1. THE INDEPENDENT
RESEARCH PAPER –
SPRING 2016 COHORT
By Christopher Queen

2. THE FEDERAL MEDICAL CARE RECOVERY
ACT [FMCRA]: CONGRESS SHOULD
RESTRICT STATE LAW FROM LIMITING THE
RECOVERY OF MEDICAL EXPENSES BY THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

3. • Congress enacted the Federal Medical Care Recovery Act (“FMCRA”) in 1962 to
allow the federal government the ability to recover the expenses incurred by the
federal government for medical treatment provided to persons who were injured or
suffer a disease “in circumstances creating a tort liability upon some third person.”
Federal Medical Care Recovery Act, Pub. L. No. 87-693, 76 Stat. 593 (1962).
• Since enactment of the FMCRA, district courts have incorporated state laws into
decisions affecting the ability of the federal government to recover from tortfeasors
or their insurance providers, thereby reducing the amount the federal government
may recoup in some states.
• Without provisions in the Act to address preemption of certain state laws for the
recovery of medical expenses, the purpose of the FMCRA is thereby thwarted.
BACKGROUND

4. AMENDING THE FMCRA IS IMPORTANT TO
ASSIST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO
RECOUP EXPENSES IT SHOULD BE ENTITLED
TO RECOVER
• Congress should take action and amend the FMCRA to address any confusion caused
by the additional statutes not in place at the time of the adoption of the FMCRA and
clarify any confusion that the judiciary found in interpreting the original FMCRA
legislation.
• Addressing the issues identified with the FMCRA would best serve all branches of
the federal government as well as the injured parties and justly handle the
responsibility of the parties causing the injuries that require medical treatment.

5. CONGRESS SHOULD AMEND THE FMCRA TO
PREEMPT STATE LAWS FROM ENCROACHING
ON FEDERAL SOVEREIGNTY
• Federal courts rely on state tort law for the application of the FMCRA in recovery
cases.“Courts uniformly have held that the law of the state where the injury takes
place determines whether or not a tort has occurred.”James M. Anderson, Paul
Heaton, and Stephen J. Carroll, U.S.Experience with No-Fault Automobile Insurance 26
(2010).
• Therefore, state law is a necessity to establish the existence of a tort. Ideally, this
would be the extent to which state law is applicable to cases of recovery for the
benefit of the federal government.

6. STATE NO-FAULT STATUTES
• No-fault insurance emerged in the 1970s, beginning with Massachusetts.“Such
statutes are intended to reduce the number of litigated cases which have burdened
court systems in jurisdictions that rely upon a fault determination in tort before a
party may receive compensation for injuries arising from an accident. [Daniel E.
Wright, The Federal Medical Care Recovery Act in No-Fault Automobile Insurance
Jurisdictions: Extension of the Federal Right of Reimbursement Against No-Fault Insurers,
21 B.C.L. Rev. 623 (1980).]
• “[N]o-fault regimes are accompanied by limitations on the right to sue for bodily
injuries rather than total abolition of third-party liability [in the United States].The
limitations prevent suit unless the injury exceeds either a monetary threshold or a
verbal threshold […].” James M. Anderson, Paul Heaton, and Stephen J. Carroll, U.S.
Experience with No-Fault Automobile Insurance 24 (2010).

7. STATE NO-FAULT STATUTES
• No-fault states have been problematic for recovery of medical costs expended by the
government.
• “The Court feels that the proper vehicle of such reimbursement, if there is to be any,
should be the Federal Medical Care Recovery Act, which by amendment in the Congress
could be made to specifically allow a cause of action against the no-fault insurer.” United
States v.Dairyland,674 F.2d 750 (1982) at 751.

8. STATE GUEST (PASSENGER) STATUTES
• State guest (or passenger) statutes provide another avenue for denial of government
recovery by using the FMCRA.
• By restricting the level of liability based on tort, such statutes weaken the FMCRA
enough to render it an ineffective approach to recoup medical expenses in an
automobile accident where state guest laws exists.
• “Automobile ‘guest statutes,’ which deny recovery to a nonpaying automobile
passenger injured as a result of his host driver’s ordinary negligence, have existed at
one time or another in twenty-eight states.” Stanley W.Widger Jr., Present Status of
Automobile Guest Statutes, 59 Cornell L. Rev. 659 (1974), at 659

9. THE JUDICIARY NEEDS GUIDANCE FROM
CONGRESS
• In the fifty plus years since the enactment of the FMCRA, courts have relied upon the
evolution of case law to base subsequent decisions in matters involving recovering the
expenses paid for medical treatment to those eligible at the federal government’s
expense.
• Since no-fault state statutes became popular after the enactment of the FMCRA, there is a
question as to whether Congress would have intended to allow states the ability to
intercede in the federal government’s efforts to recover medical expenses.
• So far, due to the silence of Congress on the issue of no-fault liability and the extent to
which state substantive law has been allowed to curtail medical expense recovery efforts,
it would appear that the Courts’ interpretations have implicit approval of the legislature
for the broad range of interpretations of the FMCRA made through the present

10. AMENDMENTS FOR CONGRESS TO
CONSIDER
• First, Congress could, as mentioned above, direct the judiciary to allow causes of
action against no-fault insurers notwithstanding the provisions in state statutes that
would normally prevent courts in those jurisdictions to determine liability.
• A second point for Congress to consider, at least in its debates if not in an actual
amendment, would be whether a right of recovery for torts should be enacted at the
federal level, thereby eliminating the need to allow state substantive law to intercede
in the federal realm.
• Another possible outcome, if Congress were to address a possible amendment to the
FMCRA, could be an affirmation of the Act as-is and no further modifications to it.

11. AMENDMENTS FOR CONGRESS TO
CONSIDER
• Possibly the most advantageous approach that the Congress could take, if it truly
believed that the federal government needed to be reimbursed in every
circumstance involving a third party causing injury to an eligible person requiring
medical treatment at the expense of the government, could be to amend the FMCRA
to preempt state laws from barring recovery.

12. ANY QUESTIONS?