eliminate the language which provides the Attorney General shall set up rules and regulations governing the procedure in these cases where heads of departments act. Could I have some elucidation on that, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. SHEA. I think that ties into the explanation of the other paragraph. The conception in the earlier bill was that the Attorney General would supervise the administrative settlement of claims, and the rule-making power was directed toward his carrying out that function. If he does not keep that function, the rule-making power would appear to be unnecessary.

Mr. BARNES. Mr. Shea, can I ask a question if they are through? They are averaging about two to three thousand claims in Congress a year on private bills; is that correct?

Mr. SHEA. That is approximately right.

Mr. BARNES. How many claims do you estimate would be handled under this bill if put into effect? Is there any report of any of the agencies as to the number of accidents that do not materialize in claims?

Mr. SHEA. Let me see if I understand you.

Mr. BARNES. I am trying to get to the cost it is going to eventually cost the Government.

In other words, we have approximately two to three thousand claims in private bills every year filed in Congress, and I assume those are only a small percentage of the claims that might have been filed. Is there any estimate by your department as to the number of claims that would be involved in this bill if put into effect?

Mr. SHEA. I think we have some estimates.

Mr. O'HARA. Of course, it would be a great increase.

Mr. MICHENER. Your estimate sounds very small in view of the announcement that very soon we are going to have several million men in the field engaged in many kinds of activities all over the world.

Mr. BARNES. I am leaving military service out. I am just taking civilian employees. Two or three thousand claims is a very small amount for a million employees. I am trying to get the potential amount of claims which might arise under this bill. How much is this going to cost our Government if this is put into effect?

Mr. SHEA. Mr. Barnes, in partial answer to your question, I may say that at least 40 percent of all private claims introduced in the last Congress would fall within the scope of this bill, and of all private tort claims in the Seventy-sixth Congress, 80 percent of those introduced and 96 percent of those passed would be brought under this bill. These are, of course, exclusive of the several thousand claims disposed of by the various Federal agencies each year under their present authorizations.

Mr. TOLAN. I take it, as I understand your bill, under the easier procedure of being able to go into a district court it will increase the number of claims?

Mr. SHEA. I suppose there may be some increase, but I do not know how that could be estimated.

Mr. TOLAN. I am thinking of the nuisance value of $50, $100, or $150 to keep the administrator from going to court where a man only has to file a suit in court; and there would be a tremendous nuisance value which would cause the various administrative agencies to settle them.

Mr. SHEA. There probably won't be very much nuisance value to the man who is settling them, because he won't have to use his budget to try them. He will refer them to the Attorney General.

Mr. TOLAN. Under H. R. 6463 if a claimant is not satisfied, he can bring suit in a district court.

Mr. SHEA. That is right.

Mr. TOLAN. Would that be tried de novo, or under the facts presented to the agency?

Mr. SHEA. It would be tried de novo. The claim placed before the administrative agency has, however, certain effects on the trial. One effect is that so long as the claim is pending before the Federal agency, no suit can be instituted until the claim is finally disposed of by the agency or until the claimant withdraws it on notice. The second is that if he makes a claim for $750 before the administrative agency and says that is the extent of his damage, then the demand he may make in the lawsuit is limited to $750, unless he can show intervening facts, such as that an injury which was originally a minor fracture has been the proximate cause of a complication, raising the claim to $7,500, or unless there is newly discovered evidence in the technical sense.

Mr. TOLAN. In other words, it is tried de novo?

Mr. SHEA. Yes; but he will be limited to the amount he claims before the Federal agency. Of course, that does not necessarily have anything to do with the manner of trial. It is a limitation on the demand for judgment.

Mr. MICHENER. Mr. Shea, is it contemplated as a separate matter that a separate bureau or agency will be set up within these separate agencies for the purpose of handling this matter?

Mr. SHEA. The terms of the bill do not indicate that that is contemplated.

Mr. MICHENER. What I am getting at is, as I recall, the terms of the bill contemplate that these claims may be adjudicated by the agency, or such person or persons in an agency as shall be designated by the agency for that particular purpose. You have gone over all of these things and thought them out. Is it contemplated that there will be set up within a specific agency another bureau or agency to deal with. claims arising within the agency?

Mr. SHEA. Oh, I should think definitely that you would have a designee or designees who would be working on this exclusively.

