United States v. Spelar/Opinion of the Court

The Federal Tort Claims Act is inapplicable by its terms to 'any claim arising in a foreign country.' The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that this provision does not bar suit against the Government for an allegedly wrongful death occurring at a Newfoundland air base under long-term lease to the United States. We are hwer asked to review that decision.

Flight engineer Mark Spelar, an employee of American Overseas Airlines, was killed on October 3, 1946, in a take-off crash at Harmon Field, Newfoundland. This airbase is one of the areas leased for ninety-nine years by Great Britain to the United States pursuant to the same executive agreement and leases discussed at length in Vermilya-Brown Co., Inc., v. Connell, 335 U.S. 377, 69 S.Ct. 140. Spelar's administratrix, respondent here, initiated this action against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York, the district where she resides. She alleges that the fatal accident was caused by the Government's negligent operation of Harmon Field. The local law which underlies her cause of action is Newfoundland's wrongful death statute authorizing the executor or administrator to bring suit for death arising from negligence. Upon the Government's motion, the District Court held the claim to be one 'arising in a foreign country,' and dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals reversed. Our decision in Vermilya-Brown that the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., applies to such leased military bases was deemed 'persuasive, if not well-nigh conclusive' of the issue here. Because of this broad interpretation put upon our opinion in Vermilya-Brown, and because the decision substantially affects the area of private suit against the Government, we granted certiorari, 336 U.S. 950, 69 S.Ct. 884.

We are of the opinion that the court below has erred. Sufficient basis for our conclusion lies in the express words of the statute. We know of no more accurate phrase in common English usage than 'foreign country' to denote territory subject to the sovereignty of another nation. By the exclusion of 'claims arising in a foreign country,' the coverage of the Federal Tort Claims Act was geared to the sovereignty of the United States. We repeat what was said in Vermilya-Brown, 335 U.S. at page 380, 69 S.Ct. page 142. 'The arrangements under which the leased bases were acquired from Great Britain did not and were not intended to transfer sovereignty over the leased areas from Great Britain to the United States.' Harmon Field, where this claim 'arose,' remained subject to the sovereignty of Great Britain and lay within a 'foreign country.' The claim must be barred.

If the words of the statute were not enough, however, to sustain our result, we think the legislative history behind this provision concludes all doubt. The Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946 was the product of some twenty-eight years of congressional drafting and redrafting, amendment and counter-amendment. The draft being considered in 1942 by the House Committee on the Judiciary exempted all claims 'arising in a foreign country in behalf of an alien.' At the suggestion of the Attorney General, the last five words were excised in a revised version of the bill, so that the exemption provision assumed the form which was ultimately enacted into law. The superseded draft had made the waiver of the Government's traditional immunity turn upon the fortuitous circumstance of the injured party's citizenship. The amended version identified the coverage of the Act with the scope of United States sovereignty. The record of the Hearings tells us why. We quote the pertinent colloquy between Assistant Attorney General Francis M. Shea, who explained the Attorney General's revised version of the bill to the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Congressman Robsion of that committee.

'Mr. Shea. * *  * Claims arising in a foreign country have been exempted from this bill, H.R. 6463, whether or not the claimant is an alien. Since liability is to be determined by the law of the situs of the wrongful act or omission it is wise to restrict the bill to claims arising in this country. This seems desirable because the law of the particular State is being applied. Otherwise, it will lead I think to a good deal of difficulty.

'Mr. Robsion. You mean by that any representative of the United States who committed a tort in England or some other country could not be reached under this?

'Mr. Shea. That is right. That would have to come to the Committee on Claims in Congress.'

In brief, though Congress was ready to lay aside a great portion of the sovereign's ancient and unquestioned immunity from suit, it was unwilling to subject the United States to liabilities depending upon the laws of a foreign power. The legislative will must be respected. The present suit, premised entirely upon Newfoundland's law, may not be asserted against the United States in contravention of that will.

To the extent that Vermilya-Brown Co., Inc., v. Connell has any application to the case at bar, it stands as authority for our result here, for it postulates that the executive agreement and leases effected no transfer of sovereignty with respect to the military bases concerned. For the rest, we there held no more than that the word 'possessions' does not necessarily imply sovereignty, and concluded as a matter of interpretation of the legislative history of the Fair Labor Standards Act that the leased bases, not in existence at the time the Act was passed, were to be included as 'possessions' in the sense in which that word was used in that statute. The statutory language and the legislative record relating to the ambit of the Federal Tort Claims Act differ entirely from those pertinent to the Fair Labor Standards Act; and since the bases had been leased to the United States prior to the enactment of the statute here involved, the Vermilya-Brown problem of determining what Congress would have done when faced with a new situation does not exist at all in the present case.

In Foley Bros. v. Filardo, we had occasion to refer to the 'canon of construction which teaches that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States * *  * .' That presumption, far from being overcome here, is doubly fortified by the language of this statute and the legislative purpose underlying it.

The decision must be reversed.

Reversed.

Mr. Justie DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.