Lockheed Aircraft Corp. v. United States

460 U.S. 190, 103 S. Ct. 1033, 74 L. Ed. 2d 911, 1983 U.S. LEXIS 13, 51 U.S.L.W. 4206

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: February 23, 1983
• Docket: 81-1181
• Status: Published

Opinions

Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, a federal employee may not bring a tort suit against the Government on the basis of a work-related injury, but may seek recovery from a third party. The issue here is whether such a third party may seek indemnity from the Government for its tort liability to the employee.

On April 4, 1975, a C-5A aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and manufactured by petitioner Lockheed Aircraft Corp. crashed near Saigon, South Vietnam.¹ Almost 150 people died in the crash, including Ann Nash Bottorff, a civilian employee of the United States Navy. The United States paid death benefits to Bottorff’s survivors under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U. S. C. §8101 et seq.

Thereafter Bottorff’s administrator filed suit against Lockheed, as the manufacturer of a “defective product,” in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He sought damages for Bottorff’s wrongful death and for the injuries she suffered prior to her death. Lockheed, asserting a right to indemnification under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, impleaded the United States as a third-party defendant.²

Lockheed settled the administrator’s claim and moved for summary judgment in the third-party action. The Government did not dispute that it was primarily responsible for the fatal crash, nor did it challenge the terms of the settlement. Rather the Government moved to dismiss the third-party claim on the ground that it was barred by 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c), FECA’s exclusive-liability provision:

“The liability of the United States . . . under [FECA] with respect to the injury or death of an employee is exclusive and instead of all other liability of the United States ... to the employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, and any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the injury or death . . . .”

The District Court, concluding that § 8116(c) did not bar the indemnity claim, granted summary judgment for Lockheed.

On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. Thomas v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 215 U. S. App. D. C. 27, 665 F. 2d 1330 (1981). It concluded that § 8116(c) barred Lockheed’s third-party claim against the United States. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied primarily on several decisions by other Courts of Appeals. See, e. g., Kudelka v. American Hoist & Derrick Co., 541 F. 2d 651, 658-660 (CA7 1976); Galimi v. Jetco, Inc., 514 F. 2d 949 (CA2 1975). The court recognized, however, that its holding was contrary to that reached in Wallenius Bremen G. m. b. H. v. United States, 409 F. 2d 994 (CA4 1969), cert. denied, 398 U. S. 958 (1970).³

We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 456 U. S. 913 (1982). We now reverse.

M I — l

Section 8116(c) is specific and detailed. It prohibits actions against the United States by an “employee, his legal representative, spouse, dependents, next of kin, [or] any other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States . . . because of the [employee’s] injury or death.” Lockheed is not within any of the specified categories. If § 8116(c) applies, therefore, it can only be because Lockheed is an “other person otherwise entitled to recover damages from the United States.” The Government argues that the language is broad enough to include Lockheed. We must decide if Congress intended that result.

A

FECA’s exclusive-liability provision was enacted in substantially its present form in 1949. FECA Amendments of 1949, §201, 63 Stat. 861 (enacting FECA § 7(b)) (currently codified at 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c)). It was designed to protect the Government from suits under statutes, such as the Federal Tort Claims Act, that had been enacted to waive the Government’s sovereign immunity. In enacting this provision, Congress adopted the principal compromise — the “quid pro quo” — commonly found in workers’ compensation legislation: employees are guaranteed the right to receive immediate, fixed benefits, regardless of fault and without need for litigation, but in return they lose the right to sue the Government. See H. R. Rep. No. 729, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14-15 (1949); S. Rep. No. 836, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1949). This compromise is essentially the same as that found, for example, in the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA).⁴ See 33 U. S. C. § 905(a).

In Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 597 (1963), the Court considered FECA’s exclusive-liability provision and carefully reviewed its legislative history. That case arose out of the collision between an Army dredge and a vessel owned by Weyerhaeuser. A federal employee injured in the collision recovered FECA compensation from the Government and tort damages from Weyerhaeuser. Weyer-haeuser brought suit against the United States under the Public Vessels Act, 43 Stat. 1112, 46 U. S. C. §781 et seq., seeking the damages that it could have recovered from another private shipowner. Included in its claim, under the admiralty divided damages rule, was the Government’s share of the employee’s tort recovery.

