NV PHILIPS'GLOEILAMPENFABRIEKEN v. Atomic Energy Com'n

• Decision Date: 21 March 1963
• Docket Number: No. 17024.,17024.
• Citation: 316 F.2d 401
• Parties: N. V. PHILIPS' GLOEILAMPENFABRIEKEN and Hartford National Bank and Trust Company, Trustee Under Indenture, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION and United States of America, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

316 F.2d 401 (1963)

N. V. PHILIPS' GLOEILAMPENFABRIEKEN and Hartford National Bank and Trust Company, Trustee Under Indenture, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION and United States of America, Respondents.

No. 17024.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued January 28, 1963.

Decided March 21, 1963.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mr. Harry L. Brown, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Ellsworth C. Alvord, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for petitioners.

Mr. Edward A. Groobert, Atty., Dept. of Justice, of the bar of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, pro hac vice, by special leave of court, for respondents. Acting Asst. Atty. Gen. Joseph D. Guilfoyle and Messrs. Joseph F. Hennessey, Gen. Counsel, Atomic Energy Commission, Sidney G. Kingsley, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Atomic Energy Commission, and Alan S. Rosenthal, Atty., Dept. of Justice, were on the brief for respondents. Mr. Jerry C. Straus, Atty., Dept. of Justice, also entered an appearance for respondents.

Messrs. David Ginsburg and Leonard N. Bebchick, Washington, D. C., filed a brief on behalf of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, as amicus curiae.

Before FAHY, BASTIAN and WRIGHT, Circuit Judges.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge.

The Atomic Energy Act¹ of 1946 declared the production of fissionable materials to be a Government monopoly. To accomplish this purpose, Section 11² of the Act revoked all existing patents useful exclusively in the production of fissionable materials, and prohibited the issuance of new patents insofar as they are useful for such purposes. In addition, it authorized the Government to utilize as necessary any other patent in the process of producing fissionable materials, without liability for infringement of such patents. Subsection (e) of Section 11 established a Patent Compensation Board to pass upon claims for just compensation made by the owners of patents revoked or used pursuant to the Act and claims to awards by developers of nuclear processes made unpatentable by the Act. The statute, however, was totally silent as to the time in which claims for awards or compensation had to be presented to the Patent Compensation Board.

Petitioners seek review³ of the order of the Patent Compensation Board dismissing their applications for just compensation for patents, licenses and other interests in patents revoked by the Act and for awards covering use of foreign patents and one domestic patent issued since the Act was passed. The Board held that all of petitioners' claims, filed February 9, 1954, were time-barred by the six-year period of limitation in 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) which, according to the Board, began to run on these claims on the date the Act became effective, August 1, 1946. It also held that all of petitioners' claims, other than those arising from revocation of existing patents and the use of a patent issued subsequent to the Act, were invalid as well for a variety of other reasons.

I.

Since application of the time bar raised by 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) would dispose of all of petitioners' claims, this issue should be first considered. Although the Act was⁴ silent as to the time for filing claims for just compensation or for awards, Section 13(a) thereof did provide that if the just compensation claimant was dissatisfied with the Board's action on his claim, he could then file suit in the United States District Court or in the Court of Claims "in the manner provided by sections 24(20) and 145 now § 2501 of the Judicial Code," and, as to awards, Section 11(e) (4)⁵ provided that application for review of the Board's action could be made within 30 days to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The Commission's position seems to be that, although the Act specifically made § 24(20),⁶ now § 2401(a), applicable to filing suit after Board action denying a claim for just compensation, it somehow implied that this section is applicable as well to the filing of a claim with the Board itself, not only for just compensation, but also for an award for which a different period for judicial review is specifically provided. There is absolutely nothing in the legislative history to support this strange reading of the statute. The fact that Congress finally, by amendment in 1961,⁷ provided a six-year statute of limitations for filing claims before the Board persuades us that Congress itself realized that the Act was deficient with respect to a statute of limitations and provided one to operate prospectively.

