A New York court, acting under authority of § 795 of the New
York Civil Practice Act, made an order authorizing a judgment
creditor to sue under the Tucker Act, to recover damages from the
United States for breach of its contract with the judgment debtor,
the order directing that, out of the recovery, the judgment
creditor should be entitled to a sum sufficient to satisfy his
judgment with interest, costs, etc. The state law cited makes the
judgment debtor a necessary party, and authorizes him, in any suit
so brought, to attack the validity of the order and of the judgment
on which it is founded.
Held:
1. That a suit brought accordingly against the United States and
the judgment debtor was not within the jurisdiction of the federal
court. P. 588.
2. A court has no jurisdiction of a suit against the United
States to which the United States has not consented. P.
312 U. S.
587.
3. Jurisdiction of a federal court to award damages for breach
of contract by the United States is defined by the Tucker Act, and
is restricted to suits against the Government alone; if
adjudication of the plaintiff's right to maintain the suit as
against a private party is prerequisite to its prosecution against
the United States, the suit must be dismissed. P.
312 U. S.
588.
4. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not authorize any
suit against the United States to which it has not otherwise
consented. P.
312 U. S.
589.
5. The Act of June 19, 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 28 U.S.C. 723,
authorizing this Court to prescribe rules of procedure in civil
actions gave it no authority to modify, abridge or enlarge the
substantive
Page 312 U. S. 585
rights of litigants or to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction
of federal courts. P.
312 U. S.
590.
6. The concurrent jurisdiction of the District Court under the
Tucker Act does not extend to any suit which could not be litigated
in the Court of Claims. P.
312 U. S. 590.
7. Waivers of sovereign immunity from suit are strictly
construed. P.
312 U. S.
590.
112 F.2d 587 reversed.
Certiorari, 311 U.S. 640, to review the reversal of a judgment
of the District Court dismissing for want of jurisdiction a suit
against the United States and a private party.
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The New York Supreme Court, acting under authority of § 795 of
the New York Civil Practice Act, made an order authorizing
respondent, as a judgment creditor, to maintain a suit under the
Tucker Act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, § 24(20) of the Judicial
Code, 28 U.S.C. § 41(20), to recover damages from the United States
for breach of its contract with the judgment debtor. The question
for decision is whether a United States District Court has
jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
The order authorized respondent, who had recovered a judgment
against Kaiser in the New York Supreme Court for $5,567.22, to
bring suit against the Government to recover for breach of its
contract with Kaiser for the construction of a post office
building. The order
Page 312 U. S. 586
directed that, out of the amount recovered, respondent should be
entitled to a sum sufficient to satisfy his judgment with interest
"as well as costs, disbursements, and expenses which may be allowed
by the court."
Respondent brought the present suit against the United States
and Kaiser in the District Court for Eastern New York. By his
complaint, he set up the judgment and the order of the state court,
the breach of contract by the United States, and the consequent
damage to Kaiser in the sum of $14,448.49, and prayed judgment in
the sum of $10,000. The order of the District Court dismissing the
complaint for want of jurisdiction was reversed by the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 112 F.2d 587, which held
that, under Rule 17(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
respondent's "capacity to sue" was governed by the law of New York,
which was his domicile, and that the order of the state court had
conferred authority upon respondent to maintain the suit, the
United States being a "person indebted" within the meaning of § 795
of the Civil Practice Act which sanctions orders by the state court
authorizing a suit by a judgment creditor against a "person . . .
indebted to the judgment debtor." We granted certiorari, 311 U.S.
640, the question of the jurisdiction of the District Court under
the Tucker Act being of public importance.
The United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit save as it
consents to be sued,
United States v. Thompson,
98 U. S. 486;
United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196;
Kansas v. United States, 204 U. S. 331;
Minnesota v. United States, 305 U.
S. 382,
305 U. S. 387;
Keifer & Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Corp.,
306 U. S. 381,
306 U. S. 388;
United States v. Shaw, 309 U. S. 495.
See cases cited in
The Pesaro, 277 F. 473, 474,
et seq., and the terms of its consent to be sued in any
court define that court's jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
Page 312 U. S. 587
Minnesota v. United States, supra, 305 U. S. 388,
and cases cited;
cf. Stanley v. Schwalby, 162 U.
