Court Opinion

ID: 9426831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:03.936274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.358387
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.
The opinion of the Court appears to be premised on the theory that in any case involving a member of the military on active duty, Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135 (1950), displaces the plain language of the Tort Claims Act. I cannot agree that that narrow, judicially created exception to the waiver of sovereign immunity contained in the Act should be extended to any category of litigation other than suits against the Government by active-duty servicemen based on injuries incurred while on duty.
Even if Feres is not to be strictly limited, I do not agree that its extension to cover this case is justified. The Court’s explanation simply does not differentiate this suit by a corporation against the Government from similar suits that the Tort Claims Act does allow. See, e. g., United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543 (1951).
The first factor relied upon by the Court is the “distinctively federal” relationship between the Government' and “its sup*675pliers of ordnance.” Ante, at 672. It is true, of course, that the military performs “a unique, nationwide function,” ibid., but so do the Bureau of the Census, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and many other agencies of the Federal Government. These agencies, like the military, may have personnel and equipment in all parts of the country. Nevertheless, Congress has made private rights against the Government depend on “the law of the place "where the act or omission occurred,” 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (b), and presumably the Court agrees that this provision governs the rights of suppliers to nonmilitary agencies. Nothing in the Court’s opinion explains why it concludes that the relationship between the Government and those suppliers differs from its relationship to purveyors of military equipment.
The Court also concludes that compensation payments to an injured serviceman under the Veterans’ Benefits Act, 38 U. S. C. § 321 et seq., place an absolute upper limit on the Government’s liability for service-connected injuries. Yet, nothing in that Act suggests that it is designed to place on third parties, such as petitioner, the burden of fully compensating injuries to servicemen when the Government is at fault. Indeed, the Veterans’ Benefits Act does not even contain an explicit declaration that it is the exclusive remedy against the Government for a serviceman’s injury. The comparable compensation program for civilian employees of the Government does contain such a limitation of liability. 5 U. S. C. § 8116 (c).* Yet we have held that the broad language of the exclusivity provision in the civilian compensation *676scheme does not affect “the rights of unrelated third parties,” Weyerhaeuser S. S. Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 597, 601 (1963), and the lower courts have allowed indemnity suits identical to petitioner’s to proceed despite that provision. See, e. g., Travelers Ins. Co. v. United States, 493 F. 2d 881 (CA3 1974). The Court fails to explain why the absence of an exclusivity provision in the Veterans’ Benefits Act forecloses suits by third parties in cases involving injuries to military personnel when the existence of such a clause does not bar similar actions when the injured employee works for one of the Government’s civilian agencies.
Finally, the Court claims to find in this action a threat to military discipline. It is clear that the basis of Feres was the Court’s concern with the disruption of “[t]he peculiar and special relationship of the soldier to his superiors” that might result if the soldier were allowed to hale his superiors into court. See United States v. Brown, 348 U. S. 110, 112 (1954). That problem does not arise when a nonmilitary third party brings suit.
The majority’s argument that whether petitioner or the injured serviceman sues is of no import because the trial would take the same form in either case proves far too much. Had the same malfunction in the pilot eject system that caused the serviceman’s injuries here also caused that system to plunge into a civilian’s house, the injured civilian would unquestionably have a cause of action under the Tort Claims Act against the Government. He might also sue petitioner, which might, as it has done here, cross-claim against the Government. In that hypothetical case, as well as in the case before us, there would be the same chance that the trial would “invblve second-guessing military orders, and would ... require members of the Armed Services to testify in court as to *677each other’s decisions and actions.” Ante, at 673. Yet there would be no basis, in Feres or in the Tort Claims Act, for concluding that the suit is barred because of the nature of the evidence to be produced at trial. There is no basis for reaching that conclusion here.
I respectfully dissent.

“The liability of the United States or an instrumentality thereof under this subchapter or any extension thereof with respect to the injury or death of an employee is exclusive and instead of all other liability of the United States or the instrumentality to the employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, and any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States or the instrumentality because of the injury or death in a direct judicial proceeding, *676in a civil action, or in admiralty, or by an administrative or judicial proceeding under a workmen’s compensation statute or under a Federal tort liability statute. . . .”