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Feres Lives: How The Military Medical Malpractice Administrative Claims Process Denies Servicemembers Adequate Compensation, Robert A. Diehl

Duquesne Law Review

For more than seventy years, active-duty members of the United States armed forces injured by the negligence of military medical practitioners have been denied redress in the federal courts for their injuries. Surviving spouses, children, and probate estates have been turned away from the courthouse. The United States Supreme Court has justified this practice in a series of cases interpreting the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"),¹ a partial waiver of the federal government's sovereign immunity to suits sounding in law. These precedents-collectively called the Feres doctrine-are a judicial invention constructed from a complex and opaque series of arguments about …