Purcell v. United States ( 2005 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
June 28, 2005
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
JON B. PURCELL, Personal
Representative of the Estate of
Jeremy Ross Purcell,
Plaintiff - Appellant, No. 04-4309
(D.C. No. 04-CV-256-DS)
v. (D. Utah)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant - Appellee,
and
JOHN DOES 1 THROUGH 100,
Defendants.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HARTZ , McKAY , and PORFILIO , Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Plaintiff Jon B. Purcell, as personal representative of the estate of his son,
Jeremy Ross Purcell, appeals from a district court order dismissing his claims
under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, as
barred by the doctrine of Feres v. United States , 340 U.S. 135 (1950). We review
the order de novo, Ricks v. Nickels , 295 F.3d 1124, 1127 (10th Cir. 2002), and
affirm for the reasons explained below.
Jeremy Purcell, a member of the United States Marine Corps, was killed in
an accident during a military training operation at Camp Pendleton, California.
He was fatally wounded when a participant mistakenly used live ammunition for
the blanks that were intended for the exercise. Plaintiff filed this action seeking
redress for the alleged negligence of not only the particular participant using the
live ammunition but also the Marine Corps for relying on individual marines to
segregate, store, account for, and use the live and blank ammunition issued to
them. The United States was substituted as a defendant pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2679(d)(1), and moved for dismissal under Feres , arguing that Jeremy’s death
“ar[o]se out of or [was] in the course of activity incident to service” and, thus,
was not redressible. Feres , 340 U.S. at 146. S ee generally Tootle v. USDB
Commandant , 390 F.3d 1280, 1281-82 (10th Cir. 2004) and cases cited therein.
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The district court agreed and dismissed the FTCA claim against the United States
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Following dismissal of the rest of the case
and entry of judgment, plaintiff appealed the FTCA ruling.
Recent decisions have made it clear that the overarching question under
Feres is whether the plaintiff’s injury was “incident to service,” regardless of the
presence of any “special factors” potentially implicating or undermining the legal
rationales historically advanced for the doctrine. See Tootle , 390 F.3d at 1282(“Rather than focusing on the presence or absence of the Feres rationales, then,
the relevant question is whether [plaintiff’s] alleged injuries arose incident to
service.” (quotation omitted)); Ricks , 295 F.3d at 1130 (noting relevant case law
has “effectively merged the ‘special factors’ analysis with the incident to service
test”). The incident-to-service inquiry “‘has broadened . . . to the point where it
now encompasses, at a minimum, all injuries suffered by military personnel that
are even remotely related to the individual’s status as a member of the military.’”
Ricks , 295 F.3d at 1128 (quoting Pringle v. United States , 208 F.3d 1220,
1223-24 (10th Cir. 2000) (further quotation omitted)). The accident at issue here,
occurring in the course of military training exercises, clearly falls within the
scope of the doctrine. See, e.g. , Hefley v. Textron, Inc. , 713 F.2d 1487, 1492
(10th Cir. 1983); Kitowski v. United States , 931 F.2d 1526, 1530 (11th Cir. 1991);
Estate of Matinelli v. United States , 812 F.2d 872, 873 (3d Cir. 1987).
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Plaintiff sought to avoid that conclusion by advancing two distinct lines of
argument. First, he insisted that the Feres doctrine be qualified in the same way
that the intentional-tort exclusion of 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h) was in Sheridan v.
United States , 487 U.S. 392 (1988), which allowed an FTCA claim even though
the immediate cause of injury was an assault excluded by § 2680(h), because
behind the immediate cause lay another proximate cause – supervisory negligence
enabling the assault – not subject to the exclusion. See R. docs. 10 & 18.
Second, plaintiff argued for abandonment of the doctrine, for reasons expressed
by the dissent in United States v. Johnson , 481 U.S. 681, 692-703 (1987), as an
unjustified judicial encroachment on the exclusive sphere of Congress, which did
not include an incident-to-service principle among the list of exclusions in the
FTCA. See R. docs. 1 & 18.
The district court rejected the first argument, holding Sheridan ’s analysis of
the intentional-tort exclusion inapposite to Feres ’ incident-to-service principle
and noting that similar allegations of negligent military management leading to a
service-related injury did not forestall application of the Feres doctrine in United
States v. Shearer , 473 U.S. 52, 57-59 (1985). See R. doc. 21 at 3-4. We agree
that Sheridan does not solve the Feres problem in this case. Sheridan turned on
two joint points: (1) a given injury may be traced back to more than one type of
tortious conduct, and (2) the exclusions in § 2680 are tort-specific, so that the
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exclusion of one type of tort claim need not entail the exclusion of another. But
the second point does not apply here. The Feres doctrine turns on the relationship
of the plaintiff’s injury to his or her military service, not the specific tort theory
asserted to redress the injury. If it applies, it excepts the federal government from
any liability “ under the FTCA. ” 1 Ricks , 295 F.3d 1127 (emphasis added); see
Tootle , 390 F.3d at 1281; Pringle , 208 F.3d at 1223; see also Bowen v. Oistead ,
125 F.3d 800, 804 (9th Cir. 1997) (“ Feres bars intentional tort claims as well as
simple negligence claims”); Mackey v. United States , 226 F.3d 773, 776 (6th Cir.
2000) (holding to same effect, collecting cases). Thus, there is no significance
under Feres to the fact that a tort claim based on the negligence of the marine
using live ammunition here may be augmented with another tort claim based on
the military policy making that mistake possible: the latter claim, being equally
“incident to service,” is precluded for the same reason as the former.
Plaintiff’s argument for abandonment of the Feres doctrine is misdirected
at this court. “[O]nly the United States Supreme Court can overrule or modify
Feres .” Labash v. United States Dept of Army , 668 F.2d 1153, 1156 (10th Cir.
1982). For the same reason, plaintiff’s related constitutional challenge to the
FTCA as construed in Feres is beyond our purview. See Tootle , 390 F.3d at
1
Feres also applies to constitutional claims. Tootle , 390 F.3d at 1282-83;
Bowen , 125 F.3d at 803 & n.2. We need not pursue the point further, however, as
plaintiff has limited his appellate briefing to application of Feres to FTCA claims.
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1282-83 (noting but not reaching constitutional concerns raised regarding Feres
doctrine because panel was “bound to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court
and the published decisions of this court”). We are constrained by controlling
precedent to hold that the FTCA affords no remedy to those who, like plaintiff,
have suffered even grievous personal loss incident to service in this country’s
military forces.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Plaintiff’s motion for
leave to proceed on appeal in forma pauperis (IFP) is DENIED. 2
Entered for the Court
John C. Porfilio
Circuit Judge
2
Given plaintiff’s financial declaration reflecting yearly income in excess of
$45,000 and net assets over $45,000, he cannot qualify for waiver of fees and
costs under the indigency standard governing IFP status under 28 U.S.C. § 1915.
See, e.g. , Walker v. People Express Airlines, Inc. , 886 F.2d 598, 601-02 (3d Cir.
1989); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Charles W. Sears Real Estate, Inc. , 865 F.2d 22,
23 (2d Cir. 1988); United States v. Valdes , 300 F. Supp.2d 82, 84 (D. D.C. 2004).
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