00:00We have breaking news. The Supreme Court has just ruled a family can sue the FBI for damages after their
00:05house was wrongly raided.
00:06Trina Martin says in 2017, agents in Atlanta pointed guns at her and her then-boyfriend while her 7-year
00:13-old son was watching.
00:14But their arrest warrant was actually for a neighbor accused of gang activity.
00:19That's for you and senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer and ABC News legal contributor Kim Whaley now.
00:24Devin, this was a unanimous decision by the court. What sticks out to you from the ruling?
00:28Well, this has much broader application, Diane, than just this one family who did suffer quite a traumatic experience.
00:35By my reporting, hundreds of these cases happen every year.
00:39The police showing up at the wrong address or receiving bad intelligence, storming in, damaging a house, traumatizing a family,
00:47and then having no responsibility for their actions.
00:50That's because the government enjoys broad immunity under federal law.
00:54You can't sue the government when they make a mistake.
00:58But what the Supreme Court did with this unanimous decision is they opened the door now, at least in this
01:04specific type of instance, when police are wrong, according to the Supreme Court, committing an assault, battery, false imprisonment, false
01:12arrest, or abuse of process,
01:13that families can get in the courthouse door to bring a damages claim for what they suffered and their property
01:19damage.
01:20And this family will do just that. The Supreme Court did not decide their claims today and said it's still
01:25possible they may not succeed in the end.
01:28But in this unanimous decision by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the case can go forward.
01:33Kim, what kind of precedent does this set?
01:36Yeah, well, as Devin indicates, this is something that actually comes from common law England, the idea that the king
01:43is sovereign and the government has to waive that immunity, the sovereign immunity, which the United States Congress did in
01:50a statute called the Federal Torque Claims Act.
01:52And there's just a debate here about how far that waiver is.
01:56The government has argued that it's pretty broad and excuse me, that the immunity is very broad.
02:03And as Devin indicated, the Supreme Court, this is unanimously, including the conservative justices, sided with the plaintiffs against the
02:10government.
02:11So I think this is a nod for, frankly, the little guy in an environment where we're seeing the expansion
02:17of federal power vis-a-vis not just individuals, but the states.
02:22And it will have to percolate in the lower courts.
02:24But it did basically slap down the 11th Circuit that found more broadly for immunity for the United States government.
02:32Devin, what happens next in this case?
02:35Well, this case is going to now go forward.
02:37And this family's claims, which have been pending since 2017 when this happened, Diane, they're seeking several thousand dollars in
02:45property damage, also the emotional damage.
02:47They had a seven-year-old son in the time when the FBI barged in in the middle of the
02:50night.
02:52They want some compensation for that.
02:54He told me that he has been traumatized his entire life because of what he went through that year.
02:59This case will go back to the appeals court.
03:02As Kim said, the appeals court will have to decide how the government can defend itself.
03:06The government says in these types of cases that officers make split-second decisions and they still have immunity under
03:13what's called a discretionary function.
03:16But Justice Neil Gorsuch today, Diane, didn't mince any words.
03:20He said this officer used his personal GPS to show up at the wrong house, didn't bother to look at
03:26the address numbers on the mailbox, hurt this family, and now they can seek some damages.
03:31And as Kim said, that's a win for a lot of victims around the country of police misconduct, Diane.
03:36All right, Devin Dwyer, Kim Whaley, thank you both.
