Petitioner brought a suit in admiralty in a Federal District
Court against the United States to recover under a war risk policy
issued under the War Risk Insurance Act of 1940, as amended, for
the loss of a ship by enemy action, but the case had not been
reached for trial when that Act was repealed by the Joint
Resolution of July 25, 1947.
Held: the District Court was not deprived of
jurisdiction, since existing rights and remedies were preserved by
the General Savings Statute, R.S. § 13, now 1 U.S.C. § 109. Pp.
344 U. S.
386-391.
198 F.2d 182 reversed.
In a suit in admiralty against the United States, the District
Court entered a final decree for the libellant. 98 F. Supp. 514.
The Court of Appeals reversed. 198 F.2d 182. This Court granted
certiorari. 344 U.S. 883.
Reversed, p.
344 U. S.
391.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit in admiralty against the United States, in which
the libellant, petitioner here, sought to recover for its loss of
the
M.V. Dona Aurora, which was sunk
Page 344 U. S. 387
by enemy action on December 25, 1942. The basis of the libel was
a war risk policy issued by the War Shipping Administration under
the War Risk Insurance Act of June 29, 1940, 54 Stat. 689, 690, as
amended, 46 U.S.C. § 1128d. The libel was filed on December 22,
1944. On July 25, 1947, Congress passed a Joint Resolution putting
an end to a large body of war powers. Among the hundred-dd
statutory provisions thus repealed was the War Risk Insurance Act.
61 Stat. 449, 450. On October 4, 1948, determination of damages in
advance of trial was referred to a Commissioner; his report was
filed on March 23, 1950; it was confirmed (subject to some
exceptions) on July 27, 1950, 92 F. Supp. 243; the case was reached
for trial on March 6, 1951. The Government for the first time then
raised the jurisdictional issue on which this case turns here,
namely, whether the District Court had, as of July 25, 1947, been
deprived of jurisdiction to retain this suit by the Joint
Resolution.
The District Court rejected the Government's contention, holding
that § 13 of the Revised Statutes, as amended,
* saved the
libellant's cause of action from being extinguished by the Joint
Resolution of July 25, 1947. The court properly called attention to
the fact that § 13, originally § 4 of the Act of February 25, 1871,
16 Stat.
Page 344 U. S. 388
431, 432, was reenacted, as amended, 58 Stat. 118, as 1
U.S.C.(Supp. I) § 109, 61 Stat. 633, 635, after passage of the
Joint Resolution, to-wit, on July 30, 1947. 98 F. Supp. 514.
However, the Government's view prevailed in the Court of Appeals.
That court held that "the district court on July 25, 1947, lost its
power to deal further with the litigation." 198 F.2d 182, 186. The
Government recognized the importance of this ruling, and we brought
the case here, limiting our grant of certiorari to the question of
the jurisdiction of the District Court. 344 U.S. 883.
The precise contention which the Government made in the Court of
Appeals, and which prevailed there, goes a long way toward
disposing of itself. The Government did not contend that its
liability to the petitioner came to an end with the Joint
Resolution's repeal of the War Risk Insurance Act. Apart from R.S.
§ 13, the Constitution precludes extinction of the Government's
liability.
Lynch v. United States, 292 U.
S. 571. The Government realized that its liability under
the War Risk Insurance Act survived the Joint Resolution, but
claimed that the mode provided by the Act for its enforcement did
not. In this Court, the Government receded even from that position.
It here took the academic position of giving the arguments pro and
con, of stating the reasons why R.S. § 13, the General Savings
Statute, now 1 U.S.C.(Supp.I) § 109, should be held to govern this
situation, and also the reasons why it should be held inapplicable.
We find the latter considerations more subtle than persuasive, and
conclude that the arguments urged in support of the continuing
jurisdiction of district courts to hear causes of action which
arose under the War Risk Insurance Act prior to its repeal must
prevail.
In dealing with the present problem, it is idle to thresh over
the old disputation as to when the Government is, and when the
Government is not, bound by a statute unrestricted
Page 344 U. S. 389
in its terms. R.S. § 13, as reenacted, lays down a general rule
regarding the implications for existing rights of the repeal of the
law which created them. It embodies a principle of fair dealing.
