Petitioners are the personal representatives of passengers
killed when a commercial airplane crashed in Missouri while en
route from Oklahoma to New York. The maximum amount recoverable
under the Missouri Wrongful Death Act had either been paid or
tendered to them by the airline; but they sued in a Federal
District Court in Oklahoma to recover from the United States under
the Federal Tort Claims Act additional amounts which they claimed
to be due them under the Oklahoma Wrongful Death Act, which
contains no limitation on the amount a single person may recover
from a tortfeasor. They claimed that the Government, through the
Federal Aviation Agency, had negligently failed to enforce the
terms of the Civil Aeronautics Act and regulations thereunder which
prohibited the practices then being used by the airline in its
overhaul depot in Oklahoma. The District Court dismissed the
complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: The judgment is affirmed. Pp.
369 U. S.
2-16.
(a) In the Tort Claims Act, Congress has enacted a rule which
requires federal courts, in multistate tort actions, to look in the
first instance to the law of the State where the acts of negligence
took place. Pp.
369 U. S.
6-10.
(b) A reading of the statute as a whole, with due regard to its
purpose, requires application of the whole law of the State
where
Page 369 U. S. 2
the act or omission occurred, including its choice of laws
rules. Pp.
369 U. S.
10-15.
(c) Both the Federal District Court in Oklahoma and the Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit have interpreted the pertinent
Oklahoma decisions as declaring that an action for wrongful death
is based on the statute of the place where the injury occurred that
caused the death; that determination of the question of state law
is accepted by this Court, and is controlling here; the Missouri
statute, therefore, controls this case, and petitioners have failed
to state claims upon which relief could be granted. Pp.
369 U. S.
15-16.
285 F.2d 521, affirmed.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question to be decided in this case is what law a Federal
District Court should apply in an action brought under the Federal
Tort Claims Act [
Footnote 1]
where an act of negligence occurs in one State and results in an
injury and death in another State. The basic provision of the Tort
Claims Act states that the Government shall be liable for tortious
conduct committed by its employees acting within the scope of their
employment "under circumstances where the United States, if a
private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with
the
Page 369 U. S. 3
law of the place where the act or omission occurred." [
Footnote 2] The parties urge that the
alternatives in selecting the law to determine liability under this
statute are: (1) the internal law of the place where the negligence
occurred, or (2) the whole law (including choice of law rules) of
the place where the negligence occurred, or (3) the internal law of
the place where the operative effect of the negligence took
place.
Although the particular facts of this case are relatively
unimportant in deciding the question before us, a brief recitation
of them is necessary to set the context for our decision. The
petitioners are the personal representatives of passengers killed
when an airplane, owned by the respondent American Airlines,
crashed in Missouri while en route from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to New
York City. Suit was brought by the petitioners against the United
States in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of
Oklahoma, on the theory that the Government, through the Civil
Aviation Agency, had "negligently failed to enforce the terms of
the Civil Aeronautics Act and the regulations thereunder which
prohibited the practices then being used by American Airlines,
Inc., in the overhaul depot of Tulsa, Oklahoma." [
Footnote 3] The petitioners in each case
either had already received a $15,000 settlement from the Airlines,
the maximum amount recoverable under the Missouri Wrongful Death
Act, [
Footnote 4] or had been
tendered that amount. They sought additional amounts from the
United States under the Oklahoma Wrongful
Page 369 U. S. 4
Death Act, [
Footnote 5]
which contains no limitation on the amount a single person may
recover from a tortfeasor. The Government filed a third-party
complaint against American Airlines, seeking reimbursement for any
amount that the petitioners might recover against the United
States.
After a pretrial hearing, the District Court ruled that the
complaints failed to state claims upon which relief could be
granted under the Oklahoma Act, since that statute could not be
applied extraterritorially "where an act or omission occurring in
Oklahoma results in injury and death in the State of Missouri."
