Johnson v. United States, 6098.

• Decision Date: 16 December 1950
• Docket Number: No. 6098.,6098.
• Parties: JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES. THE PATROL BOAT NO. Q — 14.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

186 F.2d 120 (1950)

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES.

THE PATROL BOAT NO. Q — 14.

No. 6098.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued October 3, 1950.

Decided December 16, 1950.

Roy L. Sykes and R. Arthur Jett, Norfolk, Va. (Jett, Sykes & Howell and Meyer Koteen, Norfolk, Va., on the brief) for appellant.

Leavenworth Colby, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen., (H. G. Morison, Asst. Atty. Gen., George R. Humrickhouse, U. S. Atty., Richmond, Va., and John P. Harper, Asst. U. S. Atty., Norfolk, Va., on the brief) for appellee.

Before PARKER, Chief Judge and SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

The important questions in this case are whether a civilian seaman on a public vessel of the United States who has been injured by the negligence of the operator of the ship has the right to recover damages from the United States under the Public Vessels Act, 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 781 to 790, notwithstanding he is entitled to compensation under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, 5 U.S.C.A. § 751 et seq.; and if so, whether such a seaman who has elected to proceed and has received compensation under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act is relieved from the consequences of his election because he was a minor at the time he was injured and received the compensation.

On October 13, 1946 Herbert L. Johnson, the appellant, was a civilian deck hand aboard the patrol boat No. Q-14, a public vessel of the United States in service in the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia, and while on duty was severely burned under circumstances tending to show negligence on the part of a superior officer. On January 30, 1947, while still a patient in the United States Marine Hospital at Norfolk, he applied for compensation, and on April 18, 1947, after his release from the hospital, he filed a claim for a continuation of compensation. He received a total of $599.77 from the period October 20, 1946 to March 13, 1947, which was paid him in March, April and May, 1947. At the time of his injury he was 19 years of age; and at the time when he applied for and received the compensation he was 20 years of age. On June 17, 1948 he brought the present suit for damages against the United States under the Public Vessels Act, claiming the benefits of the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688. The District Judge was of the opinion that the libellant had the option to sue the United States in admiralty or to apply for compensation, but dismissed the suit because the libellant had applied for and accepted compensation.

The government contends that the libel should have been dismissed on both grounds. The question whether the Federal Employees' Compensation Act furnishes the exclusive remedy of a federal employee who is injured by the negligence of a merchant vessel of the United States was considered by us in U. S. v. Marine, 4 Cir., 155 F.2d 456. We there held, basing our decision in part upon an assumption made by the Supreme Court in Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U.S. 575, 577, 63 S.Ct. 425, 87 L.Ed. 471, that a United States custom inspector, who was injured while he was leaving a merchant vessel of the United States under circumstances that would have entitled a private citizen to judgment against the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 742, was entitled to maintain an action against the United States under that Act, and was not limited to a proceeding under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act. We called attention to the explicit provisions of the Suits in Admiralty Act that a libel in personam may be brought against the United States in the operation of a merchant vessel whenever, if the vessel was privately owned or operated, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained against it, and we held that we were not empowered to limit the Act to persons outside the provisions of the Compensation Act in the absence of any such limitation in a statute which was intended to put the United States in relation to its merchant vessels on the same basis as private ships, except as to the seizure of the ship. In addition we pointed out that there was nothing in the Federal Employees' Compensation Act which limited a federal employee to the benefits of the Act,¹ although obviously he might not proceed under both Acts, and if he elected to sue under one, he had no claim under the other.

We see no reason to depart from this position. The present suit, however, was brought under the Public Vessels Act and the question remains whether this Act was intended to subject the government to the same sort of liability for the activities of its public vessels as it has for the activities of its merchant vessels under the Suits in Admiralty Act. The government strongly contends that there is a marked distinction between the activities of its public and its merchant vessels and that it cannot be supposed that it was the intent of Congress to open the courts to the complaints of civilian members of the crews of public vessels and thereby disclose the secret operations of its war vessels and subject the orders and actions of its naval officers to attack by their subordinates. Such a construction of the statute it is said would be so detrimental to the public interest and so destructive of military discipline that it must be rejected in the same manner that this court in Jefferson v. U. S., 4 Cir., 178 F.2d 518,² having regard for the peculiar relation that exists between a soldier and superior military authority, held that a member of the armed forces on active duty could not recover under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1346, 2671 et seq., for injuries caused by the negligence of an army surgeon; and it is pointed out that just as the Army or Navy man, in place of the right to sue the government for damages, enjoys the protection afforded by elaborate provisions for pay and allowances and retirement benefits, so the civilian seaman is entitled to relief under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act. Attention is especially called to Dobson v. U. S., 2 Cir., 27 F.2d 807, and Bradey v. U. S., 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 742, where, for like reasons, it was decided that a seaman in the naval forces on a public vessel of the United States may not recover damages from the United States for negligence of the vessel; and it is urged that this holding should logically be extended and applied also to the civilian members of the crew of the public vessel.

The argument is not without persuasive force but we do not find it convincing, primarily because the special provisions which Congress has made for members of the armed forces do not apply to civilian seamen. The right to compensation for injuries under the federal statute was not established especially for the protection of seamen but for all government employees in general; and they were not confined to the remedy by way of compensation prior to the amendment of the Compensation Act in 1949 cited above. Furthermore, the considerations of national security and military discipline do not apply with equal force to the smaller class of civilian seamen as to the naval personnel so as to justify the courts in ignoring the plain and comprehensive terms of the statute. That course may not be taken in any case unless the liberal construction leads to results so startling that they cannot reasonably be thought to have been within the legislative intent. U. S. v. American Trucking Ass'n, 310 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345.

We are impressed with the liberal construction accorded the Public Vessels Act in Canadian Aviator, Ltd. v. U. S., 324 U. S. 215, 65 S.Ct. 639, 89 L.Ed. 901, where the Supreme Court held that the right accorded an injured party by the statute to recover damages caused by a public vessel of the United States should not, in frustration of the liberal intent of Congress, be narrowly construed to restrict the recovery to damages caused by the physical instrumentality of the vessel but should also embrace damages caused by the negligence of its operators. Again in American Stevedores v. Porello, 330 U.S. 446, 67 S.Ct. 847, 91 L.Ed. 1011, notwithstanding some uncertainty in the legislative history, the court held that the recoverable damages were not limited to damages to property but included damages to persons as well.

The legislative history of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act does not militate against this conclusion. It was passed in 1916 before the statutes which now permit suits against the United States for maritime torts and for torts in general. It was devoid of the provision usually found in compensation statutes that the benefits conferred upon the employee are exclusive of any other recovery against the employer; but this omission is understandable since there was no preexisting right to sue the United States for tort. The question of a possible choice of remedies did not arise until permissive statutes, broad enough to cover government employees as well as private citizens, were enacted; and when that occurred in the case of a postal employee injured on a railroad...