The Feres Doctrine’s Military Injustice

The nation, it seems, has suddenly woken up to the problem of military sexual assaults against women. Today, on its front page, the New York Times ran part two of a series about the disproportionate trauma faced by female military vets, often exasperated by sexual assaults that occured while in the military.  Departing  Pentagon chief Leon E. Panetta estimated such assaults could number 19,000 a year.  

Today, the Times wrote about the “common pathway to homelessness for women - [that is,] military sexual trauma, or M.S.T., from assaults or harassment during their service, which can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.”  And nothing illustrated this crisis better than the Oscar-nominated, award-winning documentary, The Invisible War.  If you haven’t see this film, there are numerous ways to download, watch or screen this extraordinary film today.  And then take action here.

But there is one more thing we must do.  We must change the law, so that sexual assault survivors are no longer prohibited from holding the government legally accountable for its role is allowing this crisis to continue.

Rachel Natelson, Legal Director of Service Women’s Action Network, has a piece in Time magazine called "The Unfairness of the Feres Doctrine," a doctrine that we’ve covered often at ThePopTort.  Basically, the “Feres Doctrine” is a 60-year-old policy that bars U.S. military personnel from suing the government for personal injuries suffered while they are in the armed forces. Even, it turns out, when an epidemic of sexual assaults exists. Writes Nelson:

[F]or Ariana Klay, and other subjects of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Invisible War, however, the wounds of battle are unlikely to fade with the closing credits.

In dismissing Klay v Panetta, a civil lawsuit that Klay brought against the Pentagon for failing to protect her and other service members from sexual violence, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has perpetuated a baffling tradition of depriving military personnel of basic civil rights.

Like countless others injured due to the negligence or misconduct of their brothers-in-arms, Klay and her co-plaintiffs have been denied a remedy for the wrongs they suffered, simply because they were harmed during their time in uniform.

Congress can fix this. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Al Franken (D-MN), Congress already fixed a related problem by prohibiting military contractors from covering sexual assaults in its forced arbitration clauses. 

They can do this.  

Comments

[Katy Otto]

Fantastic - but just FYI it is Rachel Natelson.

[Joe Consumer]

Thank you! We've corrected.

[Jeffrey Ziegler]

Every time I see a post on the Feres Doctrine, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I should know because I have been down that same road too already. I even went to federal court in attempt to defend my case. Be aware that Feres also protects the US military from legal malpractice.

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.

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. In fact, I was never even able to get into court and present my case. The judge simply had his law clerks cut-and-paste a previous reply to a previous case. Just to add insult to my financial injury, Fitzgerald got promoted to Major. Feres was NEVER designed 60 years ago to protect against torts, corruption, misdeeds, and cover-ups by US Army lawyers. Today it protects against everything.