[
Footnote 6] Alternatively, the
court noted that, if Oklahoma law was applicable under the Federal
Tort Claims Act, "then the general law of Oklahoma, including its
conflicts of law rule, is applicable thereunder," thus precluding
further recovery, since the Oklahoma conflicts rule would refer the
court to the law of Missouri, the place where the negligence had
its operative effect. [
Footnote
7] In dismissing the petitioners' complaints against the United
States, the court found it unnecessary to pass upon the third-party
complaint asserted by the Government against American. On appeal,
the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the judgment by
a divided vote, [
Footnote 8]
the majority agreeing with the lower court that the complaints
failed to state a cause of action upon which relief could be based
under either the Oklahoma or the Missouri Wrongful Death Act. In
dissent, the chief judge, believing that Congress intended the
internal law of the place where the act or omission occurred to
control the rights and liabilities of the parties, stated that he
thought it was error to apply the Oklahoma
Page 369 U. S. 5
conflict of laws rule, and would have remanded the case for a
determination of liability under the Oklahoma Act.
That the question confronting us is an important one and of a
recurring nature is made apparent by the conflicting views
expressed in its solution by the lower federal courts. In the five
circuits in which it has arisen, resolution of the question has
been reached by adoption of one or another of the alternatives
urged upon us by the parties to this suit. The petitioners'
contention, that the reference in Section 1346(b) to the "place
where the act or omission occurred" directs application of only the
internal law of that State -- here, Oklahoma -- is supported by the
Seventh Circuit's decision in
Voytas v. United States, 256
F.2d 786, and by the District of Columbia Circuit in
Eastern
Air Lines v. Union Trust Co., 95 U.S.App.D.C. 189, 221 F.2d
62, as well as by the dissenting judge of the Tenth Circuit in the
instant case. The Government's interpretation of the Act, that, in
order also to give effect to Section 2674, [
Footnote 9] providing that the United States shall be
liable in the same manner as a private individual, a court must
refer to the whole law of the State where the act or omission
occurred, was adhered to by the Second Circuit in
Landon v.
United States, 197 F.2d 128, as well as by the Tenth Circuit
in the case at bar. American Airlines, although willing to abide by
the interpretation advanced by the Government, suggests, as an
alternative, that the internal law of the place where the
negligence had its operative effect -- here, Missouri -- should
control. This construction of the Act is supported by the Ninth
Circuit's decision in
United States v. Marshall, 230 F.2d
183, and by the dissenting opinion in the
Union Trust
case,
supra. It was to resolve the three-fold conflict and
to enunciate a rule that can be applied uniformly in Tort Claims
Act cases that we granted certiorari. 366 U.S. 916.
Page 369 U. S. 6
I
The principal provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act,
originally enacted as Title IV of the Legislative Reorganization
Act of 1946, [
Footnote 10]
is Section 1346(b), reading in pertinent part:
". . . the district courts . . . shall have exclusive
jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States,
for money damages . . . for injury or loss of property, or personal
injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission
of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of
his office or employment, under circumstances where the United
States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in
accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission
occurred."
Section 2674, also relevant to our decision, provides:
"The United States shall be liable, respecting . . . tort
claims, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private
individual under like circumstances, but shall not be liable for
interest prior to judgment or for punitive damages."
The Tort Claims Act was designed primarily to remove the
sovereign immunity of the United States from suits in tort and,
with certain specific exceptions, to render the Government liable
in tort as a private individual would be under like circumstances.
[
Footnote 11] It is evident
that the Act was not patterned to operate with complete
independence
Page 369 U. S. 7
from the principles of law developed in the common law and
refined by statute and judicial decision in the various States.
