This week the Supreme Court agreed to review a Ninth Circuit decision that Public Health Service (PHS) personnel are subject to personal liability for their actions taken within the scope of employment. This past June, Feldesman Tucker had asked the Supreme Court to review and overturn the decision below on behalf of the former Director of the Division of Immigration Health Services and three other PHS personnel.
PHS personnel provide medical care to underserved areas, immigration detainees, federal prisoners, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and the Coast Guard. They serve throughout the United States (and even in foreign countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan). PHS's Commissioned Corps is a uniformed service organized along military lines and staffedby officers with military rank equivalents.
The Firm's petition urged the Supreme Court to review the decision below because it misapplies Supreme Court caselaw and conflicts with decisions of the "Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Circuits and, until this case, the Ninth" and because it "raises an important and obviously recurring issue that, because of the nature of the PHS, specially calls for a uniform national rule."
This week the Supreme Court agreed to review a Ninth Circuit decision that Public Health Service (
