On what seemed to be a normal day in 2017, Curtrina Martin, her son Gabe, and her companion Hilliard Toi Cliatt were shocked when an FBI SWAT team broke their front door and barged in for a raid. The innocent family was kept at gunpoint by the officers, who had invaded the wrong house until they discovered their error. Eight years later now, the family will take this case against the United States government for the misinformed raid to the Supreme Court for a legal hearing.
The impact it left behind
Curtrina Martin finds it difficult to explain what happens to a person when she is asked about the night the FBI unintentionally broke into her house, set off a flash bomb inside, and smashed her door. The target the FBI team was looking for was a man named Joseph Riley, who lived a street away from Curtrina’s house. She said she collapsed on a rack in confusion when police discovered her and Cliatt hiding in the closet.
One cop screamed and pointed his rifle at Martin as they pulled Cliatt out and held him. The law enforcement officials eventually discovered they had broken into the wrong residence, made an apology, and promised that the FBI would take care of any damage that was caused. Lawrence Guerra, the SWAT raid’s leader and an FBI special agent, saw that Cliatt did not satisfy Riley’s description. In contrast, Michael Lemoine, another FBI special agent, saw an envelope with an address that was different from the target’s. Guerra eventually called off the raid.
Filing a lawsuit
Martin and Cliatt filed a federal case in Georgia against the United States. They filed numerous state-law complaints, including unlawful arrest, carelessness, false detention, and domestic violence, all under The Federal Tort Claims Act. Six hours after the Supreme Court announced a list of judgments from their Jan. 24 conference, and three days after awarding three of those cases, the court released an additional decision authorizing an appeal in Martin v. United States and accelerating the case to the next phase of argument. This case mirrors other instances where federal or corporate systems are being challenged for accountability, such as the recent Amazon Driver Tips Lawsuit Settlement which highlighted issues of misallocated funds and worker rights. Even though their residence looked different from the target’s residence in various ways, the family’s lawsuit was dismissed based on sufficient protection.
The federal government is immune to lawsuits. The Federal Tort Claims Act eliminates that protection and allows individuals to bring lawsuits against the United States for the improper acts of government workers if a private individual might be held accountable in the same conditions in the state where the violations happened. The legislation modifies this routine for state-law claims caused by a government official’s act of a voluntary job or activity.
Almost seven years have passed, and the victims are still seeking justice for what happened that day. A federal case they filed is still being heard, but the judicial system has protected the government from paying for any damages caused so far.
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Read related cases in our Other Major Lawsuits & Disputes section.
