Ft Hood Victims File $750,000,000 Lawsuit


Eighty-three victims and family members in the worst-ever mass shooting at a U.S. military installation are seeking $750 million in compensation from the Army, alleging that wilful negligence enabled psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan to carry out a terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

The administrative claims filed last week said the government had clear warnings that Hasan, who is scheduled to go on trial in March, posed a grave danger to the lives of soldiers and civilians.

The government bowed to political correctness and not only ignored the threat Hasan presented but actually promoted him to the rank of major five months before the massacre, according to the administrative claims against the Defense Department, the Justice Department and the FBI.

Thirteen soldiers and civilians were killed and more than two dozen soldiers and civilians were injured in the November 5, 2009 shooting spree.

Fifty-four relatives of eight of the murdered soldiers have filed claims. One civilian police officer and nine of the injured soldiers have filed claims along with 19 family members of those 10.

'It was unconscionable that Hasan was allowed to continue in the military and ultimately be in the position to perpetrate the only terror attack committed on U.S. soil since 9/11,' attorney Neal Sher, who represents the claimants, told The Associated Press.

'We're aware claims have been filed, but we're not going to comment on it,’ Christopher Haug, chief of media relations for the public affairs office at Fort Hood, said Thursday. 'They'll be taken seriously and they'll go through the legal process.'

Among the claimants is a civilian police officer who shot Hasan, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who was hit in the leg and hand in an exchange of gunfire that has cut short her law enforcement career.

She underwent a series of surgeries for her wounds and is on unpaid leave from her post as a civilian police officer with the Army.

'I brought this claim because I strongly believe this tragedy was totally preventable and that the Army swept under the rug what they knew about Hasan,' Munley said in a statement.

Munley and her partner, Sergeant Mark Todd, another civilian officer in Fort Hood's police force, are credited with shooting Hasan, ending the violence.

Hasan, an American-born Muslim, faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

U.S. officials have said they believe Hasan's attack was inspired by the radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and that the two men exchanged as many as 20 emails. Al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September. His name has not yet been mentioned in any hearings in the criminal case against Hasan.

'It is a tragic irony that our government sought out and killed al-Awlaki, while Hasan was promoted in the Army which enabled him to carry out his murderous terror attack,' said Sher, who for many years ran the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations that hunted Nazi criminals living illegally in the United States.

He also is a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Evidence of Hasan's radicalisation to violent Islamist extremism was on full display to his superiors and colleagues during military medical training, according to a Senate report issued in February and included as an exhibit accompanying the claims.

In the events leading up to the shooting, an instructor and a colleague each referred to Hasan as a 'ticking time bomb,' according to the report by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins of Maine, the chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

In classroom presentations, Hasan repeatedly spoke of violent Islamist extremism instead of medical subjects and justified suicide bombings, said the report, which concluded that Hasan's superiors failed to discipline him, refer him to counterintelligence officials or seek to discharge him.

Fort Hood massacre: 83 victims file lawsuits seeking a total of $750m | Mail Online


I don't like any of this........

There are no absolutes in life and these military people know that......

The stench from lawyers will be overwhelming.......

Welcome to 2011........



Excuse my ignorance, I saw this an had forgotten.......

There is a legal term for how police have some level of immunity from civil lawsuits as long as they can show that they were reasonably executing their duties.
(Can't think of the term for it.)
*
I would be seriously surprised if there wasn't some analogous protection for the military.* It will be fascinating to see how this lawsuit unfolds, as I suspect it may be a lot of bark but have very little to bite on...
It may simply lack legal standing.* There are a LOT of rights and privileges that military people sign away when they join the military.

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I found this:

Q. MY SISTER LOST HER HUSBAND IN THE FORT HOOD, TEXAS, SHOOTING IN NOVEMBER. CAN SHE SUE THE ARMY FOR HER HUSBAND’S DEATH?


A. You can sue anybody for anything. Whether you will win and get compensation for your damages is another story.

Your sister can sue the Army, but she will not win because of a 1950 Supreme Court decision, Feres v. United States.

In that case, a widow whose husband died in a barracks fire on an Army post sued the federal government, alleging negligence in that his military housing had a broken heater and did not keep a proper fire watch. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was not liable for negligence involving active-duty service members.

This opinion, known as the Feres Doctrine, bars any lawsuits for death or injury that happen “incident to military service.” The Supreme Court recognized that the military is “a specialized society” that “must foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps” to accomplish its mission.

Aside from how ridiculous it is to sue an entity (or person) for the actions of someone else, these kind of lawsuits ****ing disgust me. People who want to get paid because someone else died make me sick.

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In military medicine (U.S.,) the doctors are shielded from lawsuits from service members. But service members' dependents can sue if treated by incompetent doctors.

I'd guess that a similar principle applies here.

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Maybe you should sue them for making you sick.

HUH? 54 friggin relatives? I could see the parents suing and being upset with the military, but c'mon now this just looks like a bunch of freeloaders looking to fill their god damn pockets.

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Courtesy of Swissman

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Take a seat Mr. L...and a deep breath.


Yer right, I agree with you


I think we're talking some serious second cousins thrice removed looking to upgrade their 1972 trailer to a new double-wide.

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DISCLAIMER: Extreme amounts of sarcasm can possibly result in inflammatory situations. Not responsible for keyboard violence, spittle on the monitor, irrational responses mistaken for momentary brilliance, one-sided rages against hypocrisy or individual members or unintended consequences such as poor personal hygiene and bad spelling. Please fasten your seatbelts and put your trays in an upright position.

I'm gonna start putting pillows on the floor next to me.....

__________________
Courtesy of Swissman

A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it.

ANONYMOUS