (Ky.1968) (Interspousal); Rigdon v. Rigdon, 465 S.W.2d 921 (Ky. 1970) (Parent-child).
MINNESOTA: Balts v. Balts, 273 Minn. 419, 142 N.W.2d 66 (1966) (Parent-child); Beaudette v. Frana, 285 Minn. 366, 173 N.W.2d 416 (1969) (Interspousal).
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Morin v. Letourneau, 102 N.H. 309, 156 A.2d 131 (1959) (Interspousal); Briere v. Briere, 107 N.H. 432, 224 A.2d 588 (1966) (Parent-child).
NEW JERSEY: France v. A. P. A. Transport Corp., 56 N.J. 500, 267 A.2d 490 (1970) (Parent-child); Immer v. Risko, 56 N.J. 482, 267 A.2d 481 (1970) (Interspousal).
NEW YORK: Weicker v. Weicker, 2A.D.2d 138, 283 N.Y.S.2d 385 (1967) (Interspousal); Gelbman v. Gelbman, 23 N.Y.2d 434, 297 N.Y.S.2d 529, 245 N.E.2d 192 (1969) (Parent-child).
NORTH DAKOTA: Fitzmaurice v. Fitzmaurice, 62 N.D. 191, 242 N.W. 526 (1932) (Interspousal); Nuelle v. Wells, 154 N.W.2d 364 (N.D.1967) (Parent-child).
WISCONSIN: Bodenhagen v. Farmers Mutual Ins. Co., 5 Wis.2d 306, 95 N.W.2d 822 (1959) (Interspousal); Goller v. White, 20 Wis.2d 402, 122 N.W.2d 193 (1963) (Parent-child).
STATES WHICH HAVE ABOLISHED PARENT-CHILD IMMUNITY ONLY:
ARIZONA: Streenz v. Streenz, 106 Ariz. 86, 471 P.2d 282 (1970).
HAWAII: Petersen v. City & County of Honolulu, 51 Haw. 484, 462 P.2d 1007 (1970).
ILLINOIS : Schenk v. Schenk, 100 Ill. App.2d 199, 241 N.E.2d 12 (1968).
PENNSYLVANIA: Falco v. Pados, 444 Pa. 372, 282 A.2d 351 (1971).
STATES WHICH HAVE ABOLISHED INTERSPOUSAL IMMUNITY ONLY:
ALABAMA: Penton v. Penton, 223 Ala. 282, 135 So. 481 (1931).
ARKANSAS: Leach v. Leach, 227 Ark. 599, 300 S.W.2d 15 (1957).
COLORADO: Rains v. Rains, 97 Colo. 19, 46 P.2d 740 (1935).
CONNECTICUT: Silverman v. Silverman, 145 Conn. 663, 145 A.2d 826 (1958).
LOUISIANA: United States v. Haynes, 445 F.2d 907 (5 Cir. 1971).
NORTH CAROLINA: Bogen v. Bogen, 219 N.C. 51, 12 S.E.2d 649 (1963).
SOUTH CAROLINA: Fowler v. Fowler, 242 S.C. 252, 130 S.E.2d 568 (1963).

. The vitality of Bedell has not been impaired by later Maine decisions.