S. 255,
162 U. S. 270.
Jurisdiction to entertain suits against the United States to
recover damages for breach of contract and certain other specified
classes of claims was conferred on the Court of Claims by Act of
February 24, 1855, 10 Stat. 612. With additions not now material,
the jurisdiction was continued by paragraph First of the Tucker Act
of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, which, as supplemented and
reenacted, is now § 145 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 250.
Section 2 which, as supplemented and reenacted, is now § 24(20) of
the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 41(20), confers jurisdiction on the
district courts
"Concurrent with the Court of Claims, of all claims not
exceeding $10,000 founded . . . upon any contract, express or
implied, with the Government of the United States, or for damages,
liquidated or unliquidated, in cases not sounding in tort, in
respect to which claims the party would be entitled to redress
against the United States, either in a court of law, equity, or
admiralty, if the United States were suable. . . ."
The Court of Claims is a legislative, not a constitutional,
court. Its judicial power is derived not from the Judiciary Article
of the Constitution, article 3, but from the Congressional power
"to pay the debts . . . of the United States," article 1, § 8, cl.
1, which it is free to exercise through judicial, as well as
nonjudicial, agencies.
See Williams v. United States,
289 U. S. 553,
289 U. S. 569,
289 U. S. 579;
Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U. S. 438,
279 U. S. 452
et seq. It is for this reason, and because of the power of
the sovereign to attach conditions to its consent to be sued, that
Congress, despite the Seventh Amendment, may dispense with a jury
trial in suits brought in the Court of Claims.
McElrath v.
United States, 102 U. S. 426;
Williams v. United States, supra, 289 U. S.
570-571;
Ex parte Bakelite Corporation, supra,
279 U. S.
453.
Except as Congress has consented, there is no jurisdiction
Page 312 U. S. 588
in the Court of Claims, more than in any other court, to
entertain suits against the United States or for the review of its
decisions by appellate courts.
Luckenbach Steamship Co. v.
United States, 272 U. S. 533,
272 U. S. 536
et seq. For that reason, it has been uniformly held, upon
a review of the statutes creating the court and defining its
authority, that its jurisdiction is confined to the rendition of
money judgments in suits brought for that relief against the United
States,
United States v.
Alire, 6 Wall. 573;
United States v.
Jones, 131 U. S. 1, and, if
the relief sought is against others than the United States, the
suit as to them must be ignored as beyond the jurisdiction of the
court.
United States v. Jones, supra; Lynn v. United
States, 110 F.2d 586, 588;
Leather & Leigh v. United
States, 61 Ct.Cls. 388, or, if its maintenance against private
parties is prerequisite to prosecution of the suit against the
United States, the suit must be dismissed.
Jackson v. United
States, 27 Ct.Cls. 74, 84;
Waite v. United States, 57
Ct.Cls. 546;
Leather & Leigh v. United States, supra; cf.
Turner v. United States, 248 U. S. 354;
Green v. Menominee Tribe, 233 U.
S. 558.
See Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. v.
United States, 44 F.2d 887, 888.
We think it plain that the present suit could not have been
maintained in the Court of Claims, because that court is without
jurisdiction of any suit brought against private parties and
because adjudication of the right or capacity of respondent to
proceed with the suit upon the contract of the judgment debtor with
the United States is prerequisite to any recovery upon the
Government contract. As the court below recognized, the judgment
debtor, who is made a necessary party by § 795 of the Civil
Practice Act, in any suit brought pursuant to the order of the
state court, is entitled to attack the validity of the order and of
the judgment on which it
Page 312 U. S. 589
is founded.
See Nankivel v. Omsk All Russian
Government, 237 N.Y. 150, 158, 142 N.E. 569. Adjudication of
that issue is not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims,
whose authority, as we have seen, is narrowly restricted to the
adjudication of suits brought against the Government alone.
But the question remains whether such a suit is, nevertheless,
within the jurisdiction conferred by the Tucker Act on the district
courts. The Court of Appeals thought that the obstacles to joining
private parties as parties defendant in suits against the
Government are procedural only, and that, while no procedure is
provided whereby the Court of Claims can adjudicate the rights of
private parties in suits against the Government, that court is
nevertheless free to adopt such a procedure.
Cf. 28 U.S.C.
