United States v. Whitcomb

• Decision Date: 18 February 1963
• Docket Number: No. 8676.,8676.
• Citation: 314 F.2d 415
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Arthur Eugene WHITCOMB, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

314 F.2d 415 (1963)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Arthur Eugene WHITCOMB, Appellee.

No. 8676.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued November 7, 1962.

Decided February 18, 1963.

Sherman L. Cohn, Attorney, Dept. of Justice (Joseph D. Guilfoyle, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Joseph D. Tydings, U. S. Atty., and Alan S. Rosenthal, Atty., Dept. of Justice, on brief), for appellant.

Melvin J. Sykes, Baltimore, Md. (Jack L. Medwedeff, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for Maryland Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Bd.

Before BRYAN and BELL, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, District Judge.

ALBERT V. BRYAN, Circuit Judge.

The Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law of Maryland^* does not provide indemnity, the District Court has ruled, for a claim held against an uninsured motorist by the United States. This determination was rested solely on an interpretation of the Act: that the Government is not an eligible claimant, because it is not within the statute's definition of a "qualified person". The appeal of the United States against this judgment must, we hold, be sustained.

The Law makes available to a "qualified person" reparations for injury or damage arising from motor vehicle accidents in Maryland when there is either (1) an unsatisfied judgment against a known tortfeasor, or (2) an established claim against an unknown tortfeasor. "Person" is defined by the Law to include "governmental bodies". § 150(i). A "qualified person" is:

"A resident of this State or the owner of a motor vehicle registered in this State or a resident of another state, territory or federal district of the United States or province of the Dominion of Canada, or foreign country, in which recourse is afforded to residents of this State, of substantially similar character to that provided for by this subtitle." § 150(g)

There is no question of the validity of the United States' demand. It is evidenced by a judgment against a known tortfeasor for damage to a motor vehicle of the Government in an accident occurring in Maryland. The present action, it is agreed, is a proper submission by the United States of its claim.

I. Conceding that the Fund Law within its own text has no definition of "resident" the appellant first urged that § 150(g) supra — defining "qualified person" — must be read in connection with the definition of "resident" in § 2(a) (44) of Article 66½ of the Maryland Annotated Code. Its contention was that as the Fund Law admittedly was enacted as an additional part of Article 66½, the Law automatically incorporates § 2(a) (44) of Article 66½ which declares that:

"(a) Definitions stated. — The following words and phrases when used in this article shall, for the purpose of this article, have the meanings respectively ascribed to them in this section, except as hereinafter specifically provided.

* * * * * *

"(44) Resident. Every person who is a legal resident of this State, and every nonresident (owner, corporation, manufacturer, dealer, used car dealer) owning, maintaining or operating place or places of business in this State and using motor vehicles intrastate in connection with such business in this State, or, any nonresident who maintains a temporary residence in this State and accepts any employment or engages in any trade, profession or occupation in this State, or any nonresident who maintains a temporary residence in this State in excess of ninety days during the registration year." Emphasis added.

This definition, concludes the United States, when carried into § 150(g) of the Fund Law demonstrates that the Government is a "qualified person": if not an actual resident of Maryland, it is at least a statutory resident because it is a "nonresident * * * owning, maintaining or operating a place * * * of business in Maryland and using motor vehicles intrastate in connection with such business * * *".

But the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Board, appellee here, replies that the definition in Article 66½, § 2(a) (44) is not applicable to the Fund Law. The District Judge agreed with the Board's reasoning: that the aims of the Fund Law are so different from those of the earlier enactment that the definition in the prior statute does not pertain to the Fund provisions. This view has been squarely vindicated, since the argument of the case here, by the decision of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in Maddy v. Jones, December 7, 1962, 230 Md. 172, 186 A.2d 482. That determination is conclusive upon us. Erie R. R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938).

II. But in our judgment the United States is an eligible claimant, for it is a "resident of this State" within the Fund Law's own definition of "qualified person". § 150(g) supra. This determination is in no wise foreclosed by the Maryland Court of Appeals' further holding in Maddy v. Jones, supra. There the Court declared that a resident within the scope of the statute meant a domiciliary of Maryland. The applicant was held ineligible because he was an individual not domiciled in the State. Here we have a governmental body, the United States — made a "person" within the Fund Law by § 150(i) — which we think is in fact and in law resident in Maryland, and also domiciled there so far as a body politic and corporate may ever be described as domiciled.

The United States as a sovereign is a resident of territorial United States, and we think it not unreasonable to hold the United States to be a resident of every State. In Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 91-93, 55 S.Ct. 50, 79 L.Ed. 211 (1934), it is stated that:

"While it cannot be said that the United States, in its corporate capacity as an artificial person, has a bodily presence in any place, it is not unreasonable to hold that in

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