Rather, it was designed to build upon the legal relationships
formulated and characterized by the States, and, to that extent,
the statutory scheme is exemplary of the generally interstitial
character of federal law. If Congress had meant to alter or
supplant the legal relationships developed by the States, it could
specifically have done so to further the limited objectives of the
Tort Claims Act. That is, notwithstanding the generally
interstitial character of the law, Congress, in waiving the
immunity of the Government for tortious conduct of its employees,
could have imposed restrictions and conditions on the extent and
substance of its liability. [
Footnote 12] We must determine whether, and to what
extent, Congress exercised this power in selecting a rule for the
choice of laws to be applied in suits brought under the Act. And,
because the issue of the applicable law is controlled by a formal
expression of the will of Congress, we need not pause to consider
the question whether the conflict of laws rule applied in suits
where federal jurisdiction rests upon diversity of citizenship
shall be extended to a case such as this, in which jurisdiction is
based upon a federal statute. [
Footnote 13] In addition, and even though Congress has
left to judicial implication the task of giving content to its will
in selecting the controlling law, because of the formal expression
found in the Act itself, we are presented with a situation wholly
distinguishable from those cases in which our initial inquiry has
been whether the appropriate rule should be the simple adoption of
state
Page 369 U. S. 8
law. [
Footnote 14] Here,
we must decide, first, to which State the words "where the act or
omission occurred" direct us, and, second, whether application of
the internal law or the whole law of that State would be most
consistent with the legislative purpose in enacting the Tort Claims
Act.
II
The legislative history of the Act, although generally
extensive, [
Footnote 15] is
not, except in a negative way, helpful in solving the problem of
the law to be applied in a multistate tort action such as is
presented by the facts of this case. It has been repeatedly
observed that Congress did not consider choice of law problems
during the long period that the legislation was being prepared for
enactment. [
Footnote 16] The
concern of Congress, as illustrated by the legislative history,
[
Footnote 17] was the
problem of a person injured by an employee operating a government
vehicle or otherwise acting within the scope of his employment,
situations
Page 369 U. S. 9
rarely involving a conflict of laws question. [
Footnote 18] In these instances, where the
negligence and the injury normally occur simultaneously and in a
single jurisdiction, the law to be applied is clear, and no
solution to the meaning of the words "the law of the place where
the act or omission occurred" is required. Here, however, we are
faced with events touching more than one "place" -- a problem which
Congress apparently did not explicitly consider -- and, thus, we
are compelled to give content to those critical words.
In the Tort Claims Act Congress has expressly stated that the
Government's liability is to be determined by the application of a
particular law, the law of the place where the act or omission
occurred, [
Footnote 19] and
we must, of course, start with the assumption that the legislative
purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used. We
believe that it would be difficult to conceive of any more precise
language Congress could have used to command application of the law
of the place where the negligence occurred than the words it did
employ in the Tort Claims Act. Thus. we first reject the
alternative urged by American Airlines. The legislative materials
cited to us by American [
Footnote 20] not only lack probative force
Page 369 U. S. 10
in a judicial sense, but they are completely unpersuasive to
support the argument that Congress intended the words "act or
omission" to refer to the place where the negligence had its
operative effect. The ease of application inherent in the rule
urged by American lends a certain attractiveness, but we are bound
to operate within the framework of the words chosen by Congress and
not to question the wisdom of the latter in the process of
construction. We conclude that Congress has, in the Tort Claims
Act, enacted a rule which requires federal courts, in multistate
tort actions, to look in the first instance to the law of the place
where the acts of negligence took place.
III
However, our task is not completed. Having rejected the third
alternative stated initially as inconsistent with the express
terminology of the Act, we must now determine the reach of the
words "law of the place." Do they embrace the whole law of the
place where the negligence occurred, or only the internal law of
that place? This problem, unlike the initial question discussed
under II,
supra, has not been dealt with by any formal
expression of Congress, and we must therefore establish the rule to
be applied uniformly by lower federal courts, with due regard to
the variant interests and policies expressed by the Tort Claims Act
legislation.
Page 369 U. S. 11
We believe it fundamental that a section of a statute should not
be read in isolation from the context of the whole Act, [
Footnote 21] and that, in fulfilling
our responsibility in interpreting legislation, "we must not be
guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but [should]
look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and
policy." [
Footnote 22] We
should not assume that Congress intended to set the courts
completely adrift from state law with regard to questions for which
it has not provided a specific and definite answer in an act such
as the one before us which, as we have indicated, is so intimately
related to state law. Thus, we conclude that a reading of the
statute as a whole, with due regard to its purpose, requires
application of the whole law of the State where the act or omission
occurred.
