The Supreme Court has reopened a lawsuit filed by a U.S. Army veteran injured in a 2016 suicide bombing in Afghanistan, rejecting a lower court’s conclusion that the case could not proceed under a sweeping interpretation of battlefield immunity.
In a 6–3 decision, the justices vacated a ruling from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that had sided with military contractor Fluor Corporation. The case centers on Winston Tyler Hencely, a former Army specialist who suffered a fractured skull and lasting brain injuries after confronting a Taliban operative at Bagram Airfield. The attacker, who detonated a suicide vest, was reportedly working for Fluor at the time.
Hencely sued the company under state tort law, arguing that Fluor negligently retained and supervised the individual responsible for the attack. Both a federal district court and the Fourth Circuit dismissed the claims, relying on a broad “battlefield preemption” theory that shields contractors from liability when incidents occur in war zones.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected that approach. The opinion makes a narrower distinction: contractors are not automatically protected simply because their work takes place in a combat environment.
The key question, Thomas wrote, is whether the conduct in question was authorized by the federal government. In this case, both Hencely and the U.S. military argued that Fluor’s actions were not only unauthorized but violated specific instructions tied to its operations on the base.
Thomas stated that neither the Constitution nor federal law supports blocking state-level claims under those circumstances. The ruling sends the case back to lower courts, allowing Hencely to continue pursuing damages.
The decision brought together an unusual alignment of justices, with Thomas joined by Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Their agreement centers on limiting the scope of preemption rather than eliminating it, leaving open the possibility that some contractor actions could still be shielded if directly tied to military authorization.
The dissent, led by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, warned that the ruling invites state courts to weigh in on matters tied to wartime decision-making.
Alito argued that the Constitution assigns authority over war exclusively to the federal government, and that allowing state-law claims in this context risks entangling courts in military judgments involving risk, strategy, and operational control.
