Before the sun came up one morning, Trina Martin, her son Gabe, and her boyfriend Toi Cliatt were startled awake in their home by the sound of a flashbang grenade exploding in the Martin home. Trina’s instinct was to run to her 7-year-old’s bedroom, but Toi, fearing for her life, grabbed her and pulled her to their walk-in closet. As Toi was reaching for a shotgun to protect his home, an FBI agent opened the door and snatched Toi. Toi was handcuffed and thrown onto the floor.
Agents angrily shouted questions at Toi, but when he told them his address, the room went silent. The SWAT team realized they were in the wrong house. Agents quickly left and raided the target house. After that, an agent returned, apologized, and left a business card for his supervisor.
But the FBI provided no help to Trina, Gabe, and Toi as they struggled to live, work, and go to school with the trauma of the raid hanging over them. So, Trina, Gabe, and Toi filed a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Congress passed the FTCA 80 years ago to provide everyday Americans with a remedy for harms caused by federal employees. Congress extended the FTCA further in 1974 to ensure that it covered mistaken federal police raids like the one committed against Trina, Gabe, and Toi.
But in the decades since, the courts have made a muddled mess out of what should be a straight-forward law. Whether the FTCA actually provides the remedy Congress intended depends not on the language of the statute but on where in the country the language is being read. Unfortunately for Trina, Gabe, and Toi, the interpretation came from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which applies broad immunities to the FTCA.
Here, because the court inexplicably concluded that FBI agents have the “discretionary authority” to raid the wrong house, sovereign immunity barred the claims. According to the court, Trina, Gabe, and Toi had no remedy for the raid because the almost-deadly mistakes that led the FBI to kick in an innocent family’s door were arguably characterized as a “policy decision.”
Now, the Institute for Justice (IJ) is asking the Supreme Court to hear Trina, Gabe, and Toi’s case. IJ insists that the courts respect Congress’s decision to provide a remedy for federal harms. The courts cannot create immunity where Congress has waived it.
Case Team
Attorneys
Patrick Jaicomo
Senior Attorney
Dylan Moore
Litigation Fellow
Anya Bidwell
Senior Attorney
Jared McClain
Attorney
Case Documents
Cert Petition
Media Resources
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FBI Agents Raid the Wrong House
When agents raided the Martin home at 3756 Denville Trace, they believed they were raiding the home of a wanted drug dealer at 3741 Landau Lane. A number of readily observable features should have alerted the FBI to their mistake before they smashed into the house. For instance, the team used a black Camaro as a landmark even though neither the drug dealer nor his associates drove one. And more simply still, the team failed to confirm the address number. This, even though the address for both houses was posted prominently on the mailbox.
Without doublechecking that they were at the home of a dangerous drug dealer, the FBI SWAT team kicked in the door of an innocent family. After the heavily armed group detonated a flashbang grenade, they rushed into the house with guns drawn.
As agents made their way into 7-year-old Gabe’s room, he cowered under his covers. Meanwhile, his mother—panicking for her son’s safety—was half-naked in a room full of angry strangers, and Toi was handcuffed on the floor. When Toi gave his address, the agents knew they’d raided the wrong house. A piece of mail confirmed their mistake.
The team briskly left, went down the block, and raided the correct house. The team leader then returned, apologized, and left a card with his supervisor’s contact information.
The team leader would later blame his GPS device. Although he had input 3731 Landau Lane, he claimed that it directed him to 3756 Denville Trace. But Trina, Gabe, and Toi never had the opportunity to check this claim because the agent conveniently threw the GPS device away.
Insurance in this case covered the physical damage to the house, but it didn’t cover the monetary damage of the couple’s lost wages due to trauma or the therapy Gabe needed because of post-traumatic stress. To get compensation for these very real injuries, Trina, Gabe, and Toi filed a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).
Congress Passed a Law to Provide a Remedy to Victims of Federal Employee Mistakes and Abuse
For much of U.S. history, sovereign immunity shielded the federal government from liability for the acts of federal employees. The only way an individual harmed by a federal employee’s negligent or wrongful conduct would receive a remedy was for Congress to pass a private bill awarding compensation. The system was cumbersome, unpredictable, “unjust and wrought with political favoritism.”
