United States v. Johnson

Delivered the opinion of the Court

This case presents the question whether the doctrine established in Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135 (1950), bars an action under the Federal Tort Claims Act on behalf of a service member killed during the course of an activity incident to service, where the complaint alleges negligence on the part of civilian employees of the Federal Government.

HH

Lieutenant Commander Horton Winfield Johnson was a helicopter pilot for the United States Coast Guard, stationed in Hawaii. In the early morning of January 7, 1982, Johnson’s Coast Guard station received a distress call from a boat lost in the area. Johnson and a crew of several other Coast Guard members were dispatched to search for the vessel. Inclement weather decreased the visibility, and so Johnson requested radar assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a civilian agency of the Federal Government. The FAA controllers assumed positive radar control over the helicopter. Shortly thereafter, the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain on the island of Molokai. All the crew members, including Johnson, were killed in the crash.

Respondent, Johnson’s wife, applied for and received compensation for her husband’s death pursuant to the Veterans’ Benefits Act, 72 Stat. 1118, as amended, 38 U. S. C. § 301 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. III). In addition, she filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. §§1346,2671-2680. Her complaint sought damages from the United States on the ground that the FAA flight controllers negligently caused her husband’s death. The Government filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that because Johnson was killed during the course of his military duties, respondent could not recover damages from the United States. The District Court agreed and dismissed the complaint, relying exclusively on this Court’s decision in Feres.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. 749 F. 2d 1630 (1985). It noted the language of Feres that precludes suits by service members against the Government for injuries that “arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.” 340 U. S., at 146. The court found, however, that the evolution of the doctrine since the Feres decision warranted a qualification of the original holding according to the status of the alleged tortfeasor. The court identified what it termed “the typical Feres factual paradigm” that exists when a service member alleges negligence on the part of another member of the military. 749 F. 2d, at 1537. “[W]hen the Feres factual paradigm is present, the issue is whether the injury arose out of or during the course of an activity incident to service.” Ibid. But when negligence is alleged on the part of a Federal Government employee who is not a member of the military, the court found that the propriety of a suit should be determined by examining the rationales that underlie the Feres doctrine. Although it noted that this Court has articulated numerous rationales for the doctrine, it found the effect of a suit on military discipline to be the doctrine’s primary justification.

Applying its new analysis to the facts of this case, the court found “absolutely no hint. . . that the conduct of any alleged tortfeasor even remotely connected to the military will be scrutinized if this case proceeds to trial.” 749 F. 2d, at 1539. Accordingly, it found that Feres did not bar respondent’s suit. The court acknowledged that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, “in a case strikingly similar to this one, has reached the opposite conclusion.” 749 F. 2d, at 1539 (citing Uptegrove v. United States, 600 F. 2d 1248 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1044 (1980)). It concluded, however, that “Uptegrove was wrongly decided,” 749 F. 2d, at 1539, and declined to reach the same result.

The Court of Appeals granted the Government’s suggestion for rehearing en banc. The en banc court found that this Court’s recent decision in United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S. 52 (1985), “reinforc[ed] the analysis set forth in the panel opinion,” 779 F. 2d 1492, 1493 (1986) (per curiam), particularly the “[s]pecial emphasis . . . upon military discipline and whether or not the claim being considered would require civilian courts to second-guess military decisions,” id., at 1493-1494. It concluded that the panel properly had evaluated the claim under Feres and therefore reinstated the panel opinion. Judge Johnson, joined by three other judges, strongly dissented. The dissent rejected the “Feres factual paradigm” as identified by the court, finding that because “Johnson’s injury was undoubtedly sustained incident to service, . . . under current law our decision ought to be a relatively straightforward affirmance.” Id., at 1494.

We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 811 (1986), to review the Court of Appeals’ reformulation of the Feres doctrine and to resolve the conflict among the Circuits on the issue. We now reverse.

I — I I — I

In Feres, this Court held that service members cannot bring tort suits against the Government for injuries that “arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.” 340 U. S., at 146. This Court has never deviated from this characterization of the Feres bar. Nor has Congress changed this standard in the close to 40 years since it was articulated, even though, as the Court noted in Feres, Congress “possesses a ready remedy” to alter a misinterpretation of its intent. Id., at 138. Although all of the cases decided by this Court under Feres have involved allegations of negligence on the part of members of the military, this Court has never suggested that the military status of the alleged tortfeasor is crucial to the application of the doctrine. Nor have the lower courts understood this fact to be relevant under Feres. Instead, the Feres doctrine has been applied consistently to bar all suits on behalf of service members against the Government based upon service-related injuries. We decline to modify the doctrine at this late date.

