Court Opinion

ID: 9463203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:00:40.043441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:58.890361
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I am in essential agreement with Judge Waddy of the District Court.1 The evidence reflected in the affidavit relied upon by the Patent Office in my opinion is not sufficient to overcome the strong presumption arising from the evidence reflected in the affidavits filed by appellee — a presumption of law that the applications were received by the Patent Office in regular course of the mails, that is, not later than March 6, 1973:
Where, as in this case, matter is transmitted by the United States mails, properly addressed and postage fully prepaid, there is a strong presumption that it will be received by the addressee in the ordinary course of the mails. Henderson v. Carbondale Coal & Coke Co., 140 U.S. 25, 11 S.Ct. 691, 35 L.Ed. 332 . . .; Crude Oil Corp. v. Commissioner, 10 Cir., 161 F.2d 809, 810. While the presumption is a rebuttable one it is a very strong presumption and can only be rebutted by specific facts and not by invoking another presumption.
Arkansas Motor Coaches v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 198 F.2d 189, 191 (8th Cir. 1952).2
In Charlson Realty Company v. United States, 384 F.2d 434, 181 Ct.Cl. 262 (1967), the Court of Claims considered at length the relative weight of this mail presumption compared with a file-stamped date of receipt. In the opinion of Judge Skelton, for himself, Chief Judge Cowen and Senior Judge Jones, the latter also concurring separately, it is stated:
The evidence as to the habit and custom of the court’s officers and employees in handling the mail is negative evidence and has no appreciable value in proving the omission or commission of a specific act at a particular time when there is a presumption to the contrary as in this case. .
. [T]o overcome the strong presumption of the arrival of a letter in due course of the mails, the countervailing evidence must show the contrary to be true by direct and positive proof of affirmative facts.
Id. at 444-445.
Judge Nichols concurred, placing his position upon his view of the intent of Congress in the situation presented.3
*12There are indeed cases in which the mail presumption has not prevailed. Appellant refers to Evans v. Jones, 366 F.2d 772 (4th Cir. 1966), and Ward v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 265 F.2d 75, 80 (5th Cir. 1959). Both cases were concerned with the jurisdictional requirement of timely filing of a notice of appeal.4 They do not seem to warrant appellant’s suggestion that they indicate the absence of a general presumption of delivery of the mails in due course. Such a general presumption is well documented by cases referred to in the opinion of Judge Robinson for the court in the present case. And see our recent decision in Johnson v. Basic Construction Co., 139 U.S.App.D.C. 85, 429 F.2d 764 (1970).
There are also cases, as the court’s opinion again demonstrates, in which the facts which give rise to the mail presumption are considered simply as part of the total evidentiary situation bearing upon the issue of the time of receipt of a mailed paper. The opinion of the court in the present case so considers the facts reflected in the respective affidavits. But the authorities relied upon for submitting to the fact-finder in this manner the issue referred to are not in my view helpful in the situation before us now. The agency of the Government here involved contemplates the use of the mails for the conduct of business with it, as appellees did. The applications were air-mailed at Hartford, Connecticut, March 2, in ample time to be received by the Patent Office by March 6, giving rise to the strong presumption that they actually were so received, a presumption not lightly to be rebutted. The inadequacy of the evidence reflected in the Patent Office affidavit to accomplish rebuttal I think is demonstrable, even if it be assumed that the procedures detailed in the affidavit did more than raise a competing presumption and constituted affirmative evidence the applications were not physically received at the Patent Office building until March 8; for Rule 6(b) of the Rules of Practice and Procedure in Patent Cases, 37 C.F.R. § 1.6(b) (1974), states:
Mail placed in the Patent Office pouch up to midnight on weekdays, excepting Saturdays and holidays, by the Post Office at Washington, D. C., serving the Patent Office, is considered as having been received in the Patent Office on the day it was so placed in the pouch.
The affidavit relied on by the Patent Office does not reflect evidence indicating when these applications were placed in the Patent Office pouch at the Washington, D.C., Post Office serving the Patent Office. Giving the affidavit an interpretation favorable to appellant it can be read to indicate that some bags or pouches are marked with the date that they are readied at the Post Office to go to the Patent Office if that date is different from the date of physical delivery to the Patent Office. Under this reading, other bags when received at the Patent Office are unmarked. More importantly, the practice and custom set forth in the affidavit of the Patent Office shows nothing as to the time the particular applications in suit were placed in the Patent Office pouch at the Washington Post Office, and thus received under Rule 6(b). The affidavit shows only that they were stamped “March 8” at the Patent Office. Their actual movement or location at any time prior thereto is not indicated by the Patent Office affidavit.5
*13The case was in the above posture when the parties submitted it to the. District Court for decision on cross-motions for summary judgment. Since the strong presumption available to appellees was not rebutted by the evidence reflected in the affidavit relied upon by appellant the motion of appellees was properly granted by the court. No genuine issue of material fact required its denial and appellees were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(d), Fed.R.Civ.P. I would affirm and, accordingly,
I respectfully dissent.