And as the Supreme Court would later explain, it permitted federal agents to cause “a multiplying number of remediless wrongs—wrongs which would have been actionable if inflicted by an individual or a corporation but remediless solely because their perpetrator was an officer or employee of the Government.”
To solve these problems and ensure that federal wrongs had federal remedies, Congress enacted the Federal Tort Claims Act in 1946. The Act permits individuals to sue the government for money damages when a federal employee’s negligent or wrongful act causes personal or property damage. Of course, it has exceptions. For instance, there is no liability for policy decisions—barred by the “discretionary-function exception.” And several intentional torts were also barred through the “intentional-torts exception.”
However, after several abusive federal raids in 1973, Congress expanded the FTCA to allow for even intentional claims—assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, etc.—arising from the acts of federal law enforcement officers. Through this “law-enforcement proviso,” Congress guaranteed that “innocent individuals who are subject to raids . . . will have a cause of action against . . . the Federal Government.”
Despite the FTCA’s language and history, its application has become hopelessly muddled by decades of conflicting court decisions. Today, an individual’s ability to bring an FTCA claim depends as much on where he lives as what Congress wrote into the law.
Unfortunately for Trina, Gabe, and Toi, they live in Georgia, in the 11th Circuit. The appeals court has carved several large exceptions into the FTCA. Here, that means that the courts concluded that Trina, Gabe, and Toi could not bring any claims under the FTCA for two reasons: First, because the decisions leading to a raid (like nearly every other act by a federal officer) are theoretically “susceptible to policy analysis,” many of the claims are barred by the discretionary-function exception. Second, because the court concludes that the FTCA (despite being a federal statute passed by Congress) conflicts with the ability of federal officers to do their jobs, the remaining claims are barred by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
IJ Asks the Supreme Court to Reject Lower-Court-Created Loopholes
Because the 11th Circuit’s ruling conflicts with the FTCA and contributes to a number of disagreements among the federal circuit courts about the meaning of the FTCA, the Institute for Justice has filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court on behalf of Trina, Gabe, and Toi. We are asking the high court to address the 11th Circuit’s exception to the FTCA—(1) whether the Supremacy Clause bars FTCA claims and (2) whether federal officials have the discretionary authority to raid the wrong house by mistake.
Curiously, the 11th Circuit is the only federal appeals court to determine that the Supremacy Clause applies to the FTCA. That clause ensures that the Constitution and laws passed by Congress are the “supreme Law of the Land.” This means that statelaws that clash with valid federal laws must yield. But the FTCA is a federal law enacted by Congress itself—concluding that it somehow conflicts with federal law makes no sense.
The discretionary-function exception issue is far less cut and dried; across the country, federal appeals courts disagree about when and how this exception applies. At bottom, Congress created the discretionary function exception to shield the federal government from liability when its employees make decisions based on public policy concerns. So, for example, the exception prevents people from suing the federal government just because they have been affected by a valid regulation (or the faithful enforcement of that regulation).
But Trina, Gabe, and Toi weren’t harmed by a federal regulation—or any other decision based on policy concerns. None of the FBI agents who raided their house decided that it was the right thing to do after weighing their options and considering alternatives. They simply made a mistake. And that means that the exception shouldn’t apply at all in this case.
When Congress amended the FTCA in 1974, it made one thing absolutely clear: If the FTCA applies to anything, it’s wrong-house raids. By denying Trina, Gabe, and Toi any right to relief under the statute, the 11th Circuit has ignored Congress’s command. Now, only the Supreme Court can set things right. By correcting one or both of the 11th Circuit’s errors, the Court can ensure that the FTCA provides the remedies that Congress intended.
The Litigation Team
Trina, Gabe, and Toi are represented by IJ Senior Attorneys Patrick Jaicomo and Anya Bidwell, along with Attorney Jared McClain and Litigation Fellow Dylan Moore.
About the Institute for Justice
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit law firm that protects property rights nationwide and fights to hold government officials accountable for their mistakes. IJ represents a number of property owners who have had their homes or businesses either mistakenly raided by SWAT teams or had their homes damaged in raids that were otherwise not their fault. IJ is currently appealing cases from McKinney, Texas, and Lancaster, Texas, to the Supreme Court on these issues. IJ also represents an innocent homeowner in South Bend, Indiana, and an innocent business owner in Los Angeles in their fights for compensation after damaging raids.
