Page images
PDF
EPUB

4. Public Law No. 338, Sixty-second Congress, approved August 24, 1912 (ch. 391, sec. 1, 37 Stat. 586; 5 U. S. C. sec. 208): Determination by the Secretary of War of claims for damages to and loss of private property not exceeding $1,000, due to heavy gunfire and target practice of troops for which the Government is responsible.

5. Public Law No. 182, Sixty-fifth Congress, approved July 1, 1918 (ch. 114, 40 Stat. 705; 34 U. S. C. sec. 600): Determination by the Secretary of the Navy of claims for damages to or loss of privately owned property (other than damage caused by naval vessels) not exceeding $500, for which men in the naval service or Marine Corps are responsible.

6. Section 4 of Public Law No. 18, Sixty-seventh Congress, approved June 16, 1921 (ch. 231, 42 Stat. 63), as amended by Public Law No. 456, Seventy-third Congress, approved June 22, 1934 (ch. 717, 48 Stat. 1207; 5 U. S. C. sec. 392): Determination by the Postmaster General of claims for damages to persons or property not exceeding $500, due to operations of Post Office Department, including claims based upon negligence of officers or employees acting within the scope of employment.

The present bill would not repeal or affect provisions of law authorizing administrative adjustment of tort claims against the Government irrespective of the existence of any negligent or wrongful act of an employee acting within the scope of his office or employment, or any other claims not cognizable under title II of the bill.

APPENDIX II

CRITICISMS BY CONGRESSMEN OF EXISTING PROCEDURE OF RELIEF BY PRIVATE CLAIM BILLS

As early as February 23, 1832, John Quincy Adams wrote:

There ought to be no private business before Congress. There is a great defect in our institutions by the want of a court of Exchequer or Chamber of Accounts. It is judicial business, and legislative assemblies ought to have nothing to do with it. One-half of the time of Congress is consumed by it, and there is no common rule of justice for any two of the cases decided. A deliberative assembly is the worst of all tribunals for the administration of justice.

And on December 18, 1854, Senator Brodhead of Pennsylvania, urging the creation of a special tribunal for the adjudication of certain claims, said in the Senate:

Two days of every week-one third of the time, to say nothing of the time spent by committees is set apart for the consideration of private bills and reports, and yet not much more than half are acted upon; and yet the people complain that our sessions are too long. Want of time leads to improper legislation, and often to great injustice. Those who have honest claims are postponed for years. Justice is cheated by long delay; and yet a man who retains money belonging to the Government, is treated as a felon, and prosecuted in the criminal courts. The pressure of business of a private character prevents us from considering great questions in a way becoming statesmen representing this great people, and this extended empire. Our time is too valuable to be occupied in discussing the merits or demerits of a private bill. Frequently we dispute about the facts of a case presented in an ex parte way, the truth of which could be better ascertained by a tribunal differently constituted. Besides, we are run down by private claimants, and their agents or attorneys; and private claims are either passed or pressed into the appropriation bills the last nights of our sessions, contrary to the rules of the Senate, and injurious to the character of Congress.

Congressman Burton L. French, in the House of Representatives, made the following remarks on January 27, 1919 (57 Congressional Record, 2179):

* * * Each of the claims referred to above has been recommended favorably by the department in which it arose, each has been reported by a committee in the House or Senate from one to three or four different times. One of them has passed both House and Senate in different Congresses. No lack of diligence has existed on the part of the claimant or on the part of the Member of Congress in prosecuting the claims. Yet the claims are still unpaid. In one instance the claim is 10 years old. They are all on the calendar of the House today, the first one having been on the calendar since June 4, 1918. We simply have not had time to consider these small items in the stress of big matters. If a private individual were involved instead of the Government we would say he did not have time to be honest and pay his just debts. Let us not say that of our Government. Let us say, rather that we are working under a most stupid system in the matter of claims of this character, and let us see if we cannot work out a better system. The claims above referred to involve amounts ranging from $40 to $750. Why, in any community in the country a court would direct a trustee or administrator of an estate to pay a claim that was as well authenticated and not contested by a living soul. Or if the claim were in dispute between neighbors, it would be tried before a justice of the peace in my State or in the district court. Yet here we say that since the Government is involved we shall ask 435 busy Representatives and 96 busy Senators to pass upon each claim. We ask, first of all, that busy

committees of some 17 or 19 members shall consider each claim, and then after they have reported unanimously we ask that the claim be put on the calendars of the House or Senate, that it then be considered, if it ever can be reached, and then, if passed, that it run the same gauntlet in the other chamber, and then go to the President for his approval. * * * And, gentlemen, it has gotten to the point that, with the pressure of tremendously important business, we do not have time to take up the calendar for the consideration of claims * * *

The House Committee on Claims, favorably reporting S. 1912, a Federal tort-claims bill, on March 26, 1926, stated (H. Rept. No. 667, 69th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1-3):

The purpose of the bill is to relieve Congress from an intolerable situation which exists in the matter of adjudication of claims. The machinery heretofore devised or used in Congress, having completely broken down, is no longer a medium of justice or equity toward our citizens.

