Can I Sue the Military? FTCA Claims and the Feres Doctrine

You can sue the military, but only in the narrow situations where Congress has said you may. The federal government is protected by sovereign immunity, which means no lawsuit against the military can go forward unless a specific statute waives that protection. For most civilians harmed by military negligence, the door is the Federal Tort Claims Act. For active-duty service members hurt in connection with their service, that door is largely closed by a 1950 Supreme Court decision called the Feres Doctrine, and the alternatives are administrative rather than judicial. Whether you have a case, and where you file it, depends on who you are, how you were harmed, and where the incident happened.

Why the Military Is Harder to Sue Than a Private Defendant

The federal government, including every branch of the armed forces, cannot be sued without its consent. Congress has passed several statutes granting that consent for specific categories of claims, each with its own procedures, deadlines, and exceptions. If your situation doesn’t fit into one of those statutory openings, no court has power to hear the case, no matter how serious the harm.

The most important opening for people injured by military conduct is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

Suing Under the Federal Tort Claims Act

The FTCA lets you sue the United States for personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death caused by the negligent or wrongful acts of a federal employee acting within the scope of their duties.¹ Military personnel count as federal employees for this purpose.² The statute treats the government like a private employer: if a private business would be liable for the same conduct under the law of the state where the incident happened, the United States can be liable too.

Typical FTCA claims against the military include car crashes involving military vehicles on public roads, medical malpractice at military hospitals when the patient is a civilian or dependent, and injuries from negligent maintenance of military facilities open to the public.

Before you can file in court, you must first submit an administrative claim to the responsible agency. Skip that step, and the court will dismiss your case regardless of its merits.³

The Feres Doctrine Blocks Most Service-Member Claims

Active-duty service members almost always run into the Feres Doctrine. In Feres v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the government is not liable under the FTCA for injuries to service members “where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service.”⁴ Courts have read “incident to service” broadly: training injuries, combat wounds, harm from defective equipment, and negligent medical care at military hospitals have all been barred.

You also can’t get around Feres by naming an individual officer instead of the United States. In Chappell v. Wallace, the Supreme Court held that enlisted personnel cannot sue superior officers for constitutional violations, citing the “special nature of military life.”⁵ The courts closed the individual-defendant workaround alongside the government-defendant one.

FTCA Exceptions That Can Defeat a Claim

Even when the FTCA applies in principle, Congress carved out exceptions that eliminate whole categories of claims. Four matter most in military cases.⁶

The discretionary function exception shields policy-level judgment calls: what equipment to buy, how to design a training program, where to locate a facility. Injuries that trace back to that kind of decision are not compensable, even if the decision was a bad one.

The combatant activities exception bars any claim arising from “the combatant activities of the military or naval forces, or the Coast Guard, during time of war.” This applies whether the injured person is a civilian or a service member.

The foreign country exception eliminates “any claim arising in a foreign country.” If a military vehicle injures you on a road in Germany or Japan, the FTCA is not available.

Finally, the FTCA generally does not cover intentional torts like assault and battery. There’s a narrow carve-out for these torts when committed by federal “investigative or law enforcement officers,” which can include military police or criminal investigators, but not ordinary military personnel.

What Service Members Can Do Instead of Suing

Feres closes the courtroom for most service-related injuries, but service members have three administrative paths worth knowing.

VA Disability Compensation

For most service-connected injuries or illnesses, VA disability compensation is the primary remedy. You file a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs, not a lawsuit. You don’t have to prove negligence — only that your condition is connected to your service. The Supreme Court in Feres pointed to this system when it explained why service members were excluded from FTCA coverage.

The Stayskal Act for Military Medical Malpractice

In 2019, Congress opened a limited window in Feres. The SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act, included in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, allows active-duty service members (or their surviving family) to file administrative claims for personal injury or death caused by negligent care from a Department of Defense health care provider in a military hospital or clinic.⁷ Congress authorized $400 million over ten years to pay these claims.

The catch: this remains an administrative process. The DoD decides whether to pay, and you cannot appeal the decision to federal court.

