Timoni v. United States

• Decision Date: 13 June 1969
• Docket Number: No. 21896.,21896.
• Parties: Juanito TIMONI, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

135 US App. DC 407, 419 F.2d 294 (1969)

Juanito TIMONI, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 21896.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued January 8, 1969.

Decided June 13, 1969.

Mr. Robert L. Pillote, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Henry F. Lerch, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. David V. Seaman, Attorney, Department of Justice, with whom Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward L. Weisl, Jr., at the time the brief was filed, and Messrs. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty., at the time the brief was filed, and Alan S. Rosenthal, Attorney, Department of Justice, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and BURGER and ROBINSON, Circuit Judges.

SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from a judgment in an action wherein appellant, a national and resident of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, sought benefits under the National Service Life Insurance Act of 1940.¹ Julio T. Timoni served in the Philippine Army during World War II² under circumstances affording him gratuitous, or automatic, life insurance coverage as provided by the Act,³ and died while that insurance was in force. Appellant, claiming as the serviceman's son⁴ and principal beneficiary,⁵ submitted to the Veterans' Administration⁶ a request for payment which was ultimately denied⁷ and thereafter filed suit in the District Court.⁸ The Government moved for dismissal on the ground, inter alia, that it appeared from the face of the complaint that the action came too late.⁹ The court, accepting this view, granted the motion and dismissed the action.¹⁰ We reverse that ruling and remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings.¹¹

I

During World War II, gratuitous life insurance was provided statutorily, without need for application or charge for premiums, for certain servicemen who, because of the precipitance of the war or the demands of the service, lacked normal opportunities to contract with the Government for life insurance protection.¹² Claims for benefits were required to be submitted to the Veterans' Administration for administrative adjudication, and a denial of the claim was made a condition precedent to suit.¹³ The period within which a claim could be filed with the Administration was fixed at seven years,¹⁴ with the proviso "that persons shown by evidence satisfactory to the Administrator to have been mentally or legally incompetent at the time the right to apply for * * * death benefits expires, may make such application at any time within one year after the removal of such disability."¹⁵

Limitation of actions on claims related to National Service Life Insurance is likewise a matter of federal law.¹⁶ The general statutory limitation is "six years after the right accrued for which the claim is made,"¹⁷ and it is "deemed that the right accrued on the happening of the contingency on which the claim is founded."¹⁸ However, the statute continues, "the limitation of six years is suspended for the period elapsing between the filing in the Veterans' Administration of the claim sued upon¹⁹ and the denial of such claim: Provided, That in any case in which a claim is timely filed the claimant shall have not less than ninety days from the date of mailing of notice of denial within which to file suit."²⁰ And importantly to this litigation, the statute further specifies that "infants, insane persons, or persons under other legal disability, or persons rated as incompetent or insane by the Veterans' Administration shall have three years in which to bring suit after the removal of their disabilities."²¹

Julio T. Timoni, the insured, died on September 20, 1942. From appellant's allegation that he was born on April 25, 1942,²² it follows that he attained majority on April 25, 1963. His claim for benefits, he says, was filed with the Veterans' Administration on March 30, 1964,²³ within a year after he reached the age of 21, and was denied on March 21, 1966.²⁴ The action in the District Court was filed on September 6, 1967, slightly more than three years and four months after appellant reached that age.

Appellant maintains that Congress intended that the three-year limitation should be tolled while a claim is under consideration by the Veterans' Administration. Thus, he urges, by eliminating from the computation the nearly two years during which his claim was pending before the Administration, the elapsed time since his 21st birthday was only about a year. The Government, on the other hand, contends that the statute permits but three periods for bringing suit: (1) six years from the date of the insured's death, (2) 90 days from the date of administrative denial of a claim, and (3) in the case of a minor, three years from the date he reaches majority. The Government argues further that the three-year period is not suspended during the pendency of the claim before the Veterans' Administration. These are the conflicting contentions we investigate on this appeal.²⁵

II

It is evident that appellant's action in the District Court came well outside the general six-year limitation. That period commenced when "the right accrued for which the claim is made,"²⁶ and by statute "the right accrued on the happening of the contingency on which the claim is founded."²⁷ These specifications have been uniformly construed to mean that the right to sue for gratuitous National Service Life Insurance arises upon the death of the insured serviceman.²⁸ Even with the addition of the time during which administrative consideration of appellant's claim extended, his suit can derive nothing from the six-year provision.

Nor are we able to accept the Government's suggestion that an action instituted by appellant within 90 days after administrative rejection of his claim would have met the language of the statute.²⁹ The 90-day stipulation made its appearance in federal legislation in 1936³⁰ as a proviso to the suspension of "the limitation of six years"³¹ for the duration of the administrative proceeding, and that character it has retained until today.³² The courts have recognized that its purpose is to protect claimants who present their claims to the Veterans' Administration at a point so near the close of six years as to leave the period remaining after administrative denial so short as to jeopardize a timely filing in court.³³ The congressional solution for such situations was a minimum 90-day period for suit after administrative denial, and both in language and aim the 90-day period is associated only with the general six-year limitation. So far as the terms of the Act are concerned, that period has nothing to do with the three-year saving provision.³⁴

The Government's position on the latter provision is bottomed on the literal language of the statute. The term of administrative pendency is expressly excluded from the general six-year period³⁵ but, the Government points out, the three-year saving provision contains no comparable exclusion.³⁶ Therefore, the argument goes, the three-year period begins to run upon the minor claimant's attainment of majority and continues unabatedly until expiration. This is so, says the Government, because no other result is explicated by the statute, and the statute, it adds, should be strictly construed.

We are persuaded, however, that our approach to the problem at hand must differ from the technique utilized by the Government. "The basic question to be answered in determining whether, under a given set of facts, a statute of limitations is to be tolled, is one `of legislative intent whether the right shall be enforceable * * * after the prescribed time'"³⁷ — "the basic inquiry is whether congressional purpose is effectuated by tolling the statute of limitations in given circumstances."³⁸ And "in order to determine congressional intent, we must examine the purposes and policies underlying the limitation provision, the Act itself, and the remedial scheme developed for the enforcement of rights given by the Act."³⁹ We have searched diligently into the legislative history of the time limitations specified in the Act, and we find it inconclusive on the issue before us. Our task in this case, then, is to penetrate beneath the face of the statute to ascertain whether a tolling of the three-year period during the administrative proceeding, "effectuates the basic congressional purposes in enacting this humane and remedial Act, as well as those policies embodied in the Act's limitation provision * * *."⁴⁰

III

In embarking upon this quest, we must, of course, consider and attach due significance to the language Congress chose to use, for the most facile vehicle of expression remains the written word. But statutory words may or may not serve that function well; words alone cannot always be depended upon to convey objectives accurately. The Supreme Court has "repeatedly warned against the dangers of an approach to statutory construction which confines itself to the bare words of a statute, * * * for `literalness may strangle meaning.'"⁴¹ This is particularly so where, as here, it is an implication from what is written, rather than an explicit command, that supposedly furnishes the guide for judicial action. As we conceive our mission, it is to probe deeply in an effort to determine whether the words really mean what at best they only weakly appear to say.

Nor can we accept the Government's suggestion that an acceptable assessment of legislative purpose can be made by the simple expedient of measuring the statute by a canon of strict construction. Congress may, of course, specify the conditions upon which sovereign immunity is waived, and within constitutional bounds may grant or withhold the right of suit against the Government on terms according its view of the public weal.⁴² We realize, too, that every class of litigation permitted against the Government derogates just to that extent from its general immunity, a circumstance having some...