Court Opinion

ID: 9449654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:17:59.239219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:55.499049
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Chief Judge
(specially concurring) .
Reluctantly, I concur in the result-If it were not for the language of the Supreme Court in Central Bank v. United States, 345 U.S. 639, 73 S.Ct. 917, 97 L.Ed. 1312, I could not agree that the indebtedness here was not one which “arises out of said contract.” Of course, it is true that Masonry’s obligation to pay the withheld sums over to the Government was imposed by Federal statute, but it is equally true that if there had been no contract between Ball and Masonry there would have been no employment by Masonry; there would have been no wages due; there would have been no withholding; there would have been no indebtedness from Masonry to *477the Government. Thus, it is clear that the indebtedness arose at least partially out of the contract between Masonry and Ball.
Although a respectable effort at distinguishing this case from the Central Bank case could be made on the basis that the Supreme Court gave a construction to the language “independently of the contract,” because it was construing a statute in line with its understanding of the Congressional intent to make easier outside financing of Government contracts in that case, I do not think that we could hold in the case before us that the indebtedness here “arose from the contract,” in light of the Supreme Court’s holding there that a similar indebtedness arose “independently of the contract.” Being thus bound by the Central Bank case, I must concur in the result.