The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of a family whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI in 2017.
Trina Martin, her fiancé, Toi Cliatt, and her seven-year-old son, Gabe Watson, were terrified after being awakened when an FBI SWAT team, led by agent Lawrence Guerra, broke down the front door of their home in Atlanta, Georgia. Agents detonated a flashbang grenade and piled inside the residence with their guns drawn.
The couple hid in the closet, fearing a home invasion. Nevertheless, the agents burst into the closet and dragged Cliatt out, throwing him to the floor before handcuffing him. They pointed their rifles at Martin, who was half-naked at the time. They ignored her pleas to reach her son, who was screaming in another room.
Agents found Gabe cowering under his blankets as they entered his room. They were searching for an alleged gang member. However, they soon realized they had the wrong address.
NEW: The Supreme Court’s ruling on Martin v. United States just dropped. Can a family sue the government after a SWAT team destroyed their house in a wrong-house raid? The ruling says this Atlanta family’s lawsuit against the government can move forward. pic.twitter.com/Fe1jihIvg3
— reason (@reason) June 12, 2025
Guerra later returned to the home and apologized for the error. However, the family received no compensation or assistance from the Bureau for the damage and trauma they endured.
The family sued the FBI. Lower courts dismissed their case in 22022, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals referring to the mishap as an “honest mistake” due to Guerra’s faulty GPS device. The court ruled that the agents were protected by qualified immunity and could not be held accountable.
Now, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has decided that the family’s lawsuit can go forward.
More #SCOTUS news:
— Patrick Jaicomo (@pjaicomo) February 24, 2025
The *other* @IJ wrong-house raid case, Martin v. U.S., is scheduled for argument on Tuesday, April 29.
I look forward to standing up for Trina, Gabe and Toi in the Supreme Court.
An FBI SWAT team mistakenly raided their home.
Now, DOJ is demanding immunity. https://t.co/9bywfxLhSj pic.twitter.com/PnQv2bfxNx
The Supreme Court ruled that the couple can sue the FBI under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Previously, the lower courts insisted that the FTCA’s law enforcement proviso, which creates a narrow exception for law enforcement, protected the agency from civil action.
The Supreme Court disagreed. It argued that the 11th Circuit interpreted the provision too broadly.
The Court’s opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, rejected the 11th Circuit’s application of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause as a defense in FTCA lawsuits. The lower court argued that the defendants could avoid liability by proving that the agents’ conduct had “some nexus with furthering federal policy” and “compli[ed] with the full range of federal law.”
The Supreme Court countered by noting that the FTCA governs liability for harms caused by federal agents, not the Supremacy Clause. “The FTCA is the ‘supreme’ federal law addressing the United States’ liability for torts committed by its agents,” Gorsuch wrote, further explaining that the FTCA states the government can be held liable if a private individual could face accountability for causing the same type of harm.
The Court vacated the lower court’s ruling, which allows the family’s lawsuit to go forward.
This is the right ruling. As Gorsuch argued, if an ordinary citizen could be held liable for a certain offense, then the government should also be subject to the same liability. This may have been an “honest mistake,” but when an error invovles needlessly terrorizing a family at gunpoint, there must be some accountability.
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