Court Opinion

ID: 9475777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:37:44.950797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:55.510259
License: Public Domain

HILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur, but only because we are bound by precedent requiring this result.
The appellee sues on account of injuries suffered by him while on the job for Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 8101-8193 (1982), provides the exclusive remedy against TVA for such injuries. The doctrine of official immunity, Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 575, 79 S.Ct. 1335, 1341, 3 L.Ed.2d 1434 (1959), prohibits one employee of the federal government from suing a co-employee who was acting within the “outer perimeter” of his lines of duty. Yet, as this case illustrates, we have preserved for employees of TVA not only their FECA benefits for injury, but unlimited tort actions as well. Our cases say, in the style familiar to case book readers, “The law does not permit you to sue in tort for damages, so the law provides that you may sue in tort for damages.”
Apparently, we misread Barr v. Matteo, supra. It held that the doctrine of official immunity is available to an employee even though the employee was performing a discretionary act. In Stepanian v. Addis, 699 F.2d 1046 (11th Cir.1983), we wrote that immunity was available only if the employee was performing a discretionary act. We have followed this line, Johns v. Pettibone Corp., 769 F.2d 724 (11th Cir. 1985), and our panel is bound.
I suggest that our precedent is incorrect. The appellants in this case should be found immune because all acts or omissions charged against them were well within the outer perimeters of their duties. However, we are bound by prior panel decisions and, properly, may not alter their holdings.
Therefore, I concur.