U.S. Liability in Damage Cases Widened : Supreme Court: The government can be forced to pay more in negligence suits. Thomas writes first opinion as a justice.

In the first opinion authored by new Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court on Tuesday broadened the federal government’s duty to pay damages when it injures someone through negligence.

In a 9-0 ruling, the high court said that the government can be forced to pay for an injured person’s “loss of the enjoyment of life” as well as for other damages that go far beyond a strict accounting of the victim’s medical expenses.

Reading slowly and deliberately from the bench, Thomas said that the federal government cannot be forced to pay “punitive damages” for an accident or a negligent act by a government employee. However, a broad damage award that includes money for higher quality medical care or for the “loss of enjoyment of life” is designed to compensate the victim, not punish the perpetrator. Therefore, these awards are allowed, Thomas said.

By tradition, a new justice’s first written opinion involves a non-controversial case decided by a unanimous ruling.

Tuesday’s ruling could prove costly for the U.S. government.

In this case, the government could be forced to pay an extra $1.4 million, on top of $218,000 already owed, to the widow of a Wisconsin man who suffered irreversible brain damage in a Veteran’s Administration hospital.

The man, Robert Molzof, fell into a coma when hospital workers accidentally disconnected a breathing tube as he underwent a lung operation in 1986. He died three years later.

The Bush Administration and most federal courts have conceded that the government can be forced to pay for the injured person’s medical costs. In addition, in this case, the government agreed to pay $150,000 to Molzof’s widow, Shirley, for the loss of her husband’s companionship.

But the government balked at paying the extra $1.3 million for “future medical expenses” over and above the free medical care at the VA hospital (the case was tried before his death) and another $60,000 for Molzof’s “loss of enjoyment of life.” Such payments amount to a “windfall” for the victim’s family and are “wildly in excess of an amount that would compensate the plaintiff,” the Justice Department argued.

A federal judge in Wisconsin, supported by a U.S. appeals court in Chicago, agreed with the government. But the high court reversed those rulings in the case (Molzof vs. U.S., 90-838).

The outcome is best explained by a close reading of the law at issue, the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946. In recent years, spurred by Justice Antonin Scalia, the high court has sought to interpret federal laws just as they are written, regardless of what seems to make good public policy.

In this instance, the tort claims act says that when a U.S. government employee negligently causes another person to be injured, “the United States shall be liable . . . in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances, but shall not be liable . . . for punitive damages.”

In most states, a