Hencely v. Fluor Corp. · ¶37
The Fourth Circuit's decision not only extended, but contradicted, Boyle. Boyle created a defense for contractors only insofar as the suit challenged a decision of the Government that the contractor merely carried out. A confict even with the new “uniquely federal interest” the lower courts have identified in military operations, then, would have to emerge from a state-law suit challenging the mili tary's decisions on the battlefeld. The Fourth Circuit did not ask that question. To the contrary, it expressly concluded that resolving Hencely's claims under South Carolina law would not require “evaluat[ing] the reasonableness of military judgments.” 120 F. 4th, at 424; contra, post, at 59 (opinion of Alito, J.). But, it went on to find preemption in any case because it thought that the Government's “ `interest in combat is always precisely contrary to the imposition of a non-federal tort…Read in context ›
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