The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the case of an Atlanta family whose home was mistakenly raided by an FBI SWAT team.
The case arose when the federal government refused to compensate the petitioners—Curtrina Martin, her son Gabe, and her partner, Hilliard Toi Cliatt—after the FBI, led by Special Agent Lawrence Guerra, executed a warrant at the wrong address in 2017.
Fearing a robbery was in progress, Cliatt pulled Martin into a closet and tried to grab his lawfully owned shotgun. Before he could reach the weapon, an FBI agent threw Cliatt to the floor and started to interrogate Cliatt and Martin.
Gabe, who was 7 years old, could not reach his mother while officers entered a bedroom with guns drawn, the summary states. Cliatt informed the agents of the address they were raiding, which made them realize they were in the wrong residence.
“After realizing their mistake, the FBI agents quickly left and raided the correct house. Afterward, one of the agents returned, apologized, and gave [Cliatt] his supervisor’s business card to discuss paying for the damage. [Cliatt] called the number on the card, but it quickly became clear that the federal government did not plan to help,” the summary said.
The three sued under the provisions of the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) in a federal district court in Georgia, asserting various state-law tort claims including assault and battery, false arrest, negligence, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit was problematic because the federal government enjoys so-called sovereign immunity, which means it ordinarily cannot be sued. The FTCA, enacted in 1946, waived sovereign immunity for some kinds of claims under state tort law. A tort is a wrongful act or infringement of a right, other than in a breach of contract, that gives rise to civil liability.
Before the FTCA, the only way the victim of a tort could receive compensation from the federal government was if a private bill authorizing compensation was passed by Congress and signed by the president.
The FTCA provides a limited waiver that allows private citizens to sue the federal government for personal injury or property damage caused by its employees so long as those employees are acting within the scope of their official duties. If an employee commits a tort outside the scope of his or her official duties, the person injured may sue the employee personally. In 1974, the statute was amended to permit tort claims to be made against federal law enforcement officers.
The 11th Circuit determined that all claims in the lawsuit were precluded by sovereign immunity based either on the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause or the FTCA’s discretionary-function exception.
The supremacy clause elevates federal law over state law.
The discretionary-function exception blocks claims “based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty,” the CRS report states, quoting from the FTCA.
This means that claims arising from actions that “involve an element of judgment or choice” and are “based on considerations of public policy” are precluded, according to United States v. Gilbert (1991).
Citing its own 2021 ruling in Shivers v. United States, the 11th Circuit said that even though “Guerra executed the warrant at the wrong house, his actions, nevertheless, ‘fall squarely within the discretionary function exception.’”
“Here, an FBI SWAT team committed a quintessentially negligent and wrongful act: It raided the wrong house,” the petition said.
The circuit court ruling conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and decisions of other circuit courts, and the Supreme Court needs to intervene to provide clarity, the petition said.
“Congress could not have intended that the United States would be held liable for the actions of its law enforcement officers that are discretionary and within the scope of their official duties,” she said.
The petitioners’ lawyer, Institute for Justice senior attorney Patrick Jaicomo, told The Epoch Times that the petitioners and the institute “are thrilled that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case and hopeful that it will restore the remedy Congress provided to ensure government accountability through the Federal Tort Claims Act.”
“Although Congress has said the government must take responsibility [for] this sort of mistake, the lower courts have found various ways to restore the government’s sovereign immunity,” he said.
Jaicomo said he expects the Supreme Court will hear the case at the end of April.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the U.S. Department of Justice but no reply was received by publication time.
