Associate Justice Clarence Thomas issued a strong rebuke of the Supreme Court's decision on Monday to reject hearing a case involving a widow's request that the Court consider whether the federal government owes her for her military husband's death.
The lawsuit stemmed from the death of Air Force Staff Sgt. Cameron Beck, who was fatally injured in 2021. Beck was riding his motorcycle after leaving a Missouri military installation on his way to meet his wife and young child for lunch when a civilian federal employee, distracted by her phone, crashed into him.
Justice Thomas argued that taking the case would have allowed the Supreme Court to overturn decades-long precedent, saying that servicemembers’ families cannot file wrongful death lawsuits against the government if the victim was killed while performing their job duties.
"We should have granted certiorari. Doing so would have provided clarity about [Feres v. United States] to lower courts that have long asked for it," Thomas wrote.
Thomas argued that Feres should be scrapped altogether and, even if it remained in place, the lower courts stretched the case's scope far beyond what is proper. He argued that in Beck's case, the circumstances would ordinarily make the wrongful death claim “open and shut," according to Thomas. However, both the lower court and the appeals court struck down Beck's widow's lawsuit.
According to Thomas, the precedent he seeks to overturn effectively lets the government avoid accountability in cases like the one brought by Beck’s widow.
Four justices must agree to take up the petition for the Court to hear the case.
Justice Sotomayor, while not voting to take up the petition, explained that Congress needed to adjust the laws to override current precedents, in some overlap of agreement with Justice Thomas.
"I write … to underscore that this important issue deserves further congressional attention, without which Feres will continue to produce deeply unfair results like the one in this case and the others discussed in Justice Thomas’s dissenting opinion," she wrote.