A

This Court has emphasized three broad rationales underlying the Feres decision. See Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666, 671-673 (1977), and n. 2, swpra. An examination of these reasons for the doctrine demonstrates that the status of the alleged tortfeasor does not have the critical significance ascribed to it by the Court of Appeals in this case. First, “[t]he relationship between the Government and members of its armed forces is ‘distinctively federal in character.’” Feres, 340 U. S., at 143 (quoting United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301, 305 (1947)). This federal relationship is implicated to the greatest degree when a service member is performing activities incident to his federal service. Performance of the military function in diverse parts of the country and the world entails a “[sjignifi-cant risk of accidents and injuries.” Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, supra, at 672. Where a service member is injured incident to service — that is, because of his military relationship with the Government — it “makes no sense to permit the fortuity of the situs of the alleged negligence to affect the liability of the Government to [the] serviceman.” 431 U. S., at 672. Instead, application of the underlying federal remedy that provides “simple, certain, and uniform compensation for injuries or death of those in armed services,” Feres, supra, at 144 (footnote omitted), is appropriate.

Second, the existence of these generous statutory disability and death benefits is an independent reason why the Feres doctrine bars suit for service-related injuries. In Feres, the Court observed that the primary purpose of the FTCA “was to extend a remedy to those who had been without; if it incidentally benefited those already well provided for, it appears to have been unintentional.” 340 U. S., at 140. Those injured during the course of activity incident to service not only receive benefits that “compare extremely favorably with those provided by most workmen’s compensation statutes,” id., at 145, but the recovery of benefits is “swift [and] efficient,” Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, supra, at 673, “normally requiring] no litigation,” Feres, supra, at 145. The Court in Feres found it difficult to believe that Congress would have provided such a comprehensive system of benefits while at the same time contemplating recovery for service-related injuries under the FTCA. Particularly persuasive was the fact that Congress “omitted any provision to adjust these two types of remedy to each other.” 340 U. S., at 144. Congress still has not amended the Veterans’ Benefits Act or the FTCA to make any such provision for injuries incurred during the course of activity incident to service. We thus find no reason to modify what the Court has previously found to be the law: the statutory veterans’ benefits “provid[e] an upper limit of liability for the Government as to service-connected injuries.” Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, supra, at 673. See Hatzlachh Supply Co. v. United States, 444 U. S. 460, 464 (1980) (per curiam) (“[T]he Veterans’ Benefits Act provided compensation to injured servicemen, which we understood Congress intended to be the sole remedy for service-connected injuries”).

Third, Feres and its progeny indicate that suits brought by service members against the Government for injuries incurred incident to service are barred by the Feres doctrine because they are the “type[s] of claims that, if generally permitted, would involve the judiciary in sensitive military affairs at the expense of military discipline and effectiveness.” United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S., at 59 (emphasis in original). In every respect the military is, as this Court has recognized, “a specialized society.” Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733, 743 (1974). “[T]o accomplish its mission the military must foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps.” Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U. S. 503, 507 (1986). Even if military negligence is not specifically alleged in a tort action, a suit based upon service-related activity necessarily implicates the military judgments and decisions that are inextricably intertwined with the conduct of the military mission. Moreover, military discipline involves not only obedience to orders, but more generally duty and loyalty to one’s service and to one’s country. Suits brought by service members against the Government for service-related injuries could undermine the commitment essential to effective service and thus have the potential to disrupt military discipline in the broadest sense of the word.

B

In this case, Lieutenant Commander Johnson was killed while performing a rescue mission on the high seas, a primary duty of the Coast Guard. See 14 U. S. C. §§ 2, 88(a)(1). There is no dispute that Johnson’s injury arose directly out of the rescue mission, or that the mission was an activity incident to his military service. Johnson went on the rescue mission specifically because of his military status. His wife received and is continuing to receive statutory benefits on account of his death. Because Johnson was acting pursuant to standard operating procedures of the Coast Guard, the potential that this suit could implicate military discipline is substantial. The circumstances of this case thus fall within the heart of the Feres doctrine as it consistently has been articulated.

