The Feres Doctrine?
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 07-24-2009 - 2:17am |
I have to admit, I'd never heard of it. Any thoughts?
http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1501613.html?storylink=omni_popular
An Arlington airman whose legs were amputated after a gallbladder surgery went terribly wrong lacks the same basic legal right to sue his surgeon that state and federal prisoners enjoy, a New York congressman says.
But a bill in Congress could change that.
Airman 1st Class Colton Read, 20, was in serious condition at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where he was transferred after surgery that accidentally cut off blood flow to his legs. During the procedure at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., a vital artery, the aorta, was nicked or punctured as a device was being threaded into his belly, leading to complications, his family said Tuesday.
Under a 1950 Supreme Court decision known as the Feres Doctrine, Read or his family cannot collect damages from his military doctors for negligence or malpractice. As a result of the decision, "people who are either enlisted or drafted into the military become secondary, even tertiary citizens of the United States," said Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.
Hinchey introduced legislation this year that he said would "enable members of the armed services and or their families to hold military medical activities accountable for medical care that may have been negligent."
He added that it would not allow soldiers to sue for combat-related injuries.
Without legal action hanging over military doctors’ heads, it’s more likely they won’t perform adequately, according to Hinchey.
"They can’t be held accountable for that absence of attention or . . . outright negligence," he said.
Maj. Gen. Brad Heithold, commander of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, said in a statement that the Air Force will do "everything in our power to ensure he and his family receive all the support they need, now and down the road as he recovers."
Read was stationed with the 9th Intelligence Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Heithold said.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing on Hinchey’s bill this year and approved the legislation. A similar bill was introduced last month in the Senate, Hinchey said.
The Air Force surgeon general’s office says the Air Force has initiated 118 medical incident investigations since 1998.
But critics say there’s no way to know how many military personnel have suffered from inadequate or sloppy medical care.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, has testified before Congress against the Feres Doctrine on several occasions. He said that if people know they cannot sue, it’s "ideal for concealing your rate of negligence. Many people don’t file complaints. Those people who file complaints are quickly dismissed, so there’s no record of the complaints."
Turley calls the Feres Doctrine "perhaps the most insidious and infamous legal doctrine still on the books."
"It has done untold harm to literally tens of thousands of military families in its history," he said in an interview.
Turley said part of the 1950 Supreme Court case involved a military doctor who left a 30-inch towel in the stomach of the patient. "The towel actually read property of the U.S. Army on it," he said.
In another case, a sailor who went into surgery to have a cyst removed came out a quadriplegic, Turley said. On his blog, Turley lists several other "examples from the military malpractice-free-zone":
Lt. Cmdr. Walter Hardin spent 11 months with red lesions from his legs to his torso that a doctor classified as eczema. The condition was correctly diagnosed as cancer shortly before he died.
Sailor Dawn Lambert had to have a fallopian tube removed, but military surgeons left five sponges in her abdomen. Complications forced a second surgery that would remove her other fallopian tube and left her infertile. She was given $66 monthly in disability pay.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Dean Patrick Witt had appendicitis but was repeatedly misdiagnosed and sent home with some antibiotics. When he finally collapsed at home, he was rushed into surgery. He came out brain-dead.

I hadn't heard of it either.
Yeah, that's SOP for military hospitals and personnel. Worked in the Army hospital at Camp Kue in Okinawa as a summer hire many years ago. One doctor routinely smoked his pipe in the burn ward where soldiers from Vietnam were treated. I had a friend who worked in that ward and refused rotation out (most other personnel couldn't hack it for more than a month). She was livid about the harm the doctor was probably doing but didn't have any clout whatsoever.
IMHO, inability to seek redress is wrong. There are too many civil liberties which are already sacrificed by military personnel under the UCMJ. This should not be another one.
Jabberwocka
I hadn't heard about The Feres Doctrine either.