Supreme Court Closes an Immunity Door

But Keeps Key Protections for Federal Police Officers

Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in Martin v. United States, a case about a botched FBI raid in suburban Atlanta. While the headlines will focus on the family’s chance to continue their lawsuit, the real story is more balanced. The Court did get rid of a legal escape hatch that only one federal appeals court had ever used. But at the same time, it confirmed that federal law still protects officers who exercise reasonable judgment in the field.

This case started in 2017, when an FBI SWAT team broke into the wrong house. A flashbang grenade went off. Guns were drawn. A woman, her partner, and her young son were terrified. The officers apologized and left. The family was left with a damaged home and no real explanation. The team had relied on a personal GPS and misread the street. The actual suspect lived a block away.

The family sued the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the law that allows people to sue the United States for certain kinds of harm caused by federal employees. They claimed assault, false arrest, emotional trauma, and negligence. But the lower courts in Georgia threw the case out, applying a rule from the Eleventh Circuit that gave the federal government a unique kind of constitutional immunity using the Supremacy Clause. The rule said if a federal officer’s actions had a connection to federal law enforcement duties, the government could not be sued, even if things went terribly wrong.

The Supreme Court disagreed. The justices ruled that the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause does not give federal officers a special shield in cases like this. Congress already laid out the rules in the FTCA. It allows lawsuits if a private person would be liable under state law. The Court said that’s the standard, and the Supremacy Clause immunity defense is legally inapplicable.

So federal officers cannot use the Supremacy Clause to block lawsuits in wrong-house raids or similar cases. That defense is off the table, not just in the Eleventh Circuit, but everywhere.

But the ruling doesn’t mean officers are suddenly exposed to lawsuits every time a decision turns out badly. The Court also confirmed that the FTCA still includes what’s called the discretionary-function exception. That part of the law protects federal officers from being sued when they make reasonable, judgment-based decisions, especially in situations involving planning, tactics, or the exercise of professional discretion. That protection still applies and will now be reviewed in this case.

This wasn’t a sweeping change. In fact, outside of the Eleventh Circuit, no other court had ever used the Supremacy Clause the way Georgia, Florida, and Alabama did. Yesterday’s ruling simply shut that door for good. But for federal officers, the discretionary-function exception remains open and intact. So does the longstanding requirement that plaintiffs prove liability under state tort law.

The case now goes back to the Eleventh Circuit. That court will decide which of the family’s claims can move forward. The negligence claim may run into the discretionary-function bar so the officers will probably not be held responsible for a reasonable mistake. But if they committed intentional torts, like assault or false imprisonment, those claims might get a closer look.

For federal officers, the message is clear: the law doesn’t protect everything, but it still protects reasonable decision-making. What it won’t cover anymore, at least in any federal court, is the idea that constitutional authority alone can cancel out responsibility. But outside of the Eleventh Circuit, it never really did.

This is not a major loss for law enforcement. It appears the officers in this case made a mistake, but if the evidence shows they didn’t commit any intentional bad conduct, the discretion afforded officers should protect them.

The decision appears to be a reasonable balance between keeping professional discretion protected and keeping courts focused on what the law actually says.