Opinion ID: 395267
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Daniel Monaco's Claim for Recovery for his Cancer.

Text: 15 Daniel hopes to avoid the clear impact of Feres by claiming that his injury was his cancer, which manifested itself after he left the service, rather than his in-service exposure to radiation. That Daniel's injury did not occur until after he left the service does not, however, bring him within the analysis in Brown, as he claims. In Brown recovery was allowed, not because the injury occurred after the claimant left the service, but because the negligent act itself occurred post-service. Daniel's injury, by his own allegation, was the direct result of his exposure to radiation while in the service there is no allegation of post-service negligence. 16 Neither can the analysis in Brown be extended to include post-service injury resulting from in-service negligence. There is no salient difference between a claim for injuries manifest before and injuries manifest after the claimant leaves the service. Indeed, it would be anomalous for recovery to hinge on a fact as fortuitous as when an injury becomes apparent. Daniel appears to argue that because he is now a civilian, the concerns surrounding suits in the peculiar command relationships in the military are no longer significant. This argument is without merit. Courts have consistently denied claims of former military personnel, or of their spouses or children who were never in the military. E. g., Feres, 340 U.S. 135, 71 S.Ct. 153, 95 L.Ed. 152 (two of the three cases involved in the decision were brought by widows); Uptegrove v. United States, 600 F.2d 1248 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1044, 100 S.Ct. 732, 62 L.Ed.2d 730 (1980); see also Stencel, 431 U.S. at 673, 97 S.Ct. at 2059, 52 L.Ed.2d at 671 (action brought by third-party indemnity plaintiff was held to have a negative effect on military discipline). 17