United States v. State of Maryland

• Decision Date: 11 March 1965
• Docket Number: No. 18676,18677.,18676
• Citation: 349 F.2d 693
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. STATE OF MARYLAND for the Use of Mary Jane MEYER et al., Appellees. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. STATE OF MARYLAND for the Use of Vance Lewman BRADY et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

349 F.2d 693 (1965)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v.STATE OF MARYLAND for the Use of Mary Jane MEYER et al., Appellees.

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v.STATE OF MARYLAND for the Use of Vance Lewman BRADY et al., Appellees.

Nos. 18676, 18677.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued November 2, 1964.

Decided March 11, 1965.

Petition for Rehearing Denied April 21, 1965.

Mr. David L. Rose, Attorney, Department of Justice, with whom Asst. Atty. Gen., John W. Douglas, Messrs. David C. Acheson, U. S. Atty., and Morton Hollander, Attorney, Department of Justice, were on the brief, for appellant.Mr. Frank Q. Nebeker, Asst. U. S. Atty., also entered an appearance for appellant.

Mr. Richard W. Galiher, Washington, D. C., and Mr. Louis G. Davidson, Chicago, Ill., of the bar of the Supreme Court of Illinois, pro hac vice, by special leave of court, with whom Mr. William E. Stewart, Jr., Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellees.

Before FAHY, DANAHER and BURGER, Circuit Judges.

Petition for Rehearing En Banc Denied April 21, 1965.

FAHY, Circuit Judge:

In United States v. State of Maryland, 116 U.S.App.D.C. 259, 322 F.2d 1009, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 954, 84 S.Ct. 445, 11 L.Ed.2d 314(1963), we affirmed a judgment of the District Court in favor of appellees under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Ch. 753,60 Stat. 842(1946)(codified in various sections of 28 U. S.C.).A copy of the pertinent parts of the judgment is set forth in the Appendix to this opinion, from which it will be seen that it contains several individual money awards.¹

Appellees moved in the District Court to require the United States to pay interest on the judgment.The court granted the motion, ordering,

"the motion to require defendant to pay interest on judgments, in accordance with the provisions of Title 28, Section 2411(b), United States Code Annotated be and is hereby granted, and the defendant, the United States of America, be and is hereby directed to pay the judgments entered in these two cases, together with interest, which shall be computed at the rate of 4% per annum from the date of the judgments up to, but not exceeding, thirty days after the date of approval of any appropriation act providing for the payment of the judgments."

We think this order must be reversed except as to interest on the award of $175,000 to Vance Lewman Brady.

Each appellee other than Vance Lewman Brady recovered a sum of less than $100,000; and each failed to take the steps necessary in that situation to obtain prompt payment.Each is accordingly precluded from recovering interest, which is not recoverable against the United States except as authorized by statute or contract.United States v. Goltra, 312 U.S. 203, 207, 61 S.Ct. 487, 85 L.Ed. 776(1941).It is provided in 28 U.S.C. § 2411(b)(1958) that except as otherwise provided in subsection (a), which calls for interest in certain instances at the rate of six per cent per annum, interest on final judgments against the United States entered under the Federal Tort Claims Act shall be computed at the rate of four per cent per annum from the date of judgment up to but not exceeding thirty days after the date of approval of any appropriation act providing for payment of the judgment; but 31 U.S.C. § 724a(Supp. V, 1959-63)² partially overrides these provisions.It appropriates sums for the payment, not otherwise provided, of final judgments of a district court against the United States, "not in excess of $100,000 * * * in any one case," provided that as to a judgment to which Section 2411(b) applies, and which is payable from this appropriation, interest shall be paid "only from the date of the filing of the transcript thereof in the General Accounting Office to the date of the mandate of affirmance * * *."

The transcript of the judgment in this case was not filed in the General Accounting Office, so that, except as to Vance Lewman Brady, the award of interest was erroneous unless the judgment rendered is to be considered a judgment in excess of $100,000 "in any one case."Appellees contend that there is only one case for each of the deaths which occurred, see note 1, supra, with a separate judgment for each group of survivors in excess of $100,000.They point to the Wrongful Death Act of Maryland³ which requires that the "action shall be brought by and in the name of the State of Maryland for the use of the person or persons entitled to damages," the amount recovered to be divided among the parties entitled to damages, and not more than "one action shall lie for and in respect of the same subject matter of complaint."⁴

The Federal interest statute, however, is to be construed and applied according to its own purposes and meaning.The judgment is not necessarily to be construed as "in any one case" because only one action for each death was filed according to Maryland law.This requirement of Maryland has no purpose related to the liability of the United States for interest.Its purpose is related to the convenience of litigation in Maryland.

