Court Opinion

ID: 9448768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:44:35.586872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:32.941489
License: Public Domain

DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I regret that I am unable to concur in the foregoing opinion. I do agree that the claim is not one arising out of “misrepresentation”. (See 28 U.S.C. § 2680 (h).) But I think that the time when a “claim accrues” (28 U.S.C. § 2401(b)) is governed by state law and not, as the opinion indicates, by federal law. I base this conclusion upon the language which the Congress used in enacting the Federal Tort Claims Act. That Act says (28 U.S.C. § 2674):
“The United States shall be liable, respecting the provisions of this title relating to tort claims, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances, * * * ”. (Emphasis added)
It also provides (28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)) that the district courts have jurisdiction
“of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, * * * for * * * personal injury or death caused by the negligence or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” (Emphasis added)
The foregoing language indicates an intention on the part of the Congress either to create a cause of action against the United States, or to waive the sovereign immunity of the United States against being sued upon a cause of action otherwise existing (for the purposes of this opinion I do not think it matters which), but to make the United States liable only to the extent that it would have been liable under state law if it were a private individual. This necessarily means that for acts of its agents in some states the United States will be liable when, in other states, it will not. It also means that in some cases the liability may be absolute, in others it may be for gross negligence, in still others, only for ordinary negligence, depending upon the state in which the act was committed. *104Thus, I find no compelling force in the principal practical reason advanced for the conclusion of the majority in this case, namely, that the time of accrual of the cause of action would be different, ■depending upon the state in which the tort was committed.
The Congress, in enacting the Federal Tort Claims Act, must have known that such differences would occur. I do not think that the fact that Congress decided to eliminate one such difference, namely, the period of the statute of limitations, by providing for a uniform 2-year period from the time when the claim accrues, carries with it by necessary implication, or at all, the further conclusion that the words “after such claim accrues” are to be given a federal, rather than a state meaning. Congress could have said this, had it chosen to do so, but it did not.
The present decision is not “in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred” (28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)). It means that the United States is not liable “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual” (28 U.S.C. § 2674). Congress provided no specific standard for determining when the claim accrues under so-called federal law, but the fact that the Tort Claims Act throughout uses state law as the standard is to me a compelling reason for holding that the state law is to be applied in the construction of these words.
Indeed, so far as I am aware there is no general federal law as to when a claim accrues for purposes of the statute of limitations in tort cases, just as there is no general federal law of torts. This, I think, is why Congress provided that state law should apply; there is in every state a well developed law of torts. This is equally true so far as the accrual of a tort claim, for purposes of the statute of limitations, is concerned. (See, for example, 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions §§ 168-177, pp. 122-149.) Thus, under the congressional policy, there is a guide for the federal courts to follow. Under state law, the claim here asserted accrued more than two years before the action was filed, and it is therefore barred. (Lindquist v. Muller, 45 Wash.2d 675, 277 P.2d 724.) Under the majority opinion, there is no such guide; the federal courts are left free to roam at will among their own decisions and those of the states and choose whatever rule they like best for the case then before them. The fact that, for the purposes of this case, the decision in Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282, is ready to hand, does not destroy the foregoing as a general proposition.
Thus, I agree with the decision of the First Circuit in Tessier v. United States, 1959, 269 F.2d 305, and I disagree with the decision, upon which the majority relies, in Quinton v. United States, 5 Cir., 1962, 304 F.2d 234.
I heartily agree with the court’s comment upon the extraneous matter in the complaint in this case.
I would affirm.