Supreme Court Likely to Revive Suit Over FBI Wrong Home Raid (1)

The US Supreme Court is likely to give a Georgia family another shot at suing the federal government for mistakenly raiding their home.

The justices discussed several paths they could take to revive the case but it wasn’t clear from arguments on Tuesday which one they would take.

A victory for the family at this stage wouldn’t mean they win—only that Curtrina Martin, her partner Hilliard Toi Cliatt, and Martin’s son, then 7, would get their day in court.

The FBI raided their suburban Atlanta home in the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2017. A SWAT team broke down the door, detonated a flash-bang grenade, and held the family at gunpoint.

Officers soon realized that they’d raided the wrong home before moving on to the correct one about a block away. During the second raid, they arrested a suspected gang member who was the intended target.

Martin and her family were reimbursed for the damage to their home. But they sued the FBI for emotional distress and other claims. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit dismissed their case, finding that their claims were barred.

The arguments are technical and centered on the meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows suits against the government that would otherwise be barred by waiving sovereign immunity for certain state-law tort claims.

The law specifically allows for suits against the US for certain “intentional torts” like assault or battery done by federal officers.

There are exceptions that reinstate government immunity. They include the discretionary function exception, which is intended to keep state courts from second guessing federal policy making. The exception bars tort suits against the US when it challenges discretionary decisions made by federal officers.

The federal government says that exception protects it from liability in the argued case.

FBI agents had “discretion as to how to identify the target of a search warrant,” said Justice Department attorney Frederick Liu. The officers here were weighing public safety considerations, efficiency considerations, operational security.”

“Those are precisely the sorts of policy tradeoffs that an officer makes in determining, well, should I take one more extra precaution to make sure I’m at the right house,” Liu said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch interjected. “Yeah, you might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door.”

When Liu explained that the “decision is filled with policy tradeoffs,” Gorusch was incredulous. “Really?”

“Checking the street sign, is that, you know, asking too much?” Gorsuch asked.

Moreover, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that Congress specifically amended the FTCA to allow suits against federal officers following several high-profile raids targeting the wrong house.

Congress amended the law “because of the Collinsville raids,” Sotomayor said of a 1970s incident in Illinois. “There, officers, without a warrant, broke into a home. They tied up people. They were as threatening as in the current situation.”

The law should be interpreted to do something, Sotomayor said, otherwise, what was Congress doing? “Why bother?”

The case is Martin v. United States, U.S., No. 24-362, argued 4/29/25.