Overseas School Teachers
| Decision Date | 26 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | B-157414 |
| Parties | OVERSEAS SCHOOL TEACHERS - BACK PAY IN EXCESS OF JUDGMENT |
| Court | Comptroller General of the United States |
Members of plaintiff-class in March v. United States, 506 F.2d 1306 (d.C. Cir. 1974), May not recover on an administrative claim for back pay in excess of $10, 000 jurisdictional limitation of district court under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2). When all aspects of the case are considered, the issue of liability for entire period has been litigated and that liability is limited to $10, 000 per claimant. Doctrine of res judicata applies where a party raises same issue here as he raised and completely litigated in the courts.
This decision is in response to an administrative claim filed on behalf of the plaintiff-class in March v. United States 506 F.2d 1306 (d.C. Cir. 1974), seeking payment of back pay allegedly due certain class members in excess of the $10, 000 jurisdictional limitation of the United States district court under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2) (1970).
The true beginning of this litigation was the passage of the defense department overseas teachers pay and personnel practices act, public law 86-91, July 17, 1959, 73 Stat. 213. That act, among other things, removed the teachers in the overseas dependent schools from the coverage of the classification act of 1949 and from the general schedule pay system. Section 5(c) of the act also established a new separate pay system specifically for the overseas teachers. The implementation of that pay system by the department of defense (DOD) was challenged in the courts, and, in crawford v. United States, 376 F.2d 266 (ct.Cl. 1967), CERT. Denied 389 U.S. 1041 (1968), the DOD procedures were upheld.
Public law 89-391, April 14, 1966, 80 Stat. 117, amended the pay setting procedure so that in its present form, 20 U.S.C. Sec 903(c) (1970), it provides that:
"The secretary of each military department shall fix the basic compensation for teachers and teaching positions in his military department at rates equal to the average of the range of rates of basic compensation for similar positions of a comparable level of duties and responsibilities in urban school jurisdictions in the United States of 100, 000 or more population."
The dod's implementation of this section was also attacked in trecosta v. United States, 194 ct.Cl. 1025 (1971). The court of claims again held that the procedure being used by the department of defense was correct.
In 1970, March was filed as a class action in the United States district court for the district of Columbia. Jurisdiction was stated to be under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2) (1970), which provides that:
Although there is no limitation on the amount that a plaintiff May recover in the court of claims, there would have been at least two additional hurdles to overcome in that court. First, the decision in trecosta was diametrically opposed to the position espoused by the March plaintiffs. Second, formal class-action procedures are not available in the court of claims. There were potentially about 23, 000 members of the class in March, which would clearly require that class action procedures be USED. In crone v. United States, 538 F.2d 875 884, 210 ct.Cl. 499, 514 (1976), the court of claims reiterated that it handled requests for class-action treatment on a case-by-case basis. These hurdles would seem to amply justify plaintiffs' decision to file March in the district court.
Under the terms of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2), the district courts of the United States have jurisdiction only to hear cases or claims "not exceeding $10, 000." In March supra, and in fox v. City of chicago, 401 F.Supp. 515 (N.D.Ill. 1975), it was held that in a class action, the claim of each plaintiff, not the total amount of the claims of all class members, cannot exceed $10, 000. There is a split of authority as to what the district court must do if a plaintiff's claim exceeds $10, 000. Perry v. United States, 308 F.Supp. 245 (d. Col. 1970) aff'd. 442 F.2d 353 (10 Cir. 1971). In perry and in wolak v. United States, 366 F.Supp. 1106 (d. Conn. 1973), among other cases, the courts held that a plaintiff whose claim might exceed $10, 000 could waive the excess and limit his recovery to that amount. In fox v. City of chicago, supra, the court held that the continued insistence that jurisdiction was proper under section 1346(a)(2) constituted a waiver of recovery of any amount over $10, 000.
The other line of authority is found in murray v. United States, 405 F.2d 1361 (d.C. Cir. 1968), in which the court dismissed a claim that exceeded $10, 000. It should be noted that murray was decided by the court of appeals for the District of Columbia, the same court that decided March. We have found no case where a district court took jurisdiction under section 1346(a)(2), over a claim in excess of $10, 000. In footnote 1 of the court of appeals decision in March, the court stated that: "no individual claim in this case exceeds $10, 000." In light of murray, which is controlling for the District of Columbia circuit, and the court of appeals' statement, we must conclude that court found that no claim of any member of the plaintiff-class exceeded $10, 000, because if any claim had been found to exceed $10, 000 the court would have been required to dismiss the suit at least as to those claims. Even if the waiver rule is applied the same result is reached, in that recovery of all amounts in excess of $10, 000 would be considered to have been waived.
In the claim filed with us on behalf of the class, counsel argues that at the time March was originally filed, no member of the class had a claim in excess of $10, 000, that the back pay due up to the time suit was filed should be considered one claim and the amounts due for subsequent years should be considered to be separate claims. This theory must fail. The judgment entered on June 30, 1975, by the district court which sets up the system for paying the...
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