De Rodulfa v. United States
| Decision Date | 24 March 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 22947,23000.,22947 |
| Parties | Patrocinia L. Vda De RODULFA, v. UNITED STATES of America and Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Appellants. Juliana Caparas Vda del Rosario v. UNITED STATES of America and Donald E. Johnson, Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
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Mr. David V. Seaman, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom Mr. Alan S. Rosenthal, Atty., Dept. of Justice, was on the brief, for appellants.
Mr. Henry F. Lerch, Washington, D. C., for appellee in No. 22947. Mr. Robert L. Pillote, Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for appellee in No. 22947.
Before WRIGHT, McGOWAN and ROBINSON, Circuit Judges.
These cases arrived here as controversies over the propriety of awards of counsel fees for services on appellees' behalf while the litigation resided in the District Court. Each was a suit seeking recovery of benefits allegedly accruing under the veterans laws; each culminated in a judgment directing reinstatement of previously terminated installments of death compensation and deduction of the fees from the sums reinstated. Our consideration of the contest over the fees was interrupted, however, by the need to determine whether a change—while the appeals were under submission—in the statute governing judicial review of decisions of the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs on claims for noncontractual benefits deprives the courts of jurisdiction to deal with such matters. Concluding that it does, we vacate the fee awards and dismiss the appeals.
Jose B. de Rodulfa, husband of one of the appellees, died in the line of duty while serving with the Philippine scouts in 1942. In 1945, his widow filed claims with the Veterans' Administration for wartime death compensation1 and National Service Life Insurance benefits2 for herself and the two minor children by her marriage to the decedent, and benefits of each kind were granted. After the application was submitted and before the benefits began, one of the children died. Mrs. de Rodulfa did not communicate this fact to the Veterans' Administration, and she accepted benefits on the deceased child's account.
In 1955, the Veterans' Administration discovered this change in the family's status and declared a forfeiture of the entire compensation award because of the failure to report the death and the acceptance of benefits for the child. On independent grounds, payments pursuant to the insurance award were also discontinued shortly thereafter.3 Mrs. de Rodulfa appealed both terminations administratively, but the claims were finally denied in 1957.
In 1965, Mrs. de Rodulfa filed in the District Court a pro se complaint against the United States seeking to have the benefits reinstated. She asked the court to appoint designated attorneys to represent her, and "to amend the complaint if necessary, and to deduct ten percentum (10%) from the claim as her attorney's fees if the claim is successful." The court granted the request for appointment of counsel, and allowed amendment of the complaint and joinder of the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as a defendant. The amended complaint demanded restoration of the forfeited benefits and requested an allowance of counsel fees out of the recovery. The suit was resisted on a number of grounds, in large measure jurisdictional in character.4
The case was tried without a jury. The court dismissed the claim for National Service Life Insurance benefits as timebarred5 but, declaring the Administrator's forfeiture of the compensation award to be "null and void," ordered reinstatement of those benefits by the Administrator. The court's judgment specifically directed payment of all wartime death compensation benefits "to date, and to become due," subject to credit for payments made on account of the deceased child and adjustments related thereto.6 Counsel for Mrs. De Rodulfa thereafter filed a memorandum requesting an allowance of fees and the Government submitted an opposition. The court rendered an opinion rejecting the argument that statutory restrictions precluded a grant of counsel fees,7 and entered an order amending the judgment to provide for a fee of 25 percent "of all sums due and payable . . . pursuant thereto," to be withheld by the Administrator from monies due Mrs. de Rodulfa and paid to counsel. This appeal by the United States and the Administrator followed.8
The companion case is very similar. Nicanor del Rosario died in 1942 in the military service of the United States. His widow applied in 1945 for and received benefits under the National Service Life Insurance and the wartime death compensation provisions for herself and her four minor children by the deceased serviceman. One of the children, however, had died before she filed the claim. This she did not report to the Veterans' Administration, and payments continued as though the child was alive. In 1954, these facts became known to the Administrator, who then forfeited her wartime death compensation award and established a continuing offset of accruing insurance benefits against the past overpayment of compensation.
After exhausting all administrative remedies without success, Mrs. del Rosario filed a pro se complaint in 1967 against the Administrator, with the United States as codefendant, to compel resumption of the discontinued payments. The complaint asked that a named attorney be appointed by the court to represent her and "that he be awarded reasonable counsel fees for his services." The court made the requested appointment, and counsel later submitted a memorandum soliciting an allowance of fees. The case was ultimately disposed of, over jurisdictional objections,9 by a final judgment on cross-motions for summary judgment. The court denied an affirmative judgment on the insurance claim10 but ordered the Administrator to reinstate and pay past due and future accruing wartime death compensation benefits for Mrs. del Rosario and her three remaining children, with a credit for unrecovered overpayments on the account of the deceased child and adjustments incidental thereto. The judgment, citing the opinion in de Rodulfa,11 also allowed and required the Administrator to withhold 20 per cent "of all sums due and payable . . . pursuant hereto" as the fees of her counsel.12 The United States and the Administrator are here for review of the fee award.13
When the District Court passed its judgments in these cases, 38 U.S.C. § 211(a) provided, with exceptions not relevant, that "the decisions of the Administrator on any question of law or fact concerning a claim for benefits or payments under any law administered by the Veterans' Administration shall be final and conclusive. . . ."14 It further provided, with greater emphasis on nonreviewability, that "no other official or any court of the United States shall have power or jurisdiction to review any such decision."15 We have never doubted that provisions of that sort jurisdictionally outlawed any judicial review of the Administrator's action taken upon a claim for noncontractual benefits when the claim was first presented.16 However, in Wellman v. Whittier17 in 1958, and in Thompson v. Gleason18 four years later, this court read the word "claim" as referable only to a claimant's original application for benefits, and accordingly held that Section 211(a) did not render nonreviewable a decision by the Administrator to terminate benefits previously awarded. And in 1967, in Tracy v. Gleason,19 the court solidified this construction by overruling three earlier cases20 to the extent that they conflicted with it.21 In its rulings in the instant cases, the District Court, very properly, remained advertent to the Wellman-Thompson-Tracy interpretation, and over objection22 assumed jurisdiction to review the forfeitures which had occurred in each.
After the cases reached this court, they were briefed, argued, and submitted on the central question whether the District Court had authority to make awards of counsel fees in suits of their type, and if so whether the awards were reasonable in amount. While the cases were under submission, however, Congress amended Section 211(a) to read as follows:
On and after October 17, 1940, except as provided in sections 775, 784, and as to matters arising under chapter 37 of this title, the decisions of the Administrator on any question of law or fact under any law administered by the Veterans\' Administration providing benefits for veterans and their dependents or survivors shall be final and conclusive and no other official or any court of the United States shall have power or jurisdiction to review any such decision by an action in the nature of mandamus or otherwise.23
Thus a new question arose—the effect, if any, of the amendment upon these appeals. The parties have addressed this issue in extensive post-argument briefing. We ourselves have exhaustively researched and painstakingly examined the problem in each of its several ramifications.
It is important to identify, at the outset of consideration of this problem, just what are and what are not before us as the particular subjects of the appeals. In each case, the District Court awarded a judgment in favor of the widow-claimant directing the Administrator to remit all unpaid wartime death compensation benefits accrued to the date of judgment and all benefits of that type accruing thereafter.24 In each, the court further directed that a percentage of all sums due and becoming due and otherwise payable to the claimants be withheld for payment to counsel as fees.25 To be noted with the greatest care is the fact that appellants appealed—and thus brought before us—only so much of the...
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