§ 263. In any case, it thought such procedure has now been made
applicable to suits in the district courts by the new rules of
civil practice. It concluded that, since the District Court, under
the Tucker Act, has jurisdiction to adjudicate claims against the
United States, and, by virtue of other provisions of the Judicial
Code, has jurisdiction to adjudicate the issues between respondent
and the judgment debtor, the Rules of Civil Procedure authorize the
exercise of both jurisdictions in a single suit.
This conclusion presupposes that the United States, either by
the rules of practice or by the Tucker Act or both, has given its
consent to be sued in litigations in which issues between the
plaintiff and third persons are to be adjudicated. But we think
that nothing in the new rules of civil practice, so far as they may
be applicable in suits brought in district courts under the Tucker
Act, authorizes the maintenance of any suit against the United
States to which it has not otherwise consented. An authority
conferred upon a court to make rules of
Page 312 U. S. 590
procedure for the exercise of its jurisdiction is not an
authority to enlarge that jurisdiction and the Act of June 19,
1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 28 U.S.C. § 723b, authorizing this Court to
prescribe rules of procedure in civil actions gave it no authority
to modify, abridge, or enlarge the substantive rights of litigants
or to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction of federal courts.
Nor, with due regard to the words of § 2 of the Tucker Act and
to its legislative history, can we say that the United States has
consented to the maintenance of suits against the Government in the
district courts which could not be maintained in the Court of
Claims. The section must be interpreted in the light of its
function in giving consent of the Government to be sued, which
consent, since it is a relinquishment of a sovereign immunity, must
be strictly interpreted.
Schillinger v. United States,
155 U. S. 163;
Price v. United States, 174 U. S. 373;
United States v. Michel, 282 U. S. 656;
United States v. Shaw, 309 U. S. 495;
United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty
Co., 309 U. S. 506;
cf. Federal Housing Administration v. Burr, 309 U.
S. 242,
309 U. S. 247.
Section 2, authorizing suits against the Government in district
courts, is an integral part of the statute, other sections of which
revised and enlarged the classes of claims against the United
States which could be litigated in the Court of Claims. It was the
jurisdiction thus defined and established for that court which was
extended by the section to the district courts in the specified
instances, for, in consenting to suits against the Government in
the district courts, Congress prescribed that the jurisdiction thus
conferred should be "concurrent" with that of the Court of
Claims.
Construing the statutory language with that conservatism which
is appropriate in the case of a waiver of sovereign immunity, and
in the light of the history of the
Page 312 U. S. 591
Court of Claims' jurisdiction to which we have referred, we
think that the Tucker Act did no more than authorize the District
Court to sit as a court of claims, and that the authority thus
given to adjudicate claims against the United States does not
extend to any suit which could not be maintained in the Court of
Claims.
See United States v. Jones, supra, 131 U. S. 19;
United States v. Pfitsch, 256 U.
S. 547,
256 U. S. 550;
cf. Bates Mfg. Co. v. United States, 303 U.
S. 567,
303 U. S. 571.
The matter is not one of procedure, but of jurisdiction whose
limits are marked by the Government's consent to be sued. That
consent may be conditioned, as we think it has been here, on the
restriction of the issues to be adjudicated in the suit to those
between the claimant and the Government. The jurisdiction thus
limited is unaffected by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
which prescribe the methods by which the jurisdiction of the
federal courts is to be exercised, but do not enlarge the
jurisdiction.
The present litigation well illustrates the embarrassments which
would attend the defense of suits brought against the Government if
the jurisdiction of district courts were not deemed to be as
restricted as is that of the Court of Claims. The Government, to
protect its interests, must not only litigate the claim upon which
it has consented to be sued, but must make certain that
respondent's right, as against the judgment debtor, to maintain the
suit is properly adjudicated. And since the alleged claim for
damages is larger than the $10,000 jurisdictional amount, the
Government must either be subjected to successive suits for partial
recoveries of the amount due or must make certain that respondent
has legal authority to relinquish the judgment debtor's claim in
excess of $10,000, and that this has been accomplished by the
limitation of his demand for judgment to that amount.
See
Franklin v. United States, 308 U.S. 516;
Otis
Elevator
Page 312 U. S. 592
Co. v. United States, 18 F.
Supp. 87. The Government's consent to litigate such issues is
hardly to be inferred from its consent to be sued upon a claim for
damages for breach of contract.
Cf. National Surety Co. v.
Washington Iron Works, 243 F. 260.
Reversed.