Opinion ID: 463698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Waiver Under the Federal Tort Claims Act

Text: 66 Appellants allege a series of common law 44 torts, see Complaint at 66-67 paragraphs 129-131, JA 72-73, 45 for which they claim the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2671 et seq. (1982), waives sovereign immunity. Appellants' failure, however, to comply with the unyielding administrative filing requirements of the FTCA bars their claims. 67 Under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2675(a) a plaintiff must file his claim with the appropriate government agency before bringing suit in federal court. This explicit statutory directive applies without exception and therefore has been termed jurisdictional. See Odin v. United States, 656 F.2d 798, 802 (D.C.Cir.1981). The FTCA's mandatory administrative filing requirement is not to be confused with the prudential, judge-made exhaustion doctrine, or other requirements that indicate a general, but not an inexorable, rule. Unlike the exhaustion requirement, the jurisdictional FTCA filing requirement is not subject to equitable waiver. 46 Moreover, whatever the equities affecting appellants' claims before 1980, there was no reason why appellants should have failed to file their claims after 1980 and the congressional declaration releasing the courts from their presumption of deference to the findings of the political branches in this case. 47 Appellants FTCA claims therefore must be dismissed for failure to meet the statute's stringent file first with the agency instruction. 48