11th Circuit opinion makes David Lat's "Ruling of the week."

If you aren't a subscriber to David Lat's newsletter, you should be.  It is excellent.  Here is his ruling of the week: 

Ruling of the Week: Martin v. United States.

Many of you may recall Martin v. United States, a Supreme Court decision from June 2025. The case arose out of egregious facts, as explained by the Institute for Justice (the libertarian-leaning, public-interest law firm that represents the Martin family):

In 2017, masked federal agents broke down the innocent family’s front door, detonated a flashbang grenade in their living room, and held them at gunpoint before realizing they had the wrong house. The agents—who were attempting to execute a search warrant for a different house on a different street—did not even bother to check the family’s address before barging in.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the Martin family’s case, which was brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act. But the Supreme Court revived the suit, vacated the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment, and told that court to try again—in light of guidance provided by SCOTUS in a unanimous opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

On remand, the Eleventh Circuit once again ruled in favor of the feds, as reported by ABC News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In a per curiam opinion of 38 pages, the unanimous panel affirmed the dismissal of the Martin family’s claims against the government, based on sovereign immunity (although the panel did reverse the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to the FBI agent responsible for the epic screw-up).

But this time, there was a twist. I’ll again cite IJ’s statement (which provides an excellent, plain-English explanation of the complex doctrines at issue in this case):

In today’s decision, a three-judge panel of 11th Circuit judges reluctantly concludes that the circuit precedent required them to dismiss the Martins’ FTCA claims. However, in a concurring decision, the same three judges describe that precedent as a “mess,” lay out a new legal path that could allow suits over wrong-house raids to proceed to trial, and urge the full 11th Circuit court to revisit its flawed precedent immunizing the government through the FTCA’s “discretionary function exception.” IJ will file a motion to ask the full court to do so.

Would such a motion by IJ carry the day? Judge Adalberto Jordan’s 12-page concurrence was joined by Judges Jill Pryor and Embry Kidd. Although all three are Democratic appointees, and Republican appointees hold a 7–5 majority among active judges on the Eleventh Circuit, the libertarian flavor of the case—brought by IJ and previously addressed by Justice Gorsuch, widely regarded as one of the most libertarian justices—could be sufficient to garner a majority for rehearing en banc. So this long-running litigation might still have a happy ending for the Martins. (Given the bad facts and negative publicity, I wonder why the government hasn’t settled.)