Opinion ID: 75244
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Feres and Its Progeny

Text: The district court correctly granted summary judgment in this case based on the Supreme Court precedent set forth in Feres, Chappell, and Stanley. In Feres, the Supreme Court held that “the Government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.” 340 U.S. at 146, 71 S.Ct. at 159. This remained a limited doctrine until 1983, when the Supreme Court expanded the 4 holding to include all suits for damages. Chappell, 462 U.S. at 305, 103 S.Ct. at 2368 (“We hold that enlisted military personnel may not maintain a suit to recover damages from a superior officer for alleged constitutional violations.”).3 The impetus behind this decision was an acknowledgment of the “special nature of military life [and] the need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel [that] would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability at the hands of those they are charged to command.” Id. at 304, 103 S.Ct. at 2367. Because the circuits were inconsistent in their application of Chappell, the Court granted certiorari in Stanley. Stanley, 483 U.S. at 676, 107 S.Ct. at 3059-60. In Stanley, the Court reiterated the importance of the Feres “incident to service” test, and extended the nonjusticiability doctrine to include Bivens actions.4 Id. at 683-84, 107 S.Ct. at 3064. Later cases in several of the circuits extended the application of the Feres “incident to service” test to cases brought under § 1983, an interpretation that grants state actors the same degree of immunity from civil suits as federal actors would be afforded under Stanley. See, e.g., Watson v. Arkansas 3 The doctrine was further expanded to include suits for non-constitutional violations in United States v. Shearer, 473 U.S. 52, 59, 105 S.Ct. 3039, 3044 (1985). 4 Under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999 (1971), an individual can seek monetary damages from a federal official for a violation of constitutional rights. 5 Nat’l Guard, 886 F.2d 1004, 1007 (8th Cir. 1989) (“This circuit, along with the majority of circuits that have considered the question, has extended the logic of Chappell to actions brought against National Guard officers under § 1983 [because] [t]he concern for the disruption of military discipline upon which Feres, Chappell, and Stanley are based applies equally when a court is asked to entertain an intra-military suit under § 1983.”); accord Bowen v. Oistead, 125 F.3d 800, 803 n.2 (9th Cir. 1997); Wright v. Park, 5 F.3d 586, 591 (1st Cir. 1993). As a result of this line of cases, there is no recognized cause of action for a member of the armed forces to request monetary damages from the military if the claim is based on an injury that is incident to service.5 At issue in this case is whether this doctrine of nonjusticiability extends to cases for injunctive relief. Based on the policy behind the Supreme Court 5 We no longer apply the test in Mindes v. Seaman, 453 F.2d 197 (5th Cir. 1971) to determine justiciability in cases by members of the armed forces brought against the military if the claim is based on an injury incident to service. See Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 107 S.Ct. 3054 (1987) (establishing a broader test for nonjusticiability); United States v. Kitowski, 931 F.2d 1526 (11th Cir. 1991) (applying the “incident to service” test without mention of Mindes); Doe v. Garrett, 903 F.2d 1455, 1463 n.15 (11th Cir. 1990) (“[I]t appears well established that Mindes need not be applied before reaching the merits of a statutory claim against the military.”). But see Stinson v. Hornsby, 821 F.2d 1537, 1540 (11th Cir. 1987) (remanding case against the military to district court to apply Mindes factors). In this case, we expressly do not address the applicability of Mindes to other situations. See, e.g., Meister v. Texas Adjutant Gen. Dep’t, 233 F.3d 332, 341 (5th Cir. 2000) (“It is true that Stanley blocks claims brought by servicemen incident to their military service, which therefore preempts Mindes with respect to such claims. But claims still fall within Mindes that Stanley does not encompass–those involving ‘internal military decisions’ that are ‘not incident to [a serviceman’s] military service.’”). 6 decisions, and consistent with the majority of the circuits that have addressed this issue, we hold that, with certain exceptions, it does. The Supreme Court has made clear that, [c]ivilian courts must, at the very least, hesitate long before entertaining a suit which asks the court to tamper with the established relationship between enlisted military personnel and their superior officers; that relationship is at the heart of the necessarily unique structure of the Military Establishment. Chappell, 462 U.S. at 300, 103 S.Ct. at 2366. It is this basic premise that underlies the string of cases finding suits by enlisted personnel against the military for an injury incident to service nonjusticiable for injunctive relief as well as damages.