. Legille v. Tegtmeyer, 382 F.Supp. 166 (D.D.C. 1974).

. In Wolfgang v. Burrows, 86 U.S.App.D.C. 340, 341, 181 F.2d 630, 631 (1950), involving the presumption of ownership of a diamond arising from its purchase and possession by its claimant, the court held that the presumption:
must be countervailed by substantial evidence. . . . The countervailing evidence must, if believed by the trier of the fact issue, establish facts from which reasonable minds can draw but one inference.

. Judge Davis for himself and Judges Laramore and Durfee dissented. The dissenting opinion, however, while at odds with the reasoning of Judge Skelton, viewed the evidence offered to rebut the mail presumption as proof of more than a custom or habit respecting its receipt:
Not only has the defendant presented uncontradicted evidence of the general and specific procedures employed by the clerk’s office to ensure the proper handling and dating of incoming mail, but the evidence has also described with considerable specificity the movements, observations and actions of members of the clerk’s office (as they relate to plaintiff’s claim) during the critical days.
Id. at 452-453.
No such specificity relating to receipt of the applications in this case appears in the affidavit of the Patent Office. Judge Davis also relies in part upon United States v. Lombardo, 241 U.S. 73, 36 S.Ct. 508, 60 L.Ed. 897 (1916). There the Court pointed out that a filing “is not complete until the document is delivered and *12received,” 241 U.S. at 76, 36 S.Ct. at 509, and that “shall file”
means to deliver to the office and not send through the United States mails. ... A paper is filed when it is delivered to the proper official and by him received and filed.
Id. This statement from Lombardo, however, was made by the Court with respect to the place rather than the time a document was filed. The Court was rejecting a claim that a document actually had been filed in Washington, D. C., by simply being placed in the mail far away in the Western District of Washington.

. And see Stone v. Stone, 78 U.S.App.D.C. 5, 136 F.2d 761 (1943), which, however, did not involve the presumption relied upon by appellees respecting the mails.

. In support of its statement that the practice of the Patent Office is to file such applications upon receipt, the court in footnote 3 cites 37 C.F.R. § 1.6(a). This regulation merely provides in pertinent part:
*13Letters and other papers received in the Patent Office are stamped with the date of receipt. .
This book rule does not evidence when a document was actually received. It sets forth only a routine procedure and does not guarantee its performance; nor does a date stamped on a document evidence anything other than that a date was stamped on it, which of course is not evidence of when the applications before us were received either in the Patent Office pouch at the Post Office or at the Patent Office, or even as to when the date stamp itself was applied. The strong presumption of receipt of these applications in the regular course of the mails, not later than March 6th, is not overcome by such evidence of procedure or by a date on them which does not speak to a time of receipt in the Post Office pouch or at the Patent Office.
Footnote 42 is appended to the text of the opinion after a statement that ordinary mail, such as is here involved, arrives at the Patent Office in bags which are date-marked if the items contained were placed by the Postal Service in the Patent Office pouch on a date earlier than delivery of the bag. The court here indicates a misunderstanding of my position. I do not question that the procedure referred to requires all bags filled at the Post Office on Day 1 and delivered on a later day to be marked “Day 1”. Nevertheless, as I point out, “other bags [those delivered the day they are filled] when received at the Patent Office are unmarked.” There is accordingly no ambiguity in
the procedure set forth in the rule which calls for a trial to clarify the ambiguity as suggested by the Court.
The Patent Office affidavit makes no pretense that the bag in which these applications reached the Patent Office was marked, nor does it state anything as to the date the bag containing these applications was filled at the Post Office or physically delivered to the Patent Office.
The gist of the matter is that the strong presumption that the applications were received no later than March 6th I think is not overcome by merely setting forth the routine procedure with nothing shown as to what actually occurred with respect to the bag containing the applications or the applications themselves except that they were found to have been marked “March 8”.
The court’s remand, as it seems to me, has the effect of putting on trial the procedure of the Patent Office and the stamped date “March 8”, on the one hand, and, opposed to this, the evidence which gave rise to the strong legal presumption the applications were actually received in the Patent Office pouch at the Post Office or at the Patent Office no later than March 6. To resolve the issue unassisted by the legal presumption would thus call for a speculative finding. In this situation the principled basis for decision, resting upon sound precedent, would be to hold, as the District Court held, that the strong mail presumption was not rebutted by the kind of evidence required to do so.