The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled 6-3 to allow a lawsuit filed by a U.S. Army veteran injured in a Taliban suicide bombing to proceed, reversing a lower court’s decision to dismiss the suit.
Former U.S. Army Specialist Winston Taylor suffered a skull fracture and brain injury in 2016 when a Taliban agent working for military contractor Fluor detonated a suicide vest at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
The opinion pointed out that the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina issued a summary judgment against Fluor, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the original judgment.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, rejected a broad “battlefield preemption” theory that would have blocked state law claims related to combat activities. Thomas, who joined Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that even in a war zone, military contractors are not automatically immune from liability when their actions are not authorized by the military.
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“The Fourth Circuit’s decision is nonetheless preemptive even though the conduct complained of was neither ordered nor authorized by the federal government. No provision in the Constitution, nor any federal statute, establishes preemption of the state’s ordinary power to litigate torts. Nor does any precedent of this Court require such a result. Accordingly, we reverse the Fourth Circuit’s decision and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” Wednesday’s ruling announced.
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“In 2016, a Taliban operative working for defendant Fluor, a military contractor, launched a suicide bomb attack at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. After then-Army Specialist Winston T. So confronted him, the bomber detonated his suicide vest,” the opinion explains. “As a result of the injuries he sustained, he is now permanently disabled.”
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The opinion states: “In an effort to recover injury losses, Fluor is suing Fluor, asserting a state law tort claim for negligent retention and supervision of the attackers. According to Fluor and the U.S. Army, Fluor’s actions were not authorized by the military and even violated the military’s instructions as a condition of base operations.”
Justice Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
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“Can the state regulate security arrangements at military bases in active theaters? Can state judges and juries reach judgment on issues inseparable from military decision-making that balances war-related risks with long-term strategic goals? In my opinion, the answers to these questions must be ‘no,’ and therefore this state-law violation case is preempted because the Constitution vests war powers exclusively in the federal government,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
“The Constitution divides the powers of the federal government and the states in many areas, but not with regard to war. Warfare is the exclusive domain of the federal government, but the courts have allowed state (or foreign law) intrusion into that area. The Constitution precludes such intrusion, so the plaintiffs’ lawsuits are prioritized. Because the courts have said otherwise, I respectfully dissent,” Alito noted.
Original source of the article: Supreme Court liberals side with Clarence Thomas in Taliban suicide bombing case, three others dissent