Judgment "in any one case" does not necessarily mean in one law suit without regard to the character of the judgment as it bears on the problem of interest.We should give the language a meaning, if the words will bear it, which carries out the purposes of the statute, even though this is not the literal meaning of the words when considered in isolation.United States v. Shirey, 359 U.S. 255, 260-261, 79 S.Ct. 746, 3 L.Ed.2d 789(1959);United States v. American Trucking Ass'ns., 310 U.S. 534, 543, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345(1941).The obvious purposes of the Federal statute are (1) to enable one who has a judgment not in excess of $100,000, obtained under the Tort Claims Act, to receive prompt payment without awaiting a special appropriation, and (2) to relieve the United States of the obligation of paying interest, or of a bad conscience as it were for not doing so, while the principal remains unpaid.As to the purposes as they appear from legislative history seeH.R.Rep.No.2638, 84th Cong., 2d Sess. 72(1957);and seeHarue Hayashi, 40 Comp.Gen. 307(1960);Chicago, Rock Island & Pac. R. R. v. United States, 206 F.Supp. 795(S.D.Ia.1962).These purposes are served by permitting each individual who recovers a severable and distinct amount not in excess of $100,000 to be paid under Section 724a.Each such claimant has a severable and specific award in the final judgment.Each award may therefore be considered a judgment "in any one case" as that expression is used in the statute.Each individual thus awarded no more than $100,000 could have complied with the statute by filing a transcript of the judgment; each would then have been entitled to receive payment with the interest authorized by Section 724a; and each indeed would have been paid.SeeHarue Hayashi, supra at 309.

The position of appellees is not devoid of support; for the result of our construction is that an individual who recovers $175,000 must await a special appropriation, during which period interest accumulates, while the several individuals in the same over-all case whose aggregate recoveries exceed $100,000 are paid without the further attention of Congress.Frankly, we do not have a problem with a perfectly clear solution.The solution we reach, however, better carries out the Congressional plan, and the language used lends itself well enough to that end.Moreover, there appear to be no policy considerations which outweigh those which operate in favor of the view we take.

When the District Court ordered that "Mary Jane Meyer recover of the defendant United States the sum of $85,000.00", for example, there arose a separable and final judgment under Section 724a, payable to her upon affirmance, notwithstanding that in the same document entitled "Judgment" awards were made in an aggregate amount exceeding $100,000.00.

The United States urges that as to all, including Vance Lewman Brady, interest could not be recovered in any event because neither the judgment of the District Court nor our judgment of affirmance provided for interest.We disagree with this contention.28 U.S.C. § 2411(b) explicitly provides for interest on such final judgments as are here involved if in excess of $100,000.00.The award to Vance Lewman Brady was in excess of $100,000, so Section 724a does not remove her case from the coverage of 28 U.S.C. § 2411(b).Where an Act of Congress speaks so clearly the absence of a provision for interest in the judgment itself, or in the mandate of affirmance, does not render the statute ineffective.We emphasize that we are concerned with interest after judgment, not, as in Briggs v. Pennsylvania R. R., 334 U.S. 304, 68 S.Ct. 1039, 92 L.Ed. 1403(1948), with the allowance of interest prior to judgment.Nor is In re Washington & Georgetown R. R., 140 U.S. 91, 11 S.Ct. 673, 35 L.Ed. 339(1891), controlling, since it involved no explicit statutory provision for interest after judgment.

Reversed as to Mary Jane Meyer, Paul Jeffrey Meyer, Susan Lynn Meyer, Pamela Ann Meyer, Austin F. Canfield, Jr., as ancillary administrator, Virginia Brady, and Kendall Jesse Brady, Jr. Affirmed as to Vance Lewman Brady.

APPENDIX

JUDGMENT

This cause having come on for hearing, it is this 6th day of December 1961

ORDERED THAT

Mary Jane Meyer recover of the defendant United States of America the sum of $85,000.00,

Paul Jeffrey Meyer, recover of the defendant United States of America the sum of $25,000.00,

Susan Lynn Meyer recover of the defendant United States of America the sum of $30,000.00,

Pamela Ann Meyer recover of the defendant United States of America the sum of $30,000.00; and it is further

ORDERED THAT Austin F. Canfield, Jr., Ancillary Administrator of the Estate of Paul Frank Meyer, recover of the defendant United States of America the sum of $1,000.00, and it is further

ORDERED THAT

Vance Lewman Brady recover of the defendant...