Date: 06-13-2025

Case Style:

Curtrina Martin and Toi Cliatt v. United States of America, et al.

Case Number: 19-cv-04106

Judge: J.B. Boulee

Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Fulton County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Jeff Filipovits, Zack Greenamyre, Lisa Catherine Lambert

Defendant's Attorney: United States Department of Justice

Description: Atlanta, Georgia personal injury lawyers represented the Plaintiff on civil rights violation theories under 42 U.S.C. 1983.

On October 18, 2017, the FBI raided the wrong house in suburban At-
lanta. Officers meant to execute search and arrest warrants at a sus-
pected gang hideout at 3741 Landau Lane but instead stormed 3756
Denville Trace, a quiet family home occupied by petitioners Hilliard
Toi Cliatt, his partner Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son. A six-
member SWAT team breached the front door, detonated a flash-bang
grenade, and assaulted the innocent occupants before realizing their
mistake. The cause of the error was Special Agent Guerra’s reliance
on a personal GPS device, combined with the team’s failure to notice
the street sign for “Denville Trace” and the house number visible on
the mailbox. Left with personal injuries and property damage, peti-
tioners sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act
(FTCA), 28 U. S. C. §2671 et seq., seeking damages resulting from the
officers’ alleged negligent and intentional actions during the raid. The
district court granted summary judgment to the government. The
Eleventh Circuit affirmed, applying a unique approach to FTCA
claims.

The FTCA waives the federal government’s sovereign immunity
from suit as to certain torts committed by federal employees acting
within the scope of their employment. But that waiver is subject to
statutory exceptions, including two relevant to a law enforcement mis-
conduct case like this one. The first is the intentional-tort exception
in §2680(h), which bars claims against the government for 11 enumer-
ated intentional torts. The second is the discretionary-function excep-
tion in §2680(a), which bars claims against the government that are
based on an official’s exercise of discretionary functions.


Section 2680(h) also contains a “law enforcement proviso” which counter-
mands the intentional-tort exception, allowing suits for six specified
torts (including assault, battery, false imprisonment, and false arrest)
to proceed against the United States when the torts are committed by
“investigative or law enforcement officers.” While most courts hold
that the law enforcement proviso applies only to the intentional-tort
exception, the Eleventh Circuit’s approach is different in two key re-
spects. First, the Eleventh Circuit alone holds that the proviso over-
rides all exceptions in §2680, including the discretionary-function ex-
ception, meaning that intentional-tort claims covered by the proviso
automatically proceed to the merits without further analysis of other
applicable §2680 exceptions. Second, to compensate for this plaintiff-
friendly approach, the Eleventh Circuit permits the government to as-
sert a restrictive Supremacy Clause defense at the liability stage, al-
lowing the government to escape liability when an officer’s actions
have “some nexus with furthering federal policy” and reasonably “com-
ply[ ] with the full range of federal law.” Denson v. United States, 574
F. 3d 1318, 1348.

Applying its distinctive approach, the Eleventh Circuit held that the
law enforcement proviso protected petitioners’ intentional-tort claims
from both the intentional-tort and discretionary-function exceptions.
The court dismissed petitioners’ negligence claims under the discre-
tionary-function exception, reasoning that Special Agent Guerra en-
joyed discretion in preparing for the warrant execution. On the merits
of the remaining intentional-tort claims, the court found the govern-
ment had a valid Supremacy Clause defense and granted summary
judgment for the United States.

Held:

1. The law enforcement proviso in §2680(h) overrides only the inten-
tional-tort exception in that subsection, not the discretionary-function
exception or other exceptions throughout §2680. Pp. 6–11.
(a) The text and structure of §2680 demonstrate that the law en-
forcement proviso applies only to the intentional-tort exception. The
proviso appears within the same subsection and sentence as the inten-
tional-tort exception, reflecting the established principle that statu-
tory provisos generally modify only the provisions in which they ap-
pear. Section 2680 contains 13 discrete exceptions. Coupled with the
lead-in clause, each exception forms a separate sentence and operates
as a structurally distinct provision. The proviso addresses the same
subject matter as subsection (h)—intentional torts—while other excep-
tions cover entirely different topics like lost mail, combat injuries, and
quarantine impositions. Further, the proviso’s definitional sentence
expressly limits the definition of “investigative or law enforcement of-
ficer” to “this subsection,” (3Cite as: 605 U. S. ____ (2025)


“law enforcement officer” appears elsewhere in §2680. Congress’s
choice to embed the proviso within subsection (h) rather than place it
at the end of the full list of exceptions, as it sometimes does with
broadly applicable provisos, further confirms the proviso’s limited ap-
plication to subsection (h) alone. Pp. 6–10.

(b) Petitioners’ arguments for broader application of the proviso
are unpersuasive. While the proviso mirrors the language of §2680’s
lead-in clause by stating that §1346(b) “shall apply” rather than “shall
not apply,” this textual similarity does not demonstrate that the pro-
viso applies to all exceptions, which form discrete instructions that
may be understood completely without reference to other provisions.
The absence of limiting language in the proviso’s first sentence does
not expand its scope beyond subsection (h), as Congress accomplished
that limitation through the proviso’s placement within the same sen-
tence as the intentional-tort exception. Legislative history suggesting
Congress intended to address wrong-house raids broadly cannot dis-
place what the law’s terms clearly direct, as legislative history is not
the law and Members of Congress may have had multiple purposes in
mind when crafting the proviso. Pp. 10–11.

2. The Supremacy Clause does not afford the United States a de-
fense in FTCA suits. The FTCA is the “supreme” federal law governing
the United States’ tort liability and serves as the exclusive remedy for
damages claims arising from federal employees’ official conduct. The
statute generally makes the government liable under state law on the
same terms as a private individual would be liable under the law of
the place where the tortious conduct occurred. Because the FTCA in-
corporates state law as the liability standard, there is typically no con-
flict between federal and state law for the Supremacy Clause to re-
solve. While federal law may sometimes displace state law in FTCA
suits where a constitutional text or federal statute supplies controlling
liability rules, the Eleventh Circuit identified no such federal statute
or constitutional provision displacing Georgia tort law in this case.
The court’s reliance on In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1, is misplaced, as that
19th-century decision involved a federal officer’s immunity from state
criminal prosecution for acts necessary and proper in discharging fed-
eral duties, not the federal government’s liability under a statute that
expressly subjects it to state tort law on the same terms as private
parties. Section 2674 specifies the defenses available to the govern-
ment, including judicial or legislative immunity and other defenses to
which the United States is entitled, but these do not include the Elev-
enth Circuit’s novel Supremacy Clause defense. Pp. 12–17.

3. On remand, the Eleventh Circuit should consider whether subsec-
tion (a)’s discretionary-function exception bars either the plaintiffs’
negligent- or intentional-tort claims—undertaking that assessment
without reference to the mistaken view that the law enforcement pro-
viso applies to subsection (a). The court must then ask of any surviving
claims whether, under Georgia state law, a “private individual under
like circumstances” would be liable for the acts and omissions the
plaintiffs allege, subject to the defenses discussed in §2674—not a Su-
premacy Clause defense.

Remaining questions surrounding whether and under what circum-
stances the discretionary-function exception may ever foreclose a suit
like this one lie well beyond the two questions the Court granted cer-
tiorari to address, and their resolution would benefit from the Elev-
enth Circuit’s careful reexamination of this case in the first instance.

Outcome: Vacated and remanded.

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