MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brought this action in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to recover from Shimer, on theories of subrogration and indemnity, an amount of $4,000 which the Veterans' Administration, as guarantor of a loan made to him by Excelsior Saving Fund and Loan Association, had paid to that institution.
The relevant facts, as stipulated by the parties, are these: In 1948 Shimer, a World War II veteran, borrowed $13,000 from Excelsior secured by a mortgage upon residential realty which Shimer purchased with the proceeds. At Shimer's request the Veterans' Administration, pursuant to Title III of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, as amended in 1945,
In the Court of Appeals, the United States chose to rely exclusively on the Administration's alleged right of indemnity against Shimer, and accordingly does not press its claim here upon a theory of subrogation. The Court of Appeals held that the United States was not entitled to recover, reaching this result by applying a well-established principle of surety law which both parties agree was recognized by Congress when it passed Title III: The Veterans' Administration, as guarantor, could not recover from its principal, Shimer, any amount it was not obligated
We granted certiorari, 364 U.S. 889, to pass upon the contentions of the United States that: (1) the application of state law to determine the Administration's obligation to Excelsior is inconsistent with the Regulations prescribed by the agency charged with administering the Servicemen's Readjustment Act; (2) these Regulations are authorized by the federal enactment; and (3) a right of indemnity under federal law arises in favor of the Veterans' Administration upon proper payment of its obligations as guarantor.
I.
The Regulations promulgated by the Veterans' Administration make clear that they were intended to create a uniform system for determining the Administration's obligation as guarantor, which in its operation would displace state law. Section 36.4321, 12 Fed. Reg. 8344, in
In effect, then, the scheme set up by the Regulations provides the Veterans' Administration with a measure of assurance that there shall be credited against the unpaid debt at least what the Administrator regards as the fair value of the mortgaged property. In terms of the present case: With an unpaid balance of indebtedness of $13,000, the Veterans' Administration should not have to pay its full guaranty of $4,000 unless the property which Excelsior may retain is worth less than $9,000. If Excelsior purchased property worth $10,000 for $250 at the foreclosure sale, the Administration should not have to pay more than $3,000 on its $4,000 guaranty, or, to state the matter more precisely, the Administration should realize a $1,000 credit as set off against its $4,000 guaranty which Excelsior could have claimed at the time of default. Accordingly, if the Administrator regarded the mortgaged property as worth $10,000 he could have specified (which he did not) a minimum credit (or "upset price") of that amount which Excelsior would then have had to credit against the $13,000 unpaid debt. If Excelsior had purchased the property for $10,000 or less, it would have had an option to reconvey the property at a valuation of $10,000 to the Veterans' Administration.
This scheme of protection, while intended to remedy the same abuses at which the Pennsylvania Deficiency Judgment Act is directed, is, of course, inconsistent with the Pennsylvania procedures which provide for a judicial determination of the amount to be credited against an
II.
We think that the Servicemen's Readjustment Act authorized the Veterans' Administrator to displace state law by establishing these exclusive procedures.
In the present case we need only consider the statutory authorization for § 36.4320 (a) (4) which provides that "If a minimum amount [the upset price] has not been specified by the Administrator . . . the holder shall credit against the indebtedness the net proceeds of the sale . . . ." It would, of course, have been possible for the Administrator to have promulgated regulations consistent with much of the present scheme which would have, in addition, accepted the benefits of local law which tended further to reduce a guarantor's risk of loss from sale of the mortgaged property at an inadequate price. Thus, with specific reference to the Pennsylvania Deficiency Judgment Act, there would have been nothing inherently illogical about administrative regulations providing for an "upset price" device and then adding that, in situations where the "upset price" technique was not used by the Administrator, the Veterans' Administration
It is doubtless true that the policy of the Act is, broadly stated, to enable veterans to obtain loans and to obtain them with the least risk of loss upon foreclosure, to both veteran and the Veterans' Administration as guarantor of the veteran's indebtedness, and it is equally clear that had the Regulations adopted or included the provisions of the Pennsylvania Deficiency Judgment Act this would have furthered at least the second of these purposes. However, there are also ample indications both in the Act and in its legislative history that Congress intended the guaranty provisions to operate as the substantial equivalent of a down payment in the same amount by the veteran on the purchase price, in order to induce prospective mortgagee-creditors to provide 100% financing for a veteran's home.
In contrast, a mortgagee whose federal guaranty was subject to the law of a State such as Pennsylvania would be subjected both to an additional cost and to an additional risk, neither of which is present when there is an equivalent down payment. The additional cost is that required in every case to litigate the value of the mortgaged property. The additional risk is that, if it was judicially determined that the property was worth more than the amount for which the mortgagee could in fact sell it, the mortgagee would have to absorb the cost of the judicial error and could recover on its guaranty only the difference between the unpaid debt and the amount of the judicial estimate of the value of the property. Thus if the value of the mortgaged property in the present case had been judicially assessed at $10,000, Excelsior, after
We cannot say that a Pennsylvania lender would not prefer a down payment to a guaranteed loan in the same amount if the Pennsylvania Deficiency Judgment Act were applicable. Nor can we say that the Administrator has unreasonably sacrificed either the Government's or the veteran's protection in relying exclusively on the "upset price" device in order to preserve the interchangeability of a guaranty with a down payment. The Veterans' Administration can and does protect itself from a sale at an inadequate price by specifying the minimum credit which the mortgagee must subtract from the unpaid debt. In protecting itself it also places its own financial resources behind the debtor-veteran who may be forced to reimburse the Administrator only if the Administrator considers that the property has been sold at a fair price, and who retains all the benefits of state law as against the mortgagee.
