Federal Tort Claims Act

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: John Lee Futrell v. United States of America

Case No.: 16-3079

Officials: POSNER, RIPPLE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Federal Tort Claims Act

The plaintiff began a military career in 1983, serving variously in the Indiana National Guard, the United States Army, and finally the United States Army Reserve, from which he retired, ending his military career, in 2014, by which time he had reached the rank of Captain and served in combat in Iraq. Between July 2007 and October 2011 he had sustained several injuries and, more ominously, had been diagnosed with Type 2 (adult‐onset) diabetes. His blood‐glucose levels had risen so high as to sow doubt about his ability to continue performing his military duties. And sure enough in October he was released from active duty and placed on reserve status while a Physical Evaluation Board evaluated his fitness for continued military service. When finally retired from the army on grounds of physical disability in November 2014, Futrell became eligible to receive a monthly pension from the government. And had his medical paperwork gone through he would have received in addition incapacitation payments to cover the gap between his release from duty and his retirement. But as a result of some mix‐up he received no money from the government between December 2011 and January 2013, a deprivation that he claims without contradiction inflicted severe financial and emotional distress on him. In the following month the government did pay him a lump sum that covered the incapacitation payments that he should have received, but the government failed (he claims, again without contradiction) to compensate him for the distress he’d experienced when because of the government’s confusion or in‐ competence he had received no salary. Having thus incurred damages as a result of the government’s negligence in failing to pay him his salary for more than a year, he filed this suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which makes the government subject to tort claims “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.” 28 U.S.C. § 2674. (Actually, the claim might better have been interpreted as a contract claim governed by the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), but as neither side has briefed the is‐ sue we’ll not address it.)

Affirmed

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