[blocks in formation]

During the last Congress (Sixty-eighth) over 2,000 claims bills were introduced in Congress, and while the Committee on Claims held more meetings than in any previous Congress, only 250 of such bills became law, the largest number, however, in the history of the committee. During the last Congress 356 tort claims were presented to the House and only a small fraction of these became law. Membership on the Committee on Claims has become a nearly intolerable burden, not only because of the number of claims submitted but because of the realization that careful judicial consideration of the claims is for the most part impossible.

[blocks in formation]

* *

*

*

The bill will go far toward relieving the Claims Committee of Congress, as well as the two Houses of Congress, from attempting to pass upon the merits of most tort claims without the instrumentalities usually regarded as essential to the safe and orderly ascertainment of facts.

Even with the enactment of this legislation the Claims Committee of the House and Senate would have more work than they possibly could handle during any one Congress.

The greatest dissatisfaction and the severest criticism of our Government in the matter of claims is the lack of a forum to which a claim may be taken as a matter of right, as contrasted with the necessity for making supplication to the favor of any governmental agency. Under the existing practice, there is lacking uniformity of action from one Congress to another. Discrimination among applicants for relief thereby results. A claim may appeal to the favorable consideration of one Congress, and the claim may be paid, while a precisely similar claim may be rejected by a succeeding Congress. It is in the nature of things impossible that legislative relief should be the same in different cases, presented at different times, and considered by committees of different membership, and by Houses of Congress entertaining at different times views wholly at variance upon many claims subjects. The present bill will end these difficulties as to most tort claims just as former legislation has ended them as to most contract claims.

The supplementary report of Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York in connection with the same bill stated in part (p. 13):

The Committee on Claims to which all private relief bills are referred, is a part of a very wretched, cumbersome, and unsatisfactory system of affording remedy to those persons possessed of claims against the Government.

If an innocent child is run down by a mail truck and is crippled for life with an amputated leg, as a result of the negligence of the driver, then surely the sovereignty, the Government, through its truck driver has really done a grievous

wrong.

In the case of a private employee suit may be instituted in a court and damages recovered. There is no such remedy against the Government. It can do no wrong. This legal fiction persists as a relic of a bygone age. The child's father must get some Congressman or Senator to introduce a bill and have the Committee on Claims of either House pass upon and refer it to the House or the Senate.

Myriads of such private claim bills are annually before the Committee on Claims. They date back years and years. This committee could sit for a

century and would still be behind in its work. The committee meets once a week on a Friday and each member of the committee reports one, and at most two, bills which he has under consideration. The committee then takes favorable or unfavorable action.

If favorable, the bill is reported to the House and is placed upon the Private Calendar. The Private Calendar is usually taken up during night sessions and there are very few of these night sessions. Under a very hackneyed rule, one objecting Member of the House can strike the bill off the calendar and he need give no reason therefor. He may not like the Member who introduced the bill because he wears a red necktie. His objection may be most fanciful and capricious. It is readily discernible that under such a system little or no justice can be done to the thousands of claims that await adjustment.

Furthermore, this busy Committee on Claims has no facilities, nor have the members time or inclination to pass upon questions of negligence and contributory negligence, to sift evidence, and determine a host of matters which only a court and jury or a specially devised body like the Federal Tort Claims Commission set up by this bill can adequately consider.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to enlist the sympathy, if not the interest, of Members of Congress from, say, the far West or the South in the case of a man of my district whose arm is crushed in an explosion in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It is just as difficult for me to become anxious about the case of a woman in Portland, Oreg., who was injured by the negligence of an elevator operator in a Government building.

Only the passage of this bill can remedy this intolerable situation.

Congressman Charles L. Underhill, of Massachusetts, speaking in the House of Representatives on April 15, 1926 concerning the Federal tort-claims bill (S. 1912), said (67 Congressional Record 7526):

In spite of all of this legislation, the number of damage claims before the Committee on Claims has increased this year, and it is a physical and mental impossibility to consider more than a very small proportion of them.