We are led to our conclusion by other persuasive factors
notwithstanding the fact that the very conflict among the lower
federal courts that we must here resolve illustrates the also
reasonable alternative view expressed by the petitioners. First,
our interpretation enables the federal courts to treat the United
States as a "private individual under like circumstances," and thus
is consistent with the Act considered as a whole. [
Footnote 23] The general conflict of laws
rule, followed by a vast majority of the States, [
Footnote 24] is to apply the law of the
place of injury to the
Page 369 U. S. 12
substantive rights of the parties. Therefore, where the forum
State is the same as the one in which the act or omission occurred,
our interpretation will enable the federal courts to treat the
United States as an individual would be treated under like
circumstances. [
Footnote 25]
Moreover, this interpretation of the Act provides a degree of
flexibility to the law to be applied in federal courts that would
not be possible under the view advanced either by the petitioners
or by American. Recently there has been a tendency on the part of
some States to depart from the general conflicts rule in order to
take into account the interests of the State having significant
contact with the parties to the litigation. [
Footnote 26] We can see no compelling reason to
saddle the Act with an interpretation that would
Page 369 U. S. 13
prevent the federal courts from implementing this policy in
choice of law rules where the State in which the negligence
occurred has adopted it. Should the States continue this rejection
of the older rule in those situations where its application might
appear inappropriate or inequitable, [
Footnote 27] the flexibility inherent in our
interpretation will also be more in step with that judicial
approach, as well as with the character of the legislation and with
the purpose of the Act considered as a whole.
In the absence of persuasive evidence to the contrary, we do not
believe that Congress intended to adopt the inflexible rule urged
upon us by the petitioners. Despite the power of Congress to enact
for litigation of this type a federal conflict of laws rule
independent of the States' development of such rules, we should
not, particularly in the type of interstitial legislation involved
here, assume that it has done so. Nor are we persuaded to require
such an independent federal rule by the petitioners' argument that
there are other instances, specifically set forth in the Act,
[
Footnote 28] where the
liability of the United States is not coextensive
Page 369 U. S. 14
with that of a private person under state law. It seems
sufficient to note that Congress has been specific in those
instances where it intended the federal courts to depart completely
from state law and, also, that this list of exceptions contains no
direct or indirect modification of the principles controlling
application of choice of law rules. Certainly there is nothing in
the legislative history that even remotely supports the argument
that Congress did not intend state conflict rules to apply to
multistate tort actions brought against the Government. [
Footnote 29]
Page 369 U. S. 15
Under our interpretation of the Act, we find it unnecessary to
judge the effect of the Oklahoma courts' pronouncements that the
Oklahoma Wrongful Death Act cannot be given extraterritorial
effect. [
Footnote 30]
IV
Our view of a State's power to adopt an appropriate conflict of
laws doctrine in a situation touching more than one place has been
indicated by our discussion in
369 U. S.
[
Footnote 31] Where more
than one State has sufficiently substantial contact with the
activity in question, the forum State, by analysis of the interests
possessed by the States involved, could constitutionally apply to
the decision of the case the law of one or another state having
such an interest in the multistate activity. [
Footnote 32] Thus, an Oklahoma state court would
be free to apply either its own law, the law of the place where the
negligence occurred, or the law of Missouri, the law of the place
where the injury occurred, to an action brought in its courts and
involving this factual situation. [
Footnote 33] Both the
Page 369 U. S. 16
Federal District Court sitting in Oklahoma, and the Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, have interpreted the pertinent
Oklahoma decisions, [
Footnote
34] which we have held are controlling, to declare that an
action for wrongful death is based on the statute of the place
where the injury occurred that caused the death. [
Footnote 35] Therefore, Missouri's statute
controls the case at bar. It is conceded that each petitioner has
received $15,000, the maximum amount recoverable under the Missouri
Act, and the petitioners thus have received full compensation for
their claims. Accordingly, the courts below were correct in holding
that, in accordance with Oklahoma law, petitioners had failed to
state claims upon which relief could be granted. The judgment is
affirmed.
