Federal: Postal Employee’s IIED Action Re: SWAT Team’s Search Warrant “Invasion” of Residence May Proceed

A federal district court, sitting in California, recently refused to grant the federal government’s motion for summary judgment in an intentional infliction of emotional distress action (among other claims) filed against it by a postal service employee who claimed that heavily-armed U.S. Postal Service special agents stormed into her residence and executed an invalid search warrant that had been issued in connection with the government’s claim that the woman had engaged in workers’ compensation fraud.  She alleged that the agents confronted her with guns, aimed their rifles at her dog, “grabbed her,” refused to allow her to use her bathroom without being accompanied by one of the officers, and otherwise harassed and intimidated her without justification.  The federal government strongly denied the woman’s version of the story.  Finding that if all reasonable inferences were resolved in the employee’s favor she would have stated a cause of action under the Federal Tort Claim Act, the district court ruled that the matter could move toward trial.

Reported by Thomas A. Robinson, J.D.

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See Thompson v. United States, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127002 (Sept. 5, 2013) [2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127002 (Sept. 5, 2013)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.05 [104.05]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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