Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)
cases are varied. Those cases handled by section litigators include traditional
problems in tort law, such as medical malpractice and other personal injury
litigation, as well as seminal issues arising in areas as diverse as regulatory
agency activities, wild animal attacks in national parks, and professional malpractice.
The section also handles litigation brought by persons who contracted AIDS allegedly
due to government negligence in the course of blood transfusions or other medical
procedures. Section attorneys protect the
United States
from exposure to excessive liability, and from second-guessing of governmental
policy decisions through tort litigation.
Examples
of our practice
FTCA attorneys handled Anderson,
et al. v. United States, in which the court ruled for the
United States finding the decision to set a controlled
burn fire, the United States' acts taken in controlling
that fire, and its suppression efforts, were all protected by the FTCA's discretionary
function exception. In Fleming v. United States the court ruled that
the Mine Safety and Health Administration did not contribute to a massive underground
explosion that killed eight coal miners and injured another. The plaintiffs
claimed that federal inspectors overlooked deficiencies during inspections.
In DeValencia v. United States the court ruled for
the United States following a seven-day trial in which the issue was whether
Department of Veterans Affairs physicians failed to obtain plaintiff's informed
consent for disfiguring facial surgery and did not follow VA's national informed
consent policies and procedures. In Harbert v. United States, the court
ruled that the discretionary function exception to the FTCA shielded the
United States
from liability for injuries the plaintiff sustained when she fell while touring
an historic fort in St. Augustine,
Florida. The Court held that the
Park Service's decisions regarding what safety improvements to make to the historic
fort were protected discretionary acts.