In 2020, Brownback v. King became the first case in IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability argued before the United States Supreme Court. IJ is now asking the Supreme Court to hear the case for a second time and strike down a “tort immunity” the government convinced the lower courts to adopt to shield government officials—like members of police task forces—from constitutional accountability.
James King’s case began more than eight years ago when members of a task force misidentified and brutally beat him. King sued the officers, and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied them qualified immunity. Before the case could proceed to a jury, however, the federal government asked the Supreme Court to take the case and recognize an immunity under a statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Under this tort immunity, if a victim of federal abuse cannot sue the federal government for a state tort—like assault, battery, false arrest, etc.—he cannot hold the government’s employee liable for a constitutional violation either. This, even though state torts and constitutional claims have different elements and are designed to remedy different rights.
The Supreme Court heard the case but, at IJ’s urging, refused to recognize the new immunity requested by the government. Instead, the high court asked the Sixth Circuit to decide the issue first. Rather than seriously engaging with the issue, as the Supreme Court asked, the Sixth Circuit unthinkingly applied outdated caselaw, becoming the sixth federal appeals court to do so. Now, IJ is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in and deny the government one of its many tools to avoid the Constitution.
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