The Military Claims Act

The Military Claims Act provides an administrative route for property damage, personal injury, or death caused by military personnel during noncombat activities. The Secretary of the relevant branch can settle and pay claims up to $100,000.⁸ For meritorious claims above that figure, the Secretary can pay $100,000 and refer the rest to the Treasury. Claims must be filed in writing within two years of accrual.⁹

National Guard Members Depend on Their Duty Status

For National Guard members, the answer changes with the duty status you were in when the injury happened.

Under federal Title 10 orders, Guard members are in the same legal position as active-duty troops, and Feres blocks service-incident claims. The FTCA’s definition of “employee of the government” also includes Guard members engaged in certain training and duty under Title 32.²

On State Active Duty, called up by a governor, Guard members are state employees, not federal employees.¹⁰ The federal Feres Doctrine does not apply, and any claim runs through the state’s own sovereign immunity rules.

Filing the Administrative Claim

The administrative claim is mandatory before any FTCA lawsuit. The statute is blunt: no suit “shall be instituted” unless the claimant has “first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency” and the claim has been “finally denied by the agency in writing.”³

You submit Standard Form 95 (SF-95). It requires a description of the incident, an explanation of why the government is responsible, and a specific dollar amount. “To be determined” won’t work; you must state a sum certain. Attach supporting documents: medical records, repair estimates, proof of ownership.

The agency then investigates and either offers a settlement or denies the claim in writing. If six months pass with no decision, you can treat the silence as a denial and go to federal court.³

Deadlines You Cannot Miss

The clocks on military claims are short and unforgiving. Courts have almost no room to extend them.

Two years to file the administrative claim. An FTCA claim must be presented in writing to the appropriate federal agency within two years of when the claim accrues, meaning when you discovered or reasonably should have discovered the injury.¹¹
Six months to file suit after denial. Once the agency mails a final denial by certified or registered mail, you have six months to file in federal court, or the claim is “forever barred.”¹¹

The Military Claims Act uses the same two-year accrual rule.⁹ In medical malpractice cases where the harm surfaces late, the clock may start on discovery, but you carry the burden of proving you couldn’t have known earlier.

What You Can Recover

Winning an FTCA case looks different from winning a private personal injury case.

No punitive damages against the government. You can recover compensatory damages for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering where state law allows.¹²
No pre-judgment interest, which matters in cases that take years.¹²
No jury trial. A federal judge decides both the facts and the law.¹³
Attorney fees are capped. A lawyer cannot charge more than 20% of an administrative settlement or more than 25% of a judgment or litigation settlement, and exceeding those caps carries criminal penalties.¹⁴

Moving to Federal Court

If the agency denies your claim or lets six months pass, you can file in the federal district court where the incident happened. Federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over FTCA claims; state court is not an option.¹

Service of process has extra steps when the United States is the defendant. You must serve both the U.S. Attorney for the district where you filed and the Attorney General in Washington, D.C. If you named a specific agency or officer, that agency or officer gets served separately.

Watch for one procedural trap. If you sue an individual military employee for personal negligence, the Attorney General can certify that the employee was acting within the scope of their duties. When that certification is filed, the United States automatically replaces the individual as the defendant, and the case proceeds under all the FTCA rules and limitations described above.¹⁵ If you filed in state court, it gets removed to federal court. Naming the driver of the military truck instead of the Army will not keep you out of the FTCA framework.

From there, the case moves through discovery, motions, and, if it goes the distance, a bench trial. The government does settle FTCA cases when liability is clear, but the process is slow. Plan in years, not months.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S.C. 1346 – United States as Defendant
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S.C. 2671 – Definitions
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S.C. 2675 – Disposition by Federal Agency as Prerequisite; Evidence
4
Library of Congress. Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950)
5
Cornell Law School. Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296 (1983)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2680 – Exceptions
7
Congressman Richard Hudson. Rep. Hudson, Sen. Mullin Hold Press Conference on SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 U.S.C. 2733 – Property Loss; Personal Injury or Death: Incident to Noncombat Activities of Department of Army, Navy, or Air Force
9
eCFR. 32 CFR 842.35 – Statute of Limitations
10
National Guard Bureau. National Guard Duty Statuses
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2674 – Liability of United States
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2402 – Jury Trial in Actions Against United States
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2678 – Attorney Fees; Penalty
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2679 – Exclusiveness of Remedy