Ill

We reaffirm the holding of Feres that “the Government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.” 340 U. S., at 146. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Respondent has received $36,690.66 in life insurance and a $3,000 death gratuity, and receives approximately $868 per month in dependency and compensatory benefits. Brief for United States 3, n. 1. The dependency and compensatory benefits normally are payable for the life of the surviving spouse and include an extra monthly sum for any surviving child of the veteran below age 18. See 38 U. S. C. §§410, 411 (1982 ed. and Supp. III); 38 CFR §3.461 (1986).

We have identified three factors that underlie the Feres doctrine:

“First, the relationship between the Government and members of its Armed Forces is ‘ “distinctively federal in character” it would make little sense to have the Government’s liability to members of the Armed Services dependent on the fortuity of where the soldier happened to be stationed at the time of the injury. Second, the Veterans’ Benefits Act establishes, as a substitute for tort liability, a statutory ‘no fault’ compensation scheme which provides generous pensions to injured servicemen, without regard to any negligence attributable to the Government. A third factor . . . [is] ‘[t]he peculiar and special relationship of the soldier to his superiors, the effects of the maintenance of such suits on discipline, and the extreme results that might obtain if suits under the Tort Claims Act were allowed for negligent orders given or negligent acts committed in the course of military duty....’” Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S. 666, 671-672 (1977) (citations omitted).

In Uptegrove, the wife of a Navy lieutenant killed while flying home on an Air Force C-141 transport brought suit against the Government under the FTCA, alleging negligence on the part of three FAA air traffic controllers. The court in Uptegrove dismissed the suit on the basis of Feres.

In addition to the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Uptegrove v. United States, 600 F. 2d 1248 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1044 (1980), specifically acknowledged by the Court of Appeals in this case, the decision conflicts in principle with the decisions of the Courts of Appeals cited in n. 8, infra.

See United States v. Brown, 348 U. S. 110, 112 (1954); United States v. Muniz, 374 U. S. 150, 159 (1963); Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, supra, at 671; Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296, 299 (1983); United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S. 52, 57 (1985).

Congress has recently considered, but not enacted, legislation that would allow service members to bring medical malpractice suits against the Government. See H. R. 1161, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985); H. R. 1942, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983).

In two places in the Feres opinion, the Court suggested that the military status of the tortfeasor might be relevant to its decision. First, the Comrt identified “[t]he common fact underlying the three cases” as being “that each claimant, while on active duty and not on furlough, sustained injury due to negligence of others in the armed forces.” 340 U. S., at 138 (emphasis added). Second, in discussing one of several grounds for the holding, the Court stated: “It would hardly be a rational plan of providing for those disabled in service by others in service to leave them dependent upon geographic considerations over which they have no control.” Id., at 143 (emphasis added). Nevertheless, the language of the opinion, viewed as a whole, is broad: “We know of no American law which ever has permitted a soldier to recover for negligence, against either his superior officers or the Government he is serving,” id., at 141 (emphasis added; footnote omitted); “ ‘To whatever extent state law may apply to govern the relations between soldiers or others in the armed forces and persons outside them or nonfederal governmental agencies, the scope, nature, legal incidents and consequences of the relation between persons in service and the Govern- merit are fundamentally derived from federal sources and governed by federal authority.’” Id., at 143-144 (quoting United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301, 305-306 (1947)) (emphasis added; citations omitted). See id., at 142 (finding relevant “the status of both the wronged and the wrongdoer”) (emphasis added).

Although one decision since Feres noted the military status of the tortfeasors, see United States v. Brown, supra, at 112, it did not rely on that fact. See 348 U. S., at 113 (“We adhere ... to the line drawn in the Feres ease between injuries that did and injuries that did not arise out of or in the course of military duty”). Moreover, it is the broad language that consistently has been repeated in recent decisions describing the Feres doctrine. See Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 299 (“Congress did not intend to subject the Government to . . . claims [for injuries suffered in service] by a member of the Armed Forces”) (emphasis added); Stencel Aero Engineering Corp. v. United States, 431 U. S., at 669 (“In Feres . . . the Court held that an on-duty serviceman who is injured due to the negligence of Government officials may not recover against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act”) (emphasis added); Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 31, n. 25 (1953) (characterizing the Feres cases as involving “injuries . . . allegedly caused by negligence of employees of the United States”) (emphasis added).