When the Government has entered upon a conventional commercial
endeavor, such as the insurance business, it as much offends
standards of fairness for it to violate the principle of R.S. § 13
as for private enterprise to do so.
This brings us to the crux of the contention which prevailed
below, namely, that, while the Government's obligation as an
insurer, while came into being with the sinking of the
Dona
Aurora on December 25, 1942, survived the repeal of the War
Risk Insurance Act by the Joint Resolution of 1947, the "liability"
could be enforced only in the Court of Claims, not in the District
Court. This conclusion is no more substantial than the tenuous bits
of legal reasoning of which it is compounded.
By the General Savings Statute Congress did not merely save from
extinction a liability incurred under the repealed statute; it
saved the statute itself:
"and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force
for the purpose of sustaining any proper action . . . for the
enforcement of such . . . liability."
We see no reason why a careful provision of Congress, keeping a
repealed statute alive for a precise purpose, should not be
respected when doing so will attain exactly that purpose.
This case demonstrates the concrete, dollars-nd-ents importance
of saving the statute, and not merely the liability. Indeed, in
this case, the liability under the statute is not wholly saved
unless that portion of the statute which gives the District Court
jurisdiction also survives. As the Government fairly points out, to
deny petitioner the opportunity to enforce its right in admiralty
and
Page 344 U. S. 390
to send it to the Court of Claims instead is to diminish
substantially the recoverable amount, since, in a district court
sitting in admiralty, interest accrues from the time of filing
suit, 46 U.S.C. § 745, while, in the Court of Claims, interest does
not begin to run until the entry of judgment. 28 U.S.C. (Supp. IV)
§ 2516.
For the Government to acknowledge the liability but to deny the
full extent of its enforceability recalls what was said in
The
Western Maid, 257 U. S. 419,
257 U. S. 433:
"Legal obligations that exist but cannot be enforced are ghosts
that are seen in the law, but that are elusive to the grasp."
The Government rightly points to the difference between the
repeal of statutes solely jurisdictional in their scope and the
repeal of statutes which create rights and also prescribe how the
rights are to be vindicated. In the latter statutes, "substantive"
and "procedural" are not disparate categories; they are fused
components of the expression of a policy. When the very purpose of
Congress is to take away jurisdiction, of course, it does not
survive, even as to pending suits, unless expressly reserved.
Ex parte
McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, is the historic illustration
of such a withdrawal of jurisdiction, of which less famous but
equally clear examples are
Hallowell v. Commons,
239 U. S. 506, and
Bruner v. United States, 343 U. S. 112. If
the aim is to destroy a tribunal or to take away cases from it,
there is no basis for finding saving exceptions unless they are
made explicit. But where the object of Congress was to destroy
rights in the future while saving those which have accrued, to
strike down enforcing provisions that have special relation to the
accrued right, and, as such, are part and parcel of it, is to
mutilate that right, and hence to defeat, rather than further, the
legislative purpose. The Government acknowledges that there were
special considerations, apart from the matter of interest, for
giving the insured under
Page 344 U. S. 391
the War Risk Insurance Act access to the district courts, rather
than relegating him to the Court of Claims. In repealing the War
Risk Insurance Act, among numerous other statutes, Congress was
concerned not with jurisdiction, not with the undesirability of the
district courts and the suitability of the Court of Claims as a
forum for suits under that Act. It was concerned with terminating
war powers after the "shooting war" had terminated.
While the Government took a neutral position in this Court on
the survival of the District Court's jurisdiction under the War
Risk Insurance Act, it emphatically urged us to hold that, in any
event, the repeal of that Act did not extinguish the District
Court's jurisdiction to hear this case, sitting in admiralty
pursuant to the Suits in Admiralty Act of March 9, 1920, 41 Stat.
525, 46 U.S.C. § 741
et seq. Since we have concluded that
the District Court was correct in holding that this libel was
properly before it under the War Risk Insurance Act, it would be
superfluous to consider the applicability of the other statute.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result.
*
"The repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release
or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under
such statute unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide,
and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for
the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the
enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability. The
expiration of a temporary statute shall not have the effect to
release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability
incurred under such statute unless the temporary statute shall so
expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still
remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action
or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or
liability."