Lockheed Aircraft Corporation v. United States, 81-1181

• Decision Date: 23 February 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-1181,81-1181
• Citation: 460 U.S. 190,74 L.Ed.2d 911,103 S.Ct. 1033
• Parties: LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

460 U.S. 190

103 S.Ct. 1033

74 L.Ed.2d 911

LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Petitioner

v UNITED STATES et al.

No. 81-1181.

Argued Nov. 30, 1982.

Decided Feb. 23, 1983.

Syllabus

A civilian employee of the United States Navy died in the crash of an aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and manufactured by petitioner. The United States paid death benefits to the employee's survivors under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA). Thereafter, the employee's administrator filed suit against petitioner in Federal District Court, seeking damages for the employee's wrongful death and for injuries suffered prior to her death. Petitioner, asserting a right to indemnification under the Federal Tort Claims Act, impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant. Petitioner settled the administrator's claim and moved for summary judgment in the third-party action. The Government moved to dismiss the third-party claim on the ground that it was barred by FECA's exclusive-liability provision, 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c), which prohibits actions against the United States by "an employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, [or] any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the [employee's] injury or death." The District Court, concluding that § 8116(c) did not bar the indemnity claim, granted summary judgment for petitioner. The Court of Appeals reversed.

Held: Section 8116(c) does not bar petitioner's third-party indemnity action against the United States. Section 8116(c) was intended to govern only the rights of employees, their relatives, and people claiming through or on behalf of them. Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, 372 U.S. 597, 83 S.Ct. 926, 10 L.Ed.2d 1. These are the only categories of parties who benefit from the "quid pro quo" compromise of FECA commonly found in workers' compensation legislation whereby employees are guaranteed the right to immediate, fixed benefits, regardless of fault and without need for litigation, but in return lose the right to sue the Government. Pp. 193-199.

215 U.S.App.D.C. 27, 665 F.2d 1330, reversed and remanded.

Warner W. Gardner, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Carolyn F. Corwin, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Justice POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, a federal employee may not bring a tort suit against the Government on the basis of a work-related injury, but may seek recovery from a third party. The issue here is whether such a third party may seek indemnity from the Government for its tort liability to the employee.

I

On April 4, 1975, a C-5A aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and manufactured by petitioner Lockheed Aircraft Corporation crashed near Saigon, South Vietnam.¹ Almost 150 people died in the crash, including Ann Nash Bottorff, a civilian employee of the United States Navy. The United States paid death benefits to Bottorff's survivors under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U.S.C. § 8101 et seq.

Thereafter Bottorff's administrator filed suit against Lockheed, as the manufacturer of a "defective product," in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He sought damages for Bottorff's wrongful death and for the injuries she suffered prior to her death. Lockheed, asserting a right to indemnification under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671 et seq., impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant.²

Lockheed settled the administrator's claim and moved for summary judgment in the third-party action. The Government did not dispute that it was primarily responsible for the fatal crash, nor did it challenge the terms of the settlement. Rather the Government moved to dismiss the third-party claim on the ground that it was barred by 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c), FECA's exclusive liability provision:

"The liability of the United States . . . under [FECA] with respect to the injury or death of an employee is exclusive and instead of all other liability of the United States . . . to the employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, and any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the injury or death. . . ."

The District Court, concluding that § 8116(c) did not bar the indemnity claim, granted summary judgment for Lockheed.

On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. Thomas v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 215 U.S.App.D.C. 27, 665 F.2d 1330 (1981). It concluded that § 8116(c) barred Lockheed's third-party claim against the United States. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied primarily on several decisions by other courts of appeals. See, e.g., Kudelka v. American Hoist & Derrick Co., 541 F.2d 651, 658-660 (CA7 1976); Galimi v. Jetco, Inc., 514 F.2d 949 (CA2 1975). The court recognized, however, that its holding was contrary to that reached in Wallenius Bremen G.m.b.H. v. United States, 409 F.2d 994 (CA4 1969), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 958, 90 S.Ct. 2164, 26 L.Ed.2d 542 (1970).³

We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1766, 72 L.Ed.2d 172 (1982). We now reverse.

II

Section 8116(c) is specific and detailed. It prohibits actions against the United States by an "employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, [or] any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the [employee's] injury or death." Lockheed is not within any of the specified categories. If § 8116(c) applies, therefore, it can only be because Lockheed is an "other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States." The Government argues that the language is broad enough to include Lockheed. We must decide if Congress intended that result.

A.

FECA's exclusive liability provision was enacted in substantially its present form in 1949. FECA Amendments of 1949, sec. 201, 63 Stat. 861 (enacting FECA § 7(b)) (currently codified at 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c)). It was designed to protect the Government from suits under statutes, such as the Fed- eral Tort Claims Act, that had been enacted to waive the Government's sovereign immunity. In enacting this provision, Congress adopted the principal compromise—the "quid pro quo" commonly found in workers' compensation legislation: employees are guaranteed the right to receive immediate, fixed benefits, regardless of fault and without need for litigation, but in return they lose the right to sue the Government. See H.R.Rep. No. 729, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14-15 (1949); S.Rep. No. 836, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1949), U.S.Code Cong.Serv. 1949, p. 2125. This compromise is essentially the same as that found, for example, in the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA).⁴ See 33 U.S.C. § 905(a).

In Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, 372 U.S. 597, 83 S.Ct. 926, 10 L.Ed.2d 1 (1963), the Court considered FECA's exclusive liability provision and carefully reviewed its legislative history. That case arose out of the collision between an Army dredge and a vessel owned by Weyerhaeuser. A federal employee injured in the collision recovered FECA compensation from the Government and tort damages from Weyerhaeuser. Weyerhaeuser brought suit against the United States under the Public Vessels Act, 43 Stat. 1112 (1925), 46 U.S.C. § 781 et seq., seeking the damages that it could have recovered from another private shipowner. Included in its claim, under the admiralty divided damages rule, was the Government's share of the employee's tort recovery.

The Government challenged the inclusion of any part of the tort damages paid to the employee on the ground that FECA's exclusive liability provision protected the United States from such claims. In particular, the Government ar- gued—much as it does in this case—that third parties plainly were included within the general phrase "anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages." Brief for the United States in Weyerhaeuser, pp. 5, 8-11. See 372 U.S., at 600, 83 S.Ct., at 928. The Court, however, rejected this argument. It first pointed out that the statute was ambiguous. "[T]he general language upon which the Government relies follows explicit enumeration of specific categories: employees, their representatives, and their dependents. Under the traditional rule of statutory construction which counsels against giving to general words a meaning totally unrelated to the more specific terms of a statute, we think the meaning of the statutory language is far from 'plain.' " 372 U.S., at 600-601, 83 S.Ct., at 928. The Court then reviewed the legislative history of the exclusive-liability provision, and concluded that it had been intended to govern only the relationship "between the Government on the one hand and its employees and their representatives or dependents on the other." Id., at 601, 83 S.Ct., at 929. The Court summarized its review of the legislative history as follows: "There is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties, much less of any purpose to disturb settled doctrines of admiralty law affecting the mutual rights and liabilities of private shipowners in collision cases." Ibid. (footnote omitted).⁵

The Weyerhaeuser Court reinforced its conclusion with a discussion of the "nearly identical" LHWCA provision. Id., at 602, 83 S.Ct., at 929. The Court observed that under Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956), a ship- owner was entitled to obtain indemnification from an injured longshoreman's employer for damages that were recovered against the shipowner but were based on the employer's negligence. Although Ryan relied on the existence of a contractual relationship between the shipowner and the employer, the same result was reached in a series of later cases...