Hoyt v. United States

• Citation: 286 F.2d 356
• Decision Date: 20 January 1961
• Docket Number: No. 18500.,18500.
• Parties: William C. HOYT, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

286 F.2d 356 (1961)

William C. HOYT, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 18500.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

January 20, 1961.

William B. Matthews, Ozark, Ala., Albert W. Copeland, Euel A. Screws, Jr., Montgomery, Ala., Robert W. Fraser, Santa Ana, Cal., Godbold, Hobbs & Copeland, Montgomery, Ala., Charles O. Stokes, Ozark, Ala., Fraser, Hewett & Rickles, Santa Ana, Cal., of counsel, for appellant.

Paul L. Millirons, Asst. U. S. Atty., Hartwell Davis, U. S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for appellee.

Before RIVES, BROWN and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.

RIVES, Circuit Judge.

On January 24, 1959, Sean Paul Hoyt, aged seven years, was killed on the Fort Rucker military reservation. The fatality was caused by the collapse of the walls of a drainage ditch in which he was playing. The deceased child's father, William C. Hoyt, Jr., brought this wrongful death action against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act.¹ The district court ruled that the United States was guilty of negligence which proximately caused the death of Sean Paul Hoyt. The court then noted that:

"The only serious question in this case is the question of the amount of damages which may be allowed. Plaintiff sought to prove by the introduction of mortality tables the life expectancy of the deceased and the life expectancy of the plaintiff, the beneficiary under Alabama\'s Wrongful death statute, and asks the court to award substantial damages to him on this evidence. Sufficient proof was made by the plaintiff to entitle him to recover the amount of $579.22, representing expenses incurred by him incident to the funeral for his son. However, the proof was wholly insufficient for the court to award any greater recovery, as such an award would be merely speculative.

"Since any recovery under the Wrongful Death Statute in Alabama is strictly punitive, the court may award only `pecuniary damages.\' Title 28, § 2674, U.S.C.A.; Heath v. United States, 1949, D.C.Ala., 85 F. Supp. 196.

"The court, therefore, concludes that the death of Sean Paul Hoyt on January 24, 1959, was proximately caused by the negligence of the United States of America, acting by and through its officers, agents, servants, or employees, and that the plaintiff suffered total `pecuniary damages\' in the amount of $579.22."

This appeal presents the single question of what damages are recoverable for the negligent death of a minor child in Alabama under the standards of 28 U.S. C.A. § 2674.

As originally passed, the Tort Claims Act provided for liability on the part of the United States solely "in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred."² The waiver of sovereign immunity was qualified by the proviso that the United States was not to be liable for punitive damages.³ It soon became apparent that no recovery could be had against the United States for wrongful deaths caused by it in Alabama, because Alabama law provides that the only damages recoverable in a wrongful death action are punitive.⁴ To remedy this situation, and a like discrimination as to deaths caused in Massachusetts, the Tort Claims Act was amended in 1947 to provide:

"If, however, in any case wherein death was caused, the law of the place where the act or omission complained of occurred provides, or has been construed to provide, for damages only punitive in nature, the United States shall be liable for actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death to the persons respectively, for whose benefit the action was brought in lieu thereof."⁵ (Emphasis supplied.)

As a result of this amendment, in a wrongful death action brought under the Tort Claims Act where the act or omission causing death occurs in Alabama, the United States is liable for "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries."⁶

In giving content to the words "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries," we were inclined initially to look to the law of Alabama. This was so because the general theory of the Tort Claims Act is that the outcome of each case is to be determined in accordance with the law of the state where the death occurred. Thus, we viewed our task as attempting to determine what types of loss Alabama would consider compensable, if Alabama provided for recovery of "compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries" for the wrongful death of a minor. These elements of damage would then be considered in measuring damages against the United States, and the issue would thus be resolved as closely as possible in accordance with the law of the place where the death occurred. By searching authorities of ancient vintage and by a somewhat tortuous process of reasoning by analogy, we were able to establish that Alabama had, at a time when its laws provided for compensatory damages in wrongful death cases, considered loss to the parents of the infant's earnings and services which would have been received by the parents during the child's minority, plus certain direct expenditures, as injuries for which there could be recovered compensatory damages.⁷ After careful consideration, we rejected this approach to the problem.

For the real question here is one of congressional intent. What did Congress mean when it substituted the "compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries" standard for the punitive damage standard which was the sole basis of recovery for wrongful death under Alabama law? If we take the approach outlined above, we are imputing to Congress an intent to base the measure of damages recoverable against the United States for wrongful death in Alabama on a handful of fifty-year-old cases, no one of which is applicable today in Alabama courts for the purpose for which we would adopt them. There is no evidence in the legislative history that Congress was even aware of the existence of these obscure authorities.⁸ We think a construction which would impute to Congress an intent to have us turn to the murky recesses of Alabama law to construe the 1947 amendment to the Tort Claims Act is unacceptable. This conclusion is buttressed by the simplicity and obviousness of an alternative approach.

In the 1947 amendment, Congress stated that it was establishing the standard of "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries" "in lieu" of the state standard of punitive damages. Why not take this proviso at its face value? Congress was rejecting the state measure of damages and imposing instead a federal standard to be construed according to federal law. Theretofore, when Congress had legislated on questions of wrongful death, the damages recoverable had been held to be compensatory and measured by the loss of pecuniary benefits. We refer to the Federal Employers' Liability Act⁹ and the Death on the High Seas Act.¹⁰ There is ample authority under these two laws on which we may easily draw to give content to the "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries" language of the Tort Claims Act. Where authority is readily available to give content to legislation, we think that it is far more reasonable and in line with the congressional purpose to rely on this authority, than to impute to Congress an intent to resuscitate long-gone principles of state jurisprudence.

Our decision to look to federal law in construing the "pecuniary injuries" language of the statute is buttressed by an important practical consideration. The Alabama cases which hold that parents may recover solely for loss of services and earnings during minority were decided at a time when there were no child labor laws, and it was quite common for minors to be engaged in remunerative activity. Thus, the application of the pecuniary injuries standard allowed a substantial recovery to the parents. Today, however, in addition to child labor laws,¹¹ we may note that many more young people are completing high school and going on to college, so that the years of their minority do not produce income for the parents. As a result, a measure of damages which limits, in part, recovery to loss of earnings during minority would result in only a nominal recovery for the parents. Faced with this situation, injured parents would doubtless turn to Congress, pressing their claims in private bills. But it was to eliminate this private bill system of relief that the Tort Claims Act was passed.¹² Thus, we believe our construction of the 1947 amendment to the Act comports with both the legislative intent in passing the amendment and the overriding purpose of the Tort Claims Act.

Under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, which was early construed to provide for damages resulting solely from pecuniary injuries, the following general measure of damages has been laid down by the Supreme Court:

"* * * The damages should be equivalent to compensation for the deprivation of the reasonable expectation of pecuniary benefits that would have resulted from the continued life of the deceased."¹³

As applied in this case, the standard is: "What contributions could * * *

Mr. Hoyt have expected from his son over the years."¹⁴

For purposes of analysis, the pecuniary injuries to a parent flowing from the death of a minor son, may be broken down into two categories.¹⁵ First, the loss of benefits which the parent would have been legally entitled to under state law. In this first category would fall the loss of the services and earnings of the child during minority.¹⁶ The second category consists of the loss of future "gifts"; i. e., all other material goods and services which a parent, though not legally entitled to, might reasonably expect to receive from his child during his lifetime.¹⁷

The cases further show that proof of actual contributions made to the parents prior to the child's death is not a prerequisite to recovery. The crucial question is: What could the parents reasonably have expected to...