Carrie S. Willis, Individually and as Trustee of the Trust of James C. and Norma D. Willis v. United States

The Federal Tort Claims Act is the primary, and often the only, avenue for relief for those harmed by the torts of government agents. The FTCA waives the United States’ sovereign immunity for state-law tort claims arising from such acts, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), unless those claims are premised on a government agent’s performance of discretionary (rather than mandatory) functions, id. § 2680(a). This petition presents the following two questions about the scope of that exception:

1. Whether the discretionary-function exception shields the Government from suit whenever a government agent fails to fulfill a mandatory duty that applies only in certain circumstances, on the theory that the agent must have determined those circumstances did not exist.

2. Whether the discretionary-function exception shields a government agent’s undisputed failure to exercise discretion.