We’ve written several times about the “Feres Doctrine” (here, here, here), a 60-year-old policy that effectively bars U.S. military personnel from suing the government for injuries caused by “the negligence of others in the armed forces.” It has been interpreted to extinguish the legal rights of those who serve in war and survive, only to return home but are seriously injured as a result of gross medical malpractice by military health care providers.
There have been several Feres-related news items out of Texas recently, so we thought it might be a good time to revisit the subject.
The stories have focused on Airman 1st Class Colton Read, 20, from Arlington (see video below). In a nutshell, Read was undergoing gallbladder surgery at David Grant USAF Medical Center in Northern California when his doctor nicked his aorta, causing massive blood loss and requiring the partial amputation of his legs. Read continues to undergo related surgeries. Still because of the “Feres Doctrine,” Read has absolutely no ability to sue his doctor and obtain any compensation for this—a right given to even state and federal prisoners.
Fortunately, there’s currently a bill making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at restoring service members’ right to sue the government for injuries suffered due to non-combat-related negligence. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last month.
Although previous legislative attempts to repeal the Feres Doctrine haven’t gotten very far, according to Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), sponsor of the current House bill, “There is a strong possibility and likelihood [the House] legislation will be taken up before the August recess.”
Even so, according to University of Texas law professor Michael Sturley, the Feres Doctrine retains “support from those in the armed services who believe its removal would interfere with military discipline and the chain of command structure,” despite the fact that “medical malpractice cases,” have “nothing to do with military discipline.”
“Most people think we take care of our troops,” said Sturley. “But this shows we really don’t.”
From http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/07/airforce_colton_read_072709af/
"In the 9th (Intelligence) Squadron, Read analyzed the full-motion video fed back from MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers flying over Iraq and Afghanistan."
Just a thought: Colton Read is an intelligence analyst at Beale AFB. If military physical evaluation boards rated deployability and employability separately, Mr. Read could receive 100% VA compensation while keeping his "day job" as a civilian employee of the Air Force.
Posted by: Basil White | July 28, 2009 at 09:34 AM
Feres Protects Legal Malpractice Too
While I was on active duty with the US Army, I was threatened by a US Army lawyer named Captain Matthew Fitzgerald to do something which was contrary to the US Army legal regulations (which I did not know at the time but he did). Fitzgerald’s motive was to tout this as his first accomplishment on his annual performance report of which I later got a copy. This threat resulted in my losing over $50,000 of my personal funds. After then doing my own investigation and trying to recoup my money, I discovered the expression, “A fish rots from the head down” definitely applies to US Army lawyers.
When I asked the top lawyer (now Lieutenant General Dana Chipman) for assistance, the first thing they did was appoint Fitzgerald’s previous boss and a very obvious friend to “investigate.” Since there was no wrongdoing found as a result of this faux investigation but specifics were protected by the Privacy Act , I filed the same complaint with Fitzgerald’s Oregon State Bar which is NOT PROTECTED under privacy laws. Evidence showed that Fitzgerald lied no less than 10 times to his Oregon State Bar.
It was all thrown out of federal court due to Feres although I had a slam-dunk case with all evidence in my favor. Just to add insult to my financial injury, Fitzgerald got promoted to Major.
Posted by: Jeffrey Ziegler | December 14, 2010 at 07:15 AM