Librera v. US
| Citation | 718 F. Supp. 111 |
| Decision Date | 24 August 1989 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 84-0121-F. |
| Parties | Calvin LIBRERA, Jr., and Kathleen Librera, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
William C. Flanagan, Gary B. Liquori, Allen, Dusel, Murphy & Fennel, Springfield, Mass., for plaintiffs.
Mary Elizabeth Carmody, Asst. U.S. Atty., for defendants.
Before the Court is the defendant United States of America's ("United States") objections to United States Magistrate Michael Ponsor's Memorandum on Remand dated December 8, 1989. The plaintiff Calvin Librera ("Librera") and his wife Kathleen, also a plaintiff, have filed a brief in support of the Magistrate's decision.
A brief case history is necessary. On April 17, 1987, following a four day trial, Magistrate Ponsor concluded that both the United States and James Corliss ("Corliss"), an independent contractor, had acted negligently in failing to keep a post office sidewalk free from ice. The plaintiff, himself an independent contractor for the United States Postal Service, slipped and fell on the sidewalk, resulting in assorted injuries, primarily to his lower back. The Magistrate awarded Librera lost pay, medical costs, and past and future pain and suffering in the amount of $163,727.63; however, because the Magistrate also found that Librera's own negligence was one-third responsible for his injuries, the Magistrate reduced the final amount of the award to $109,151.82. Magistrate Ponsor also awarded Kathleen Librera $15,000 for loss of consortium.
On June 1, 1987, the Magistrate denied the United State's motion to alter or amend the judgment, and the United States appealed his decision. After reviewing the objections of the United States, this Court affirmed substantially all of the Magistrate's decision in an opinion issued October 24, 1988. However, the Court also found it necessary to remand the case to the Magistrate for a determination of the respective liabilities of the United States and Corliss, and for a reduction in the award if appropriate. In a motion filed a week later, the plaintiffs opposed the remand, arguing that under Massachusetts law, the fact that the United States had been found independently negligent entitled the plaintiffs to recover the full amount of the judgment from the United States, and not merely the percentage which could be ascribed to the government's negligence alone. This Court denied the plaintiffs' motion on the grounds that the Magistrate, as finder of fact, had not yet made a determination as to whether or not Calvin Librera's injury was indivisible, and whether or not joint and several liability existed between the United States and the independent contractor Corliss. Order of November 2, 1988 at 1-2. That conclusion in turn would hinge upon a finding by the Magistrate that the United States' negligence was a "substantial factor" in causing the plaintiff's injuries. Order of November 2, 1988, at 2, citing Delicata v. Bourlesses, 9 Mass.App. 713, 404 N.E.2d 667, 671-72 (1980). This Court essentially agreed, however, that if joint and several liability did exist between Corliss and the United States, then the United States would be responsible for the entire amount of the judgment. Id. at 2, citing Zeller v. Cantu, 395 Mass. 76, 478 N.E.2d 930, 931, 933 (1985).
On December 8, 1988, Magistrate Ponsor issued a Memorandum on Remand in which he concluded: 1) the plaintiff's injury was indivisible; 2) the United States through its employees was itself negligent; and 3) the negligence of the United States was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Memorandum on Remand at 3-4. In fact, the Magistrate went so far as to state that "the negligence of the Government employees was greater, if anything, than the negligence of Corliss." Id. at 4. The Magistrate also rejected the government's last-ditch claim that holding it fully liable for the plaintiff's injuries would have the effect of making it liable for the acts of independent contractors, a conclusion forbidden by the terms of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The Magistrate stressed that the negligence upon which the government's liability was based is not that of the independent contractor, but of the United States' own employees.
The United States does not contest the Magistrate's conclusion that the injury suffered by the plaintiff is indivisible. As the Magistrate aptly put it, "only one fall took place and all plaintiff's injuries arose from it." Memorandum on Remand of December 8, 1988, at 4.
The United States strenuously protests, however, the Magistrate's conclusion that the government's negligence was a substantial factor in the plaintiff's injury; in fact, the United States reiterates its belief that government employees were not negligent at all.
The underlying finding of fact by the Magistrate that the United States was negligent is well-harrowed ground, and the Court explicitly declines to tramp through it once more. The Magistrate, as finder of fact in this case, is charged with weighing conflicting evidence and assessing the credibility of witnesses. In doing so, he concluded that the employees of the government themselves had not exercised reasonable care in the maintenance of the sidewalk outside of the post office. Since the evidence cited by the government to support its argument that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur was misapplied is drawn almost exclusively from that portion of the record which the Magistrate chose to reject, this Court has no right absent a showing of clear error to alter his conclusion. This Court has reviewed its earlier appraisal of the Magistrate's fact-finding, and stands by its affirmation of the Magistrate's decision.
The Court also concludes that it should affirm the Magistrate's more recent ruling that the government's negligence was a "substantial factor" in causing the plaintiff's injury. The United States challenges this conclusion only indirectly, by attacking the Magistrate's original finding that the government was negligent in the first place. Nonetheless, even in the absence of specific argument by the United States, this Court finds no error in the Magistrate's determination. The Court refers specifically to those factors upon which it relied in its earlier Memorandum in upholding the Magistrate's finding of independent negligence by the Post Office, including the following:
1) Shelburne Falls Post Office employees knew of the nearby Deerfield River's propensity for causing dangerously icy conditions on cold winter mornings; 2) these employees also were aware that the rear employee entrance walkway was used each morning; 3) government employee Blakeslee observed icy conditions on the premises of the post office at 7:25 a.m. on the morning of February 14, 1983; 4) Blakeslee identified a glazed icy patch on the walk precisely where plaintiff tumbled immediately after the fall; and 5) contrary to his usual practice, Blakeslee assigned no other employee the task of periodically inspecting and resanding the walk on this day.
Memorandum and Order of October 24, 1988, at 10-11. Those facts, for which there is ample support in the record, are more than adequate to support a finding that the Government's negligence substantially contributed to the plaintiff's injury.
In its Memorandum on Remand, the United States introduced the new argument that if it is held one hundred percent responsible for the award to the plaintiff under Massachusetts joint tortfeasor doctrine, the practical effect is to make the government liable for the negligence of the independent contractor. The United States recognizes that 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) explicitly extends the government's liability to "those circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred." However, the United States nonetheless claims that the current judgment against it violates the spirit if not the letter of the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"), and in particular, 28 U.S.C. § 2671, which relieves the United States of liability for the acts of "any contractor with the United States." In support of its conclusion, the government cites two Supreme Court cases which hold that the United States may not be charged with the negligence of its independent contractors. See United States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 813-14, 96 S.Ct. 1971, 1975-76, 48 L.Ed.2d 390 (1976) and Logue v. United States, 412 U.S. 521, 526-27, 93 S.Ct. 2215, 2218-19, 37 L.Ed.2d 121 (1973).
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