The Commission argues that the filing of a claim with the Board is in effect the commencement of a "civil action" before a judicial body, thus bringing the filing within the language of § 2401(a)⁸ and imposing the six-year limitation period running from the date "the right of action first accrues." 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a). But "civil action" as used in § 2401(a) is a term of art judicially and statutorily defined as one "commenced by filing a complaint with a court," not an executive board.⁹ F.R.Civ.P., Rule 3. Moreover, under § 2401(a), as under 28 U.S.C. § 2501, when, as here, the claimant must first present his claim to an executive tribunal, the right of action does not accrue until the executive tribunal has acted on the claim.¹⁰ United States v. Taylor, 104 U.S. (14 Otto) 216, 26 L.Ed. 721 (1881); Gibbs Corporation v. United States, 127 Ct.Cl. 280 (1954); Schaeffer v. United States, 86 F.Supp. 145, 114 Ct.Cl. 568 (1949); John Russell Smith v. United States, 67 Ct.Cl. 182 (1929).

Since the Act was deficient with respect to a statute of limitations for filing claims with the Board, we must, applying general principles of law and equity, determine the proper time bar in the premises. When a federal statute creating rights of action provides no time limit on the exercise of those rights, the period of limitation to be applied depends on the type of action. As to actions at law, the silence of Congress has been interpreted to mean that it is the federal policy to adopt the local or general law of limitation applied in similar circumstances. See Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U.S. 96, 61 S.Ct. 473, 85 L.Ed. 605 (1941); Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta, 203 U.S. 390, 27 S.Ct. 65, 51 L.Ed. 241 (1906); Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U.S. 610, 15 S.Ct. 217, 39 L.Ed. 280 (1895). Where the remedy created by the federal statute, silent as to the limitation on its exercise, is in equity, the equitable principle of laches provides the limitation. Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 66 S.Ct. 582, 90 L.Ed. 743 (1946).

Ordinarily, a condemnation suit filed in court for compensation in which the value of the property condemned is to be fixed is an action at law. Kohl et al. v. United States, 91 U.S. (1 Otto) 367, 376, 23 L.Ed. 449 (1875). But see Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. Thibodaux City, 360 U.S. 25, 28, 79 S.Ct. 1070, 3 L.Ed.2d 1058 (1959). However, where the question of compensation is to be determined in the first instance by a board, the action is "in the nature of an inquest * * *, and not a suit at law in the ordinary sense of those terms." Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U.S. (8 Otto) 403, 406, 25 L.Ed. 206 (1878). Consequently, here we would not be required to adopt the general law of limitation. Nor would we, under Holmberg, be required to apply the doctrine of laches since the action before the Board, by traditional concepts, is not equitable in nature. In the absence of guidance from either law or equity, we must fill the vacuum by resort to the doctrine of reasonableness, keeping in mind the limitation provided by Congress in analogous situations, together with such considerations as undue delay, excusable neglect and prejudice from delay.

Under the Act the Government exercised its constitutional power of eminent domain. In the exercise of that power, it is required to render just compensation. U.S.Const., Amend. V. In our view, the right to just compensation should not be lightly regarded nor quickly denied, particularly to these petitioners, who, as the record shows, cooperated fully with the United States in its wartime effort to develop the military use of atomic energy. If we were to resort to an analogous statute here for a guide to limitation, obviously § 2401(a) would be that statute. But in the circumstances of this case, involving as it does property rights condemned by the United States, where the Atomic Energy Commission itself did not even name the membership of the board which was to fix the value of the property condemned until almost three years after it was taken, and did not until after almost two years provide regulations pursuant to the Act under which a proper application could be made for just compensation, consideration of time¹¹ alone cannot provide the answer. We should not approach the resolution of this problem myopically. We should not narrowly view the rights of petitioners whose property has been condemned. We cannot say that, under the circumstances disclosed by the record, these petitioners should have their right to just compensation and to an award pursuant to the Act cut off by a time bar of which neither Congress, the Commission nor the petitioners were aware.¹² We hold that, in the circumstances of this case, petitioners' claims were filed with the Board within a reasonable time.

II.

We turn now to the alternative grounds assigned by the Commission for the denial of certain of petitioners' claims. Two groups of claims can be disposed of together. The first group of claims arises out of certain foreign patents owned by petitioners. The United States exported to foreign countries several nuclear reactors which infringed petitioners' patents in those countries. Petitioners claim that the Act revoked their right to sue the United States for such infringement, and that they are entitled to "just compensation" for deprivation of the right to sue. The second group of claims arises out of certain United...