[blocks in formation]

You gentlemen who were here yesterday had a recent illustration of the futility of bringing such matters before this body. We lost an entire afternoon yesterday on a bill that never should have been brought before this body. My mind goes back only a year or two when we wasted another day on this same bill, and my mind also goes back when members of two committees wasted considerable time in considering this matter. So you can see how ridiculous it is that we should continue this method of settling these complicated questions, which should really go to a court and be adjudicated there.

[blocks in formation]

Today there is nothing adequate, scientific, or equitable relative to tort claims against the Government. It is a tremendous burden and expense to Congress in time and labor and embarrassment to individual Congressmen in their inability to get favorable action. Justice now awaits upon political considerations or the popularity of a Congressman or the influence of a Senator.

[blocks in formation]

Today's calendar carries 150 claims reported on favorably by the committee. Although the committee has been working faithfully since the convening of Congress, and it is now near the close of the session, only 3 bills reported by the committee have been acted upon. This is in no way the fault of the committee or the managers of the House, but because in the pressure of great public business it is no wonder that the sufferings of the individual citizen should go practically unnoticed. Congress is not the place to bring these claims. Sixteen busy Congressmen have devoted hours, days, and weeks and months to investigating these 150 claims favorably reported, and as many others that have been adversely acted upon and do not appear upon the calendar. These 150 claims have been reported favorably and unanimously by the committee. They must now have the unanimous consent of every Member of the House before they can be considered, and they must then follow practically the same procedure in another body. I have almost forgotten the details of bills which I examined and investigated in December and January, and other members of the committee find themselves in the same situation. All of their labors of months can be overturned or nullified by the whim, pique, or conscientious objection of an individual Member of the House.

The Federal Government is daily directing itself more and more into the affairs of the individual. Therefore the chances of injury because of carelessness of Government employees or because of unavoidable accident becomes greater all the time. The most important and legitimate function of the Government is the protection of the persons and property of its people. It provides such protection to the people one from the other, but with reference to itself neglects its most sacred duty. The Government which demands loyalty from its subjects should not deny justice to them. It may cost a little more money than the present system, but the Government will be repaid 10 times over in loyalty, appreciation, and confidence of the people.

[blocks in formation]

The power vested in the chairman of the Committee on Claims is tremendous and absolutely wrong. I can either refuse arbitrarily to consider your claim or I can take up each and every one of your claims to suit my convenience. Is it right to give that power to one Member of Congress? I claim that it is not right to give him that power or responsibility.

[blocks in formation]

The Committee on Claims this year has worked like a pup at a root, and each member at every meeting has been assigned a handful of claims and through the week, perhaps into the small hours of the morning, has studied them and the next Friday has come to our meeting and made a report. He may have a half dozen reports to make, but we can hear but one report at a time from that man, and he keeps these other five reports in his possession until he gets time to present them to the committee. That is all wrong.

[blocks in formation]

I have one case that has passed five different Congresses, one branch or the other, and has failed of passage in both branches the same year, not because it did not have justification but because it was too late; it got caught in the jam; it could not get through; and these claimants have been waiting all of these years for relief for the payment of a debt which the United States owes them. Congress has agreed that it is a just claim, and yet it has not become a law. I have other bills here that have come down to us from the Senate. I might present those to you and show their inconsistency, show how one man was given for an identical claim a mere pittance and another was given several thousand dollars. That is not right. We should take these matters where they belong, before a proper court or board.

The House Committee on Claims, favorably reporting H. R. 17168 on February 20, 1931, a bill patterned after H. R. 9285 which was passed by Congress but vetoed by the President, said:

There is now no general law providing for the determination and adjudication of tort claims against the United States by the courts or otherwise. In consequence, the Congress and its Claims Committees are burdened with numerous private bills for the payment of claims for loss or damage to property and for personal injury or death caused by negligent acts of omission or commission of officers and employees of the United States and a considerable part of the time of Congress is consumed in the consideration of such of the bills as are favorably reported by the respective committees. The burden on Congress and the injustice to claimants, because of the lack of facilities for proper and adequate investigation of these claims, has become so great that provision should be made for the adequate and full investigation and adjudication of claims of this character.

[blocks in formation]

At each session of Congress numerous private bills are introduced for the relief of persons for property loss and personal injury or death as a result of the negligence of Government officers and employees acting within the scope of their office or employment, and it is impossible for the Claims Committees to consider and act upon all of these bills and, with respect to such bills as the committee is able to consider, it does not have sufficient time nor facilities for an adequate investigation, consideration, and determination of the merits or demerits of the claim.

[blocks in formation]

It may be said, therefore, that Congress has recognized the general responsibility of the Government within maximum amounts for the negligence of officers and employees of the United States, but the machinery for determining that liability is defective and results in overburdening the Claims Committees of

« PreviousContinue »