We consider the Regulations to be a reasonable accommodation of the statutory ends, first, of making a federal guaranty the substantial equivalent of a down payment, and, second, of protecting both the Veterans' Administration and the veteran from unnecessary loss on a foreclosure sale. And since we find nothing in the statute or the legislative history antagonistic to this accommodation, we hold the Regulations to be a valid exercise of the authority granted the Administrator in § 504 of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act (note 9, supra).
III.
Respondent's final contention is that even though the Veterans' Administration was obligated on its guaranty to Excelsior, the Administration nevertheless had no right to indemnity from him. It is argued, first, that under the Act the Administration, in circumstances like these, can recover over against the veteran only on a theory of subrogation to the mortgagee's rights. The Administrator having proceeded in this instance simply on a theory of indemnity, it is claimed that there is no statutory authorization for the present suit.
Prior to the amendment of the Act in 1945, it was assumed that the ordinary concomitants of a guaranty relationship would follow upon the mere authorization of Government guaranteed loans and that these included the guarantor's right of indemnity. Restatement of the Law of Security, § 104; Decisions of the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs, No. 625, Vol. 1, p. 1154. The 1945 amendments made explicit that payment of the guaranty would be due on the veteran's default and that thereupon the Administrator "shall be subrogated to the rights of the holder of the obligation to the extent of the amount paid on the guaranty."
It is argued that this amendment, by negative implication, overruled or rejected what the Administrator had previously regarded as his independent right to indemnity, but surely this is carrying a negative implication too far. We cannot agree that Congress, without any statutory reference to the problem and without any discussion of it, intended to relieve the veteran of direct liability for amounts properly paid on his behalf by the Veterans' Administration. Not only might such a waiver of a guarantor's normal rights require a more burdensome route to recovery over from the principal, but it would deprive the guarantor of any recovery on occasions when
Moreover, the recognition of a loss to the guarantor merely because of a failure of the lender's rights against the principal is incompatible with the background of general surety law against which the statute was drawn. See, e. g., Leslie v. Compton, 103 Kan. 92, 172 P. 1015. Indeed, at the time of the 1945 amendments to the Act the Administrator had already ruled that there was a right to recover over against the veteran on a theory of indemnity in situations where recovery by way of subrogation was barred by state law. Decisions of the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs, No. 625, Vol. 1, p. 1154.
For these reasons, we are constrained to agree with the uniform construction of the lower courts, including that of the two courts below, that the statute affords an independent right of indemnity to the Veterans' Administration. See United States v. Shimer, 276 F.2d 792; McKnight v. United States, 259 F.2d 540; United States v. Jones, 155 F.Supp. 52; United States v. Gallardo, 154 F.Supp. 373; United States v. Henderson, 121 F.Supp. 343.
Finally, we find untenable respondent's argument that the applicable Regulation does not support recovery because there was no debt due from the veteran at the time of payment on the guaranty. Section 36.4323 (e), 11 Fed. Reg. 2123, provides: "Any amounts paid by the Administrator on account of the liabilities of any veteran guaranteed or insured under the provisions of the act shall constitute a debt owing to the United States by such veteran." The Regulation is merely declaratory of
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS would affirm the judgment for the reasons stated by the Court of Appeals, 276 F.2d 792.
FootNotes
"(b) Loans guaranteed under this title shall be payable under such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon by the parties thereto, subject to the conditions and limitations of this title and the regulations issued pursuant to section 504: Provided, That the liability under the guaranty within the limitations of this title shall decrease or increase pro rata with any decrease or increase of the amount of the unpaid portion of the obligation . . . ."
"Computation of guaranty claims; subsequent accountings. (a) Subject to the limitation that the total amounts payable shall in no event exceed the amount originally guaranteed, the amount payable on a claim for the guaranty shall be the percentage of the loan originally guaranteed applied to the indebtedness computed as of the date of claim but not later than (1) the date of judgment or of decree of foreclosure . . . ."
"Applicability. The regulations in this part and amendments thereto shall be applicable to each loan entitled to an automatic guaranty, or otherwise guaranteed or insured, on or after the date of publication thereof in the FEDERAL REGISTER, and shall be applicable to such loans previously guaranteed or insured to the extent that no legal rights vested thereunder are impaired." (Emphasis added.) 12 Fed. Reg. 8342.
"If a minimum bid is required under applicable State law, or decree of foreclosure or order of sale, or other lawful order or decree, the holder may bid an amount not exceeding such amount legally required. If an amount has been specified by the Administrator and the holder is the successful bidder for an amount not exceeding the amount legally required, such specified amount shall govern for the purposes of this section and for the purpose of computing the ultimate loss under the guaranty or insurance. In the event no amount is specified and the holder is the successful bidder for an amount not exceeding the amount legally required, the amount paid or payable by the Administrator under the guaranty shall not be subject to any adjustment by reason of such bid."
"(a) Any amounts paid to the creditor by the Administrator pursuant to the guaranty shall constitute a debt due to the United States by the veteran on whose application the guaranty was made . . . ."
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