The Government challenged the inclusion of any part of the tort damages paid to the employee on the ground that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision protected the United States from such claims. In particular, the Government argued — much as it does in this case — that third parties plainly were included within the general phrase “anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages.” Brief for United States in Weyerhaeuser S.S. Co. v. United States, O. T. 1962, No. 65, pp. 5, 8-11. See 372 U. S., at 600. The Court, however, rejected this argument. It first pointed out that the statute was ambiguous. “[T]he general language upon which the Government relies follows explicit enumeration of specific categories: employees, their representatives, and their dependents. Under the traditional rule of statutory construction which counsels against giving to general words a meaning totally unrelated to the more specific terms of a statute, we think the meaning of the statutory language is far from ‘plain.’ ” Id., at 600-601. The Court then reviewed the legislative history of the exclusive-liability provision, and concluded that it had been intended to govern only the relationship “between the Government on the one hand and its employees and their representatives or dependents on the other.” Id., at 601. The Court summarized its review of the legislative history as follows: “There is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties, much less of any purpose to disturb settled doctrines of admiralty law affecting the mutual rights and liabilities of private shipowners in collision cases.” Ibid. (footnote omitted).⁵

The Weyerhaeuser Court reinforced its conclusion with a discussion of the “nearly identical” LHWCA provision. Id., at 602. The Court observed that under Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956), a shipowner was entitled to obtain indemnification from an injured longshoreman’s employer for damages that were recovered against the shipowner but were based on the employer’s negligence. Although Ryan relied on the existence of a contractual relationship between the shipowner and the employer, the same result was reached in a series of later cases where “the contractual relationship was considerably more attenuated.” 372 U. S., at 603. In Weyerhaeuser there was no contractual relationship, but there was a well-established admiralty rule that had “governed with at least equal clarity the correlative rights and duties” at issue in the case. Ibid.

B

The Court’s reasoning in Weyerhaeuser applies with equal force in the present case.⁶ The Government advances the same arguments before us now that it unsuccessfully advanced in Weyerhaeuser. To paraphrase the Weyerhaeuser Court’s conclusion, “[t]here is no evidence whatever that Congress was concerned with the rights of unrelated third parties, much less of any purpose to disturb settled doctrines of [tort] law affecting the mutual rights and liabilities of private [parties] in [indemnity] cases.” Id., at 601. Section 8116(c) was intended to govern only the rights of employees, their relatives, and people claiming through or on behalf of them.⁷ These are the only categories of parties who benefit from the “quid pro quo” compromise that FECA adopts. See Wallenius Bremen, 409 F. 2d, at 995.

The Government seeks to distinguish Weyerhaeuser, but the present situation is nearly identical. Here, as in Weyer-haeuser, a third party has been forced to pay tort damages for the death or injury of a federal employee covered by FECA, and the third party seeks to recover a portion of its payment. Here the basis for the suit against the United States is the Federal Tort Claims Act rather than the Public Vessels Act, but that difference is irrelevant. Congress intended § 8116(c) to apply to suits under both Acts without distinction. See H. R. Rep. No. 729, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1949); S. Rep. No. 836, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1949). Here Lockheed relies on substantive indemnity law,⁸ while the private shipowner in Weyerhaeuser relied on the admiralty divided damages rule, but this is the same irrelevant distinction. The Federal Tort Claims Act permits an indemnity action against the United States “in the same manner and to the same extent” that the action would lie against “a private individual under like circumstances.” 28 U. S. C. §2674; see Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666, 669-670 (1977) (citing United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543 (1951)). The Public Vessels Act permits an action to recover collision damages on essentially the same terms. To the extent that the basis for the underlying cause of action could make any difference, the indemnity theories on which Lockheed relies are as well established as the divided damages rule was in Weyerhaeuser.

C

The most relevant changes since Weyerhaeuser have been in the LHWCA Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 1251. While these changes are illuminating, they do not help the Government’s position. Under the amended LHWCA, an injured longshoreman’s employer is no longer liable to a shipowner for tort damages that the shipowner has paid the employee. See 33 U. S. C. § 905(b). Congress thus overruled the result in Ryan, supra, and abolished the shipowner’s indemnity action. But in so doing, Congress also abolished the injured employee’s seaworthiness remedy against the shipowner — a strict-liability action that the Court had recognized in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946). In other words, Congress abolished the third-party indemnity action only in conjunction with a “quid pro quo” to benefit the third parties. Here there has been no FECA amendment to abolish the third-party indemnity action recognized in Weyer-haeuser. The Government nevertheless invites us to abolish the action without the benefit of an amendment. We are requested to do this- even though Congress has provided no “quid pro quo” as it thought appropriate in the LHWCA context. We decline the invitation.

rH 1 — i

The District Court held that Lockheed had a right to indemnity under the governing substantive law, but the Court of Appeals did not rule on that question. Accordingly, we do not consider it. We adhere to the decision in Weyerhaeuser, and hold only that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision, 5 U. S. C. § 8116(c), does not directly bar a third-party indemnity action against the United States. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further consideration consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

1 The crash occurred during a mission to evacuate over 250 orphans from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon. The incident is discussed in greater detail in Schneider v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 212 U. S. App. D. C. 87, 90-91, 658 F. 2d 835, 838-839 (1981) (per curiam), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 994 (1982).