Mr. MICHENER. Is it contemplated that a large bureau or a bureau within will be the result of this legislation?

Mr. SHEA. It is not.

Mr. ELIOT. I can cite an instance in connection with that of a new agency which was growing and which was sizable, of which I was general counsel.

We had a few claims where the Social Security Board trucks ran into somebody. I finally simply assigned one of the attorneys, who was a man of fine background and judicial temperament to act individually as a master in those cases. It only took a small part of his time. I do not think any agency needs to set up any special bureau regardless of the agency to handle these claims.

Mr. MICHENER. If they all exercised the discretion which you did there certainly would not be any trouble.

Mr. BARNES. May I ask you a question, Mr. Michener? You have been here a long time. What has been your judgment about claims which have been weeded out where the claimants were told they did not have any basis for their claims?

The CHAIRMAN. About nine-tenths of them.

Mr. MICHENER. If you want my personal experience, I have been here 22 years; I do not think you will find I have filed to exceed 2 private claims which have come before the Claims Committee. I am just speaking about myself, but I do know of Members who have filed 15, 20, or 30 claims in a year. The fellow who only files a claim in 5 years is far more apt to receive consideration by the committee than the fellow who files 15 or 20 in a year. That is the answer to the whole thing.

Mr. O'HARA. May I answer Mr. Michener's statement? I have been here 1 year and filed two claims and he has been here 22 years and filed two claims.

One of these claims was serious.

The other claim had absolutely

no merit, and I had to tell my people that.

Mr. BARNES. Have you any idea how many claims are filed in the Claims Committee that do not reach the floor?

Mr. SHEA. There are about 2,000 a year before the Claims Committees, and about 15 percent of those are enacted.

Mr. BARNES. I mean reach the floor.

Mr. SHEA. About 40 percent reach the floor, but less than that are acted on.

Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Shea, take the Post Office Department; it has a large number of trucks and employees; the Post Office Department certainly would have to set up a competent claims agency in its Department. That work could not be administered by one person. That would be absolutely impossible.

Mr. SHEA. I can find out how they are operating at the present time.

Mr. O'HARA. For example, some of these agencies have hardly any claims.

Mr. SHEA. That is right.

Mr. O'HARA. On the other hand, where a number of cars and trucks are being driven by a department, there is certain to be accidents and subsequently, claims. You cannot just select some incompetent person to handle these claims.

Mr. SHEA. I think the answer, Mr. O'Hara and Mr. Michener, is that under the 1922 act and under the various provisions which have been made for claims up to $500, practically all the agencies now have some administrative arrangement for disposing of tort claims, because they are doing it at the present time.

(Mr. Shea submitted the following material:)

We are informed by the Post Office Department that they have a group of 6 employees who handle tort claims filed with the Department for administrative adjustment. This group is composed of 3 attorneys devoting part time to claims work, 2 stenographers on full time basis, and 1 on part time basis. This group disposes of between 4,000 and 5,000 claims per year, of which the bulk falls under the act of June 16, 1921, as amended (5 U. S. Č. sec. 392), authorizing the Postmaster General to determine claims of not more than $500 on account of damage to personal property due to operations of the Post Office Department, including claims based upon negligence of officers or employees acting within the scope of their employment. Of all the claims presented, more than 90 percent are based upon negligence of employees of the Department.

71344-42--3

The War Department has a claims division consisting of 26 people, under the direction of Captain Kidwell. These people are all rated as clerks. The group devotes about 70 percent of its time to claims arising out of negligence and the remainder to non-negligence claims. They dispose of approximately 4,000 per. year.

The Department of Agriculture has a unit consisting of 5 attorneys, 1 clerk, and 2 stenographers, all engaged in part-time work. They dispose of approximately 750 claims per year, arising principally under the 1922 act, authorizing administrative adjustment of claims for property loss or damage not in excess of $1,000, but also under the 1937 act authorizing adjustment of claims up to $500 for personal injuries or property loss or damage caused by the negligence of an employee.

