Court Opinion

ID: 9443278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:16:36.348628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:26.026838
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I dissent solely with respect to the allowance in the plaintiff’s damages of the total amount of his weekly wages during disability as loss of earnings. My reasons follow.
No more than my colleagues do I like the unpopular doctrine of Drinkwater v. Dinsmore, 80 N.Y. 390.1 But the doctrine we, as federal judges, think desirable is here as irrelevant as our private choices of odors or poems; .for the Federal Tort Claims Act requires us, in matters affecting substantially the outcome of the litigation, to apply the New York decisional rule, whatever it may be.
My colleagues have not shown that the New York courts have departecl from the *133Drinkwater rule as applied to a case where an employee recovers from an employer wages during disability without obligation to repay them. I cannot see tihe significance of the fact that, in New York’s highest court, three out of seven judges failed to concur in an extension of the Drinkwater doctrine, or that a New York lower court judge criticized the doctrine and said it should not be extended. The stubborn fact remains that no New York court has ever rejected it as such.1a
True, the doctrine is inapplicable, by its own terms, to a case where an injured employee has received reimbursement from an insurance company on a policy bought by the employee. See Drinkwater v. Dins-more, 80 N.Y. 390, 392. But there is no suggestion in any New York case that the Drinkwater rule doesn’t apply to a case of wage-payment by plaintiff’s employer merely because the employer or employee or both call the payment “insurance.” Such a distinction would make the application of Drinkwater turn on a mere choice of labels. The case itself says plainly what it means:
“The defendant had the right to show that he lost no wages, or that they were not as much as claimed. He had the right to show, i'f he could, that for some particular reason the plaintiff would not have earned any wages if he had not been injured, or that he was under such a contract with his employer that his wages went on without service, or that his employer paid his wages from mere benevolence. In either case, upon such showing, the plaintiff could not claim that the defendant’s wrong caused him to lose his wages, and the loss of wages could form no part of his damage.”2
I agree, of course, that New York courts will turn to New Jersey “law” as to the meaning of a New Jersey contract, if that meaning is relevant. But I know of no New York rule that, as to the damages for a tort occurring in New York, the courts of that state will look to New Jersey decisions simply because the New York tort is to a man employed in New Jersey. The only possible relevance of New Jersey law that I see here is in helping to define the nature of the payments made by the employer to the plaintiff during the disability period; e. g., if the evidence here showed that, under the New Jersey employment contract, plaintiff’s employer, if it so elected, could compel repayment by the plaintiff, then, without doubt, the Drinkwater rule would not apply. Drake v. New York State Electric & Gas Corp., 162 Misc. 167, 294 N.Y.S. 227.
But my colleagues point out no New Jersey cases which help us to construe the employment contract here or which pertain to the employee’s duty to reimburse. My colleagues rely solely on one statement elicited on cross-examination from the employers’ accident section head:
“ * * * the company policy is such that we endeavor to protect our employee so that any moneys that he is entitled to he will receive in settlement of any third party claim. I said the case will then be reviewed by Management and it is quite possible that they will at that time recommend that the money paid in the amount of temporary be returned to the employee.”
This statement, as my colleagues note, should be construed in light of the witness’ previous testimony that the company notified the United States Post Office, pursuant to the New Jersey Compensation law, that the company was asserting its right to a lien .on the employees’ third-party judgment to the extent of “temporary total disability compensation and permanent partial compensation; also for medical expenses which we shall be obliged to pay. * * * ” This lien, I believe, would cover only medical expenses and temporary disability payments required by the New Jer*134sey Compensation Act to be paid the employee for injuries like the plaintiff’s (here $25.00 a week). See New Jersey Rev. Stat. 34:15-50, N.J.S.A.; Di Meglio v. Slonk Construction Co., 121 N.J.L. 366, 2 A.2d 470, affirmed 122 N.J.L. 397, 5 A.2d 691. It is this amount only for temporary disability payments, required to be paid by New Jersey law (and not the entire weekly wages paid to' plaintiff during disability), which the employer could recover upon his lien on the plaintiff’s judgment, and it is, I think, this amount only which the witness referred to when he said' “the case will then be reviewed by Management and it is quite possible that they will at that time recommend that the money paid in the amount of temporary be returned to the employeeAside from this statement, there is no evidence in the record to give the slightest indication that the employee, under the plan, was required to return the wages paid him in the event of a third-party recovery.
I think the proper procedure here is to remand for the taking of further evidence about the exact arrangement under which the employee’s wages were paid, and the making of a finding of fact thereon.

. It is interesting to note, however, that a somewhat similar rule seems to prevail in England. See, e.g., Dennis v. London Passenger Transport Bd., 1948, 1 All Eng.Rep. 779 (K.B.); Allen v. Waters & Co., 1935, 1 K.B. 200. See, also, U. S. v. Gaidys, 10 Cir., 194 F.2d 762, 765.

la. It is only because of legislative revision of the Workmen’s Compensation Act that employees whose hospital or medical bills have been paid by their employers can sue a third party and include in their damages those medical expenses. See Calhoun v. West End Brewing Co., 269 App.Div. 398, 56 N.Y.S.2d 105.

. Emphasis added.