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
The provisions of the Tort Claims Act are now found in 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1291, 1346, 1402, 1504, 2110, 2401, 2402, 2411, 2412, and
2671-2680.
[
Footnote 2]
28 U.S.C. § 1346(b).
[
Footnote 3]
Under 72 Stat. 778, 49 U.S.C. § 1425, the Administrator of the
Federal Aviation Agency is charged with the responsibility of
enforcing rules and regulations controlling inspection,
maintenance, overhaul and repair of all equipment used in air
transportation.
[
Footnote 4]
Mo.Rev.Stat.1949, § 537.090, V.A.M.S. Subsequent to the
origination of these actions, the Missouri Code was amended to
provide for maximum damages of $25,000. Mo.Rev.Stat.1959, §
537.090.
[
Footnote 5]
Okl.Stat., 1951, Tit. 12, §§ 1051-1054.
[
Footnote 6]
The opinion of the District Court is not reported.
[
Footnote 7]
Gochenour v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 205 Okl.
594,
239 P.2d
769.
[
Footnote 8]
285 F.2d 521.
[
Footnote 9]
28 U.S.C. § 2674.
[
Footnote 10]
60 Stat. 842 (1946).
[
Footnote 11]
See Feres v. United States, 340 U.
S. 135, for a detailed analysis of the purposes of the
Federal Tort Claims Act in the context of its legislative
history.
[
Footnote 12]
Soriano v. United States, 352 U.
S. 270;
United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.
S. 584.
[
Footnote 13]
Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.
S. 487.
See Vanston Bondholders Protective Committee
v. Green, 329 U. S. 156;
McKenzie v. Irving Trust Co., 323 U.
S. 365;
D'Oench, Duhme & Co. v. Federal Deposit
Ins. Corp., 315 U. S. 447.
[
Footnote 14]
See, e.g., Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.
S. 392;
Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States,
318 U. S. 363;
D'Oench, Duhme & Co. v. Federal Deposit Ins. Corp.,
315 U. S. 447;
Royal Indemnity Co. v. United States, 313 U.
S. 289;
Board of Comm'rs of Jackson County v. United
States, 308 U. S. 343.
See also discussion in Hart and Wechsler, The Federal
Courts and the Federal System, 679
et seq.
[
Footnote 15]
Hearings before House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373
and H.R. 6463, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; S.Rep. No. 1196, 77th Cong.,
2d Sess.; H.R.Rep. No. 2245, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 1287, 79th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[
Footnote 16]
See, e.g., 68 Harv.L.Rev. 1455 (1955); 45 Iowa L.Rev.
125 (1959); 6 N.Y.L.F. 484, 488-490 (1960).
[
Footnote 17]
See H.R.Rep. No. 2428, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. 3; Hearings
on H.R. 5373 and H.R. 6463,
note
15 supra, 39, 66; Hearings before a Subcommittee of
the House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 7236, 76th Cong., 3d
Sess. 7, 16; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary on S. 2690, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. 9; 69 Cong.Rec.
2192, 2193, 3118; 86 Cong.Rec. 12024.
[
Footnote 18]
See, e.g., Knecht v. United States, 242 F.2d 929;
Irish v. United States, 225 F.2d 3;
United States v.
Praylou, 208 F.2d 291;
Somerset Seafood Co. v. United
States, 193 F.2d 631;
D'Anna v. United States, 181
F.2d 335;
Olson v. United States, 175 F.2d 510;
Modla
v. United States, 151 F. Supp. 198;
Irvin v. United
States, 148 F. Supp.
25.
