Hencely v. Fluor Corp.: Oral Argument

Case Summary:Hencely v. Fluor Corp. arises from a 2016 suicide bombing at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where an Afghan national, Ahmad Nayeb, employed by a subcontractor of Fluor Corporation, detonated an explosive vest using materials from his job, killing several people and seriously injuring U.S. Army Specialist Winston T. Hencely. Fluor was working under a Department of Defense logistics contract that required it to hire and supervise local Afghan workers as part of the “Afghan First” program, and Hencely sued Fluor in federal court under South Carolina tort law (negligent supervision, negligent entrustment, negligent retention, and related claims), alleging the company failed to properly vet and supervise Nayeb, which allowed him to move unsupervised around the base and carry out the attack, as well as a contract-based claim arguing he was a third‑party beneficiary of Fluor’s contract with the military. The issue before the Supreme Court was whether a federal contractor like Fluor can invoke federal-law defenses, principally the “combatant activities” exception in the Federal Tort Claims Act and related federal‑preemption doctrines, to bar state‑law tort suits by U.S. service members injured by the contractor’s alleged negligence in performing a combat‑zone military contract. In particular, the case asks whether Hencely’s South Carolina negligence and contract claims are preempted or displaced because Fluor was carrying out a Department of Defense logistics contract in an active war zone, such that allowing the suit to proceed would impermissibly second‑guess or interfere with the federal government’s combat and force‑protection activities.