Opinion ID: 61659
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disposition by the District Court

Text: The district court dismissed Fisher v. Halliburton first, holding that the Plaintiffs' claims raised nonjusticiable political questions. [3] Under the district court's analysis, the Fisher Plaintiffs' claims were inextricable from three of the six political question formulations identified in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). Fisher v. Halliburton, 454 F.Supp.2d 637, 639-45 (S.D.Tex. 2006). First, the claims against KBR involved a textual constitutional commitment to a coordinate political branch of government because resolution of those claims would require the court to review the Executive's conduct of military matters in Iraq. Id. at 640-41. Next, the court stated that it was aware of no judicial standards by which it could review the Army's decisions regarding war-time intelligence gathering, troop deployment, and convoy protection. Id. at 641-44. Finally, the court suggested that a decision in the case would necessarily involve a judicial determination as to whether it was appropriate for the military to dispatch convoys in April 2004, and, in a broader sense, whether it was wise for the Executive to use civilian contractors in a war zone. Id. at 644. The decision would invoke the third Baker formulation because it would involve policy determinations that were better suited for nonjudicial discretion. Id. The district court's order did not separately analyze the Fisher Plaintiffs' various claims. Although it set forth the various claims, the order undertook a general view of the case presented and concluded that it [could not] try a case on a battlefield during war-time without an impermissible intrusion into powers expressly granted to the Executive by the Constitution. Id. at 641. The district court subsequently dismissed the two other cases that have been consolidated for this appeal. The orders in both of those cases provide a brief factual and procedural background unique to the respective plaintiffs, but grant KBR's motion to dismiss for the reasons enumerated in the Fisher Order. See Smith-Idol v. Halliburton, No. 4:06-cv-01168, 2006 WL 2927685 (S.D.Tex. Oct.11, 2006); Lane v. Halliburton, No. 4:06-cv-01971, 2006 WL 2796249, (S.D.Tex. Sept.26, 2006). Like the Fisher Order, these orders do not separate the Plaintiffs' various causes of action for analysis. In the district court's view, the most important facts in these three cases were derived from the language of KBR's LOGCAP contract and the relevant Army regulations. These documents, governing KBR's actions in every case and overriding the individual facts of any particular case, show overwhelmingly that the Army was an integral part of any decision to deploy and protect convoys. Fisher, 454 F.Supp.2d at 643.