[
Footnote 19]
28 U.S.C. § 1346(b).
[
Footnote 20]
Hearings before House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373
and H.R. 6463, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 9, 30. American suggests that
support for its argument is found in the testimony of Mr. Francis
Shea, then Assistant Attorney General of the United States, before
the House Committee on the Judiciary, who stated, when asked where
a claimant might bring suit under the Act, that the venue provision
allowed suit to be brought either where the claimant resides or
where the injury took place. Because the venue provision of the Act
also contains the words "wherein the act or omission complained of
occurred" (28 U.S.C. § 1402(b)), American contends that the
reference to the place where the injury occurred should control the
meaning of the "act or omission" language in Section 1346(b). In
addition to the fact that this testimony bears no relation to the
choice of laws problems, and that considerations underlying the
problem of venue are substantially different from those determining
applicable law, we are not persuaded to allow an isolated piece of
legislative history to detract from the Act the words Congress
expressly employed.
[
Footnote 21]
Labor Board v. Lion Oil Co., 352 U.
S. 282,
352 U. S. 288;
Cherokee Intermarriage Cases, 203 U. S.
76,
203 U. S. 89;
Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.
S. 388,
293 U. S. 439
(Cardozo, J., dissenting).
[
Footnote 22]
Mastro Plastics Corp. v. Labor Board, 350 U.
S. 270,
350 U. S. 285,
quoting from
United States v. Boisdore's
Heirs, 8 How. 113,
49 U. S.
122.
[
Footnote 23]
28 U.S.C. § 2674, quoted in the text,
supra, as well as
28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), provides that the United States should be
treated as an individual defendant would be under like
circumstances.
[
Footnote 24]
Restatement, Conflict of Laws, §§ 377, 378 and 391. This rule
has been repeated so frequently that a citation of cases here would
serve no purpose. For a collection of cases,
see Goodrich,
Conflict of Laws, 263-264; Stumberg, Conflict of Laws, 182-187; 25
C.J.S.
Death § 28, nn. 27-30.
[
Footnote 25]
For example, had the petitioners in the instant case brought
suit against American as well as the United States, the
petitioners' interpretation of the Act would have the District
Court determine the American's liability by the law of Missouri and
the United States' by the law of Oklahoma. Under our construction
of the Act, however, both defendants' liability would be determined
by the law of Missouri. However, because of the venue provision in
the statute, allowing suit to be brought where all the plaintiffs
reside as well as where the act or omission occurred (28 U.S.C. §
1402(b);
see Knecht v. United States, 242 F.2d 929;
Olson v. United States, 175 F.2d 510), a situation may
arise where a District Court could not determine the Government's
and a private individual's liability in exactly the same
manner.
[
Footnote 26]
Grant v. McAuliffe, 41 Cal. 2d
859, 264 P.2d 944;
Schmidt v. Driscoll Hotel, Inc.,
249 Minn. 376, 82 N.W.2d 365;
Haumschild v. Continental
Casualty Co., 7 Wis.2d 130, 95 N.W.2d 814.
See
Currie, Survival of Actions: Adjudication versus Automation in the
Conflict of Laws, 10 Stan.L.Rev. 205 (1958).
Cf. Vrooman v.
Beech Aircraft Corp., 183 F.2d 479;
Levy v. Daniels'
U-Drive Auto Renting Co., 108 Conn. 333, 143 A. 163;
Caldwell v. Gore, 175 La. 501, 143 So. 387;
Burkett v.
Globe Indemnity Co., 182 Miss. 423, 181 So. 316.
[
Footnote 27]
In addition to the cases cited in
note 26 supra, see the opinion by Mr. Justice
Black in
Vanston Bondholders Protective Committee v.
Green, 329 U. S. 156,
329 U. S.
161-162, where it is stated in context to a different
but analogous problem:
"In determining which contact is the most significant in a
particular transaction, courts can seldom find a complete solution
in the mechanical formulae of the conflicts of law. Determination
requires the exercise of an informed judgment in the balancing of
all the interests of the states with the most significant contacts
in order best to accommodate the equities among the parties to the
policies of those states."