The list of cases compiled by the dissent below, 779 F. 2d 1492, 1495-1496 (1986), in which the lower courts have interpreted Feres to bar suit against the Government even though the negligence alleged was on the part of a civilian employee is worth repeating: Potts v. United States, 723 F. 2d 20 (CA6 1983) (Navy corpsman injured when struck by a broken cable from a hoist operated by civilians), cert. denied, 466 U. S. 959 (1984); Warner v. United States, 720 F. 2d 837 (CA5 1983) (off-duty Army enlisted man injured on base when motorcycle collided with shuttle bus driven by civilian Government employee); Jaffee v. United States, 663 F. 2d 1226 (CA3 1981) (serviceman injured by radiation exposure allegedly due in part to intentional tort of civilian Department of Defense employees), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 972 (1982); Lewis v. United States, 663 F. 2d 889 (CA9 1981) (Marine Corps pilot killed in crash allegedly due to negligence of Government maintenance employees), cert. denied, 457 U. S. 1133 (1982); Carter v. Cheyenne, 649 F. 2d 827 (CA10 1981) (Air Force captain killed in crash at city airport for which city brought third-party claim against FAA air traffic controllers); Woodside v. United States, 606 F. 2d 134 (CA6 1979) (Air Force officer killed in plane crash allegedly due to negligence of civilian flight instructor employed by military flight club), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 904 (1980); Uptegrove v. United States, 600 F. 2d 1248 (CA9 1979) (see n. 3, supra), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1044 (1980); Watkins v. United States, 462 F. Supp. 980 (SD Ga. 1977) (serviceman killed on base when motorcycle collided with shuttle bus driven by civilian Government employee), aff’d, 587 F. 2d 279 (CA5 1979); Hass v. United States, 518 F. 2d 1138 (CA4 1975) (suit by serviceman against civilian manager of military-owned horse stable); United States v. Lee, 400 F. 2d 558 (CA9 1968) (serviceman killed in crash of military aircraft allegedly due to FAA air traffic controller negligence), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 1053 (1969); Sheppard v. United States, 369 F. 2d 272 (CA3 1966) (same), cert. denied, 386 U. S. 982 (1967); Layne v. United States, 295 F. 2d 433 (CA7 1961) (National Guardsman killed on training flight allegedly due to negligence of civilian air traffic controllers), cert. denied, 368 U. S. 990 (1962); United Air Lines, Inc. v. Wiener, 335 F. 2d 379 (CA9) (serviceman injured in part due to alleged CAA employee negligence), cert. dismissed sub nom. United Air Lines, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 951 (1964).

Justice Scalia indicates that he would consider overruling Feres had this been requested by counsel, but in the absence of such a request he would “confine the unfairness and irrationality [of] that decision” to eases where the allegations of negligence are limited to other members of the military. Post, at 703. In arguing “unfairness” in this case, Justice Scalia assumes that had respondent been “piloting a commercial helicopter” his family might recover substantially more in damages than it now may recover under the benefit programs available for a serviceman and his family. Ibid. It hardly need be said that predicting the outcome of any damages suit — both with respect to liability and the amount of damages — is hazardous, whereas veterans’ benefits are guaranteed by law. Post, at 697. If “fairness” — in terms of pecuniary benefits — were the issue, one could respond to the dissent’s assumption by noting that had the negligent instructions that led to Johnson’s death been given by another serviceman, the consequences — under the dissent’s view — would be equally “unfair.” “Fairness” provides no more justification for the line drawn by the dissent than it does for the line upon which application of the Feres doctrine has always depended: whether the injury was “incident to service?” In sum, the dissent’s argument for changing the interpretation of a congressional statute, when Congress has failed to do so for almost 40 years, is unconvincing.

Service members receive numerous other benefits unique to their service status. For example, members of the military and their dependents are eligible for educational benefits, extensive health benefits, home-buying loan benefits, and retirement benefits after a minimum of 20 years of service. See generally Uniformed Services Almanac (L. Sharff & S. Gordon eds. 1985).

Civilian employees of the Government also may play an integral role in military activities. In this circumstance, an inquiry into the civilian activities would have the same effect on military discipline as a direct inquiry into military judgments. For example, the FAA and the United States Armed Services have an established working relationship that provides for FAA participation in numerous military activities. See FAA, United States Dept, of Transportation, Handbook 7610.4F: Special Military Operations (Jan. 21, 1981).

The Coast Guard, of course, is a military service, and an important branch of the Armed Services. 14 U. S. C. § 1.