Griggs v. United States, 3806.
| Decision Date | 09 January 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 3806.,3806. |
| Citation | 178 F.2d 1 |
| Parties | GRIGGS v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Frederick P. Cranston, Denver, Colo. (L. James Arthur, Denver, Colo., was with him on the brief), for appellant.
Henry E. Lutz, Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, Denver, Colo. (Max Bulkeley, United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, Denver, Colo., was with him on the brief), for appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and HUXMAN, and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.
By this appeal we are asked to decide a question directly presented and decided in Jefferson v. United States, D. C., 74 F. Supp. 209 and Id., D.C., 77 F.Supp. 706, and discussed but not decided in Brooks v. United States, 337 U.S. 49, 69 S.Ct. 918, namely, whether the United States is liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act, as amended, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, for the death of a member of the armed forces on active, but not combat, duty, allegedly caused by the negligence of employees of the United States Government, while acting in the scope of their office or employment.
The facts are not in dispute. On or about November 20, 1947, Dudley R. Griggs, a Lt. Colonel on active duty in the United States Army, was admitted under official orders to the Army Hospital at Scott Field Air Base in the State of Illinois, for the purpose of surgery and treatment. Death occurred while under treatment and the widow, as executrix, brought this action against the United States in the United States District Court of Colorado, to recover damages for his wrongful death, allegedly caused by the negligent, careless and unskillful acts of members of the Army Medical Corps, while acting in the scope of their office or employment. The trial court sustained a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the complaint did not state a claim on which relief could be granted under the Act, and entered judgment in favor of the United States.
The Federal Tort Claims Act, by its terms gives the United States District Courts exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States on account of personal injuries caused by the negligent or wrongful acts of any employee of the United States, while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States as a private person would be liable to the claimant for such injuries in accordance with the law of the place where the act occurred.
In the Brooks, case, the asserted claims against the United States, for injuries to one serviceman and death to another, arose while the soldiers were on furlough, and not in any way incident to their military service. The Supreme Court was not "persuaded" that the words "any claim" meant "any claim but that of servicemen", and therefore held the asserted claims within the coverage of the Act.1 It did not reach the point suggested there, and present here, whether "an army surgeon's slip of hand, or a defective jeep which causes injury", would ground tort claims against the United States. It left for future consideration whether the omission of Congress to exclude claims for injuries or death incident to active service meant that it intended to include every such claim against the Government, or whether the results of such claims would be so "outlandish" or absurd as to put them outside the scope and purpose of the legislation, and hence justify a judicially imposed limitation, which the Congress omitted to provide.
Invoking familiar canons which sanction judicial construction of legislative words and phrases to comport with the obvious Congressional intent, Judge Chesnut, in the Jefferson case, pointed to the historical and unique Government-soldier relationship, and concluded that the obvious purpose of Congress was to exclude claims of soldiers arising out of that relationship from coverage of the Act. In referring to the nature of the Government-soldier relationship 77 F.Supp. 711 he pointed to the "large body of federal legislation" providing disability benefits to servicemen and gratuity payments to their survivors, as indicative of congressional intent. But the...
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