I should suppose that the units or bureaus now handling the administrative adjustment of claims would be charged with consideration and disposition of claims cognizable under title II of the present bill, but there is no reason to fear that the total volume of their work would be substantially increased under normal conditions. Of approximately 2,500 private claim bills in the Seventy-sixth Congress, about 40 percent, or 1,000, would be cognizable under H. R. 6463, and about 22 percent, or 550, would be subject to administrative adjustment by the Federal agencies under title II of the bill. This amounts to hardly more than a 10 percent increase in the present volume of claims handled by the Post Office Department alone. It may be assumed that enactment of a tort claims bill will encourage the filing of some claims which are not now submitted either because of the presently limited nature of administrative adjustment or the time and expense involved in legislative action. But even on this assumption, in view of the several thousand claims per year now being handled successfully by the various agencies, it is not likely that the total volume of claims presented for administrative adjustment will, under normal conditions, be substantially augmented by this bill.

Mr. MICHENER. Here is another question I want to ask which seems to me quite important. This new bill has the definitions in title I. Now, in line 5, page 2, it states: "Employee of the Government"

The CHAIRMAN. Where are you reading from?
Mr. MICHENER [reading]:

"Employee of the Government" includes officers or employees of any Federal agency, members of the military or naval forces of the United States, and persons acting on behalf of a Federal agency in an official capacity, temporarily or permanently in the service of the United States, whether with or without compensation.

Now, the Congress sets up the Civilian Defense as an agency of the Government. Most of those people, as we understand in Congress, are not paid, or there are mighty few paid people in connection with the administration of the national and civil defense. They are without compensation and they are operating at every crossroads and every schoolhouse throughout the Nation. Would this bill require an agency, meaning a civil defense agency, to adjust such claims?

Mr. SHEA. I think this would cover air-raid wardens for instance, provided they are in the service of the United States and are acting within the scope of their official authority on behalf of a Federal agency.

Mr. MICHENER. That is what I am getting at. Suppose we set up in the city of Washington 25,000 air-raid wardens. There are liable to be some claims. That language undoubtedly means that. just want to know what we are doing.

We

Mr. SHEA. We have discussed this with Mr. Landis and have made inquiries from him. Of course, the whole business of air-raid wardens has arisen subsequent to the original drafting of this bill. We immediately made inquiries about it, and are awaiting an expression of views.

I should think that under the terms of this act, torts resulting from their activities would be covered provided they were acting within the scope of their employment, and provided they were employees of the United States.

Mr. O'HARA. Then it would cover local draft boards in connection with th ir work.

Mr. ELIOT. That apparently comes under a Senate bill which I think has been passed, which includes the definition of an employee. There a person in the protective service of the United States is engaged in the civil defense of the United States, and then it gives out the definition as a person who is paid $100 a month. That provision would virtually put some of the volunteer workers on an equivalent basis with paid workers.

Mr. MICHENER. This covers employees without compensation. For instance, I live in the Wardman Park Hotel. We have an airraid warden on every floor in the hotel. Others are under the supervision of those air wardens. Suppose he rushes you out, he pushes everybody along, and pushes some of the old ladies down the stairway. Mr. ELIOT. Can you sue an air-raid warden for false imprisonment? Mr. SHEA. No, you cannot sue for false imprisonment. That is specifically exempted from the provisions of this statute.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? I notice in title III that the Court of Claims is clothed with appellate authority. How did you arrive at that determination? That provision will clothe the Court of Claims with an absolutely new authority, will it not? The Court of Claims today has no appellate jurisdiction, as I understand it.

Mr. SHEA. That is right. But it actually operates as an appellate court because it never sits as a trial court.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I realize that it does not hear witnesses. It's province, however, is to enter original judgments on the record, rather than to pass on judgments previously entered as do appellate courts. Mr. SHEA. After the Commissioner hears the case and receives evidence, the case comes before the court on a record. The reason for appellate jurisdiction in the Court of Claims is this: In the prior bill the Court of Claims had concurrent jurisdiction with the district courts.

Mr. CELLER. You mean the district courts exercising original jurisdiction.

Mr. SHEA. That is right.

Mr. CELLER. That is a district court without a jury?

Mr. SHEA. That is right..

And it appeared to us that the court was not well geared to handle the trial of these cases as a nisi prius court. The trial of cases in the Court of Claims is before commissioners.

The district court judges have experience in the trial of tort cases. They know the State law and they have been sitting on this kind of case, which the Court of Claims has not been. So it appeared to us that the nisi prius jurisdiction should be exclusively in the district courts.

There is one other consideration; I do not know how important it is. We are getting into a field where ambulance chasing has certainly happened a good deal, and I think one has to be careful. I think there is much less chance of that if you have these tort cases scattered