[
Footnote 28]
The Act permits claimants to sue only in the federal courts, and
not in the state courts which are available in actions against a
private individual, § 1346(b); the Act prescribes its own period of
limitations which may be shorter or longer than that of the State,
§ 2401(b); the claimant cannot obtain a trial by jury under the
Act, although he could against a private individual, § 2402; the
claimant cannot obtain interest prior to judgment in suits under
the Act regardless of the state rule governing private individuals,
§ 2674; the claimant cannot obtain punitive damages under the Act,
even though state law may provide for it as against a private
defendant, § 2674; the claimant cannot recover any damages against
the United States on any claim arising out of assault, battery,
false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of
process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference
with contract rights, whereas he could recover such damages against
a private individual, § 2680(h); the claimant cannot obtain any
recovery against the United States on a claim arising in a foreign
country, although he could against a private individual, § 2680(k);
and the Act exempts the Government from liability for claims based
on various types of activities, although a private individual would
be liable in the same circumstances, § 2680.
[
Footnote 29]
In fact, despite the ambiguity that exists in the history due to
the fact that Congress did not specifically consider the choice of
laws problem, the legislative material indicates that Congress
thought in terms of state law being applicable. The term "law of
the place where the act or omission occurred" was particularized as
(1) the law of the situs of the wrongful act or omission. Hearings
before House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373 and H.R. 6463,
77th Cong., 2d Sess. 35; (2) local law,
id. at 26, 27, 30,
59 and 61; S.Rep. No. 1196, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 6; H.R.Rep. No.
2245, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 9; H.R.Rep. No. 1287, 79th Cong., 1st
Sess. 4; S.Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 32; (3) local tort
law. Hearings before House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373
and H.R. 6463, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 30; (4) the law of the situs of
the alleged tort. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary on S. 2690, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. 44; and
(5) the locale of the injury or damage. Hearings before the House
Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 5373 and H.R. 6463, 77th Cong.,
2d Sess. 9.
[
Footnote 30]
Gochenour v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 205 Okl.
594,
239 P.2d 769.
See Fenton v. Sinclair Refining Co., 206 Okl. 19, 240 P.2d
748.
[
Footnote 31]
Supra, pp.
369 U. S. 12-13,
and cases cited.
See also Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U.
S. 408;
Watson v. Employers Liability Corp.,
348 U. S. 66;
Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm.,
306 U. S. 493.
Cf. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Delta & Pine
Land Co., 292 U. S. 143;
Home Insurance Co. v. Dick, 281 U.
S. 397.
[
Footnote 32]
See, e.g., the cases cited in
note 26 supra.
[
Footnote 33]
Alabama G.S. R. Co. v. Carroll, 97 Ala. 126, 11 So.
803;
Otey v. Midland Valley R. Co., 108 Kan. 755, 197 P.
203;
Connecticut Valley Lumber Co. v. Maine Central R.
Co., 78 N.H. 553, 103 A. 263;
El Paso & N.W. R. Co. v.
McComus, 36 Tex.Civ.App. 170, 81 S.W. 760 (holding that the
law of the place of injury controls) and
Schmidt v. Driscoll
Hotel, Inc., 249 Minn. 376, 82 N.W.2d 365 (holding that the
law of the place of negligence controls).
See also Hunter v.
Derby Foods, 110 F.2d 970; 35 Col.L.Rev. 202.
[
Footnote 34]
Gochenour v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 205 Okl.
594,
239 P.2d 769;
Miller v. Tennis, 140 Okl. 185, 282 P. 345.
See Fenton
v. Sinclair Refining Co., 206 Okl. 19, 240 P.2d 748.
[
Footnote 35]
We are aware that in the Oklahoma cases cited in
note 34 supra, both the injury and
negligence occurred in the same sister State, and that the two
courts below relied largely on dictum in those cases to conclude
that Oklahoma would follow the general rule that the law of the
place of injury would control even had the negligence that caused
the injury taken place in Oklahoma. The petitioners here do not
contend that this was an erroneous interpretation of state law. We
ordinarily accept the determinations of Courts of Appeals on
questions of state law, and do so here under the circumstances
presented.
General Box Co. v. United States, 351 U.
S. 159,
351 U. S. 165;
Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner, 335 U.
S. 701,
335 U. S.
707-708;
Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U.
S. 232,
322 U. S.
237.