Topline
The Supreme Court has cleared the way for a veteran who was gravely injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan to sue the U.S. government contractor that employed the bomber, a case that could pave the way for soldiers hurt in combat zones to seek legal recourse.
Key Facts
In 2016, Army Spc. Winston Hencely stopped a man who was walking toward a Veterans Day 5K race at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, when the man detonated a suicide vest, killing five people and wounding more than a dozen others.
Hencely, 20 at the time, was hailed by the Army as likely having prevented “a far greater tragedy” and was left partially paralyzed with a fractured skull and traumatic brain injury.
The suicide bomber, a Taliban operative named Ahmad Nayeb, was working for the Texas-based Fluor Corporation as a military contractor after having been approved as a local hire by the military.
An Army investigation into the incident deemed Fluor was primarily responsible for the attack because it did not properly supervise Nayeb, failed to impose adequate disciplinary measures despite several previous fireable offenses and did not properly enforce security measures at the base, which allowed him to “go undetected” for nearly an hour before the attack.
Hencely sued Fluor in federal court, but the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court ruled military contractors were protected from prosecution, just like the federal government.
In writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas on Wednesday disagreed with the Fourth Circuit decision, arguing that because Fluor’s management of Nayeb was not authorized by the federal government, it was not protected by the existing law.
The 6-3 ruling tosses out the initial ruling and sends Hencely’s case back to the Fourth Circuit for reconsideration.
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Contra
Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh argued in their dissent the case may encroach on the government’s wartime decision making. Because it was the U.S. military that deemed Nayeb to be hirable, saying a jury may have to decide if Hencely’s injuries were the fault of “negligence or bad judgment of military decision makers,” which could influence wartime decisions in the future.
Key Background
In most situations, veterans can’t sue the U.S. military for injuries connected to their service—even if those injuries were caused by mistakes or negligence. That precedent comes mostly from the Feres Doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court case that decided the government is not liable for injuries that are “incident to service.”