2 Lockheed also asserted other claims against the United States that are not currently before the Court.

3 In United Air Lines, Inc. v. Wiener, 335 F. 2d 379, 402-404 (CA9), cert. dism’d sub nom. United Air Lines, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 951 (1964), the court concluded that FECA’s exclusive-liability provision does not bar a third-party indemnification action against the United States. The court held, however, that the Government nevertheless was not liable to the third party. Since there was no underlying tort liability on the Government’s part toward the employee, there was no basis for indemnification.

We note that the decision whether or not to allow third-party indemnity actions is a problem common to all workers’ compensation systems. Professor Larson has described this issue as “[plerhaps the most evenly-balanced controversy in all of workers’ compensation law.” Larson, Third-Party Action Over Against Workers’ Compensation Employer, 1982 Duke L. J. 483, 484.

4 The FECA exclusive-liability provision was modeled on the analogous provisions of LHWCA and the New York Workmen’s Compensation Law. By 1949 the New York courts already had construed the New York law to permit third-party indemnity actions against the employer. See, e. g., Westchester Lighting Co. v. Westchester County Small Estates Corp., 278 N. Y. 175, 15 N. E. 2d 567 (1938); Gorham v. Arons, 76 N. Y. S. 2d 850 (Sup. Ct. N. Y. Cty. 1947); Clements v. Rockefeller, 189 Misc. 885, 70 N. Y. S. 2d 146 (Sup. Ct. N. Y. Cty. 1947).

5 Contrary to suggestions in the dissent, post, at 199, 200, 201, there is no indication that the Weyerhaeuser Court balanced FECA’s exclusive-liability provision against the divided damages rule. On the contrary, the holding in Weyerhaeuser relates simply to congressional intent. Whatever Congress might have done, it did not intend FECA’s exclusive-liability provision to override the rights of unrelated third parties — including rights asserted under the Public Vessels Act on the basis of the divided damages rule.

6 We reject the Government’s suggestion that Weyerhaeuser was wrongly decided. See Brief for United States 22. We note that in the 20 years since Weyerhaeuser was decided, Congress has not modified FECA’s exclusive-liability provision to include third parties. This is particularly significant in view of the 1966 codification of FECA, which included amendments to the new § 8116(c). See Pub. L. 89-554, 80 Stat. 542.

7 As counsel for Lockheed suggested at oral argument, a guardian ad litem for an employee’s minor dependent could be an “other person” under § 8116(c). Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-8.

8 The validity of Lockheed’s underlying substantive claim is not before us. The District Court ruled that, as a matter of substantive law, indemnity is available to Lockheed against the United States. The Court of Appeals did not find it necessary to rule on this issue.

Since the validity of the substantive indemnity claim is not before us, the LHWCA cases on which the dissent relies, post, at 200-202, are entirely irrelevant. In Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 842 U. S. 282 (1952), decided 4 years before Ryan and 11 years before Weyerhaeuser, the Court merely held that a substantive right of contribution did not exist in the circumstances of that case. The Court explicitly left open the issue whether such a right to contribution, if it were to exist, would be subject to LHWCA’s exclusive-liability provision. 342 U. S., at 286, and n. 12. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Erie Lackawanna R. Co., 406 U. S. 340 (1972) (per curiam), is nothing more than a three-sentence reaffirmation of Halcyon.

Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666 (1977), which the dissent finds “similar,” post, at 202, also offers no support to the Government’s position on this point. The issue in Stencel, again relating to the underlying substantive claim, was whether the Government’s waiver of sovereign immunity in the Federal Tort Claims Act applied to an indemnity action based on an injury to a serviceman. Relying primarily on the military nature of the action, we held that the doctrine of Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135 (1950), precluded the substantive claim without regard to any exclusive-liability provision. It is clear that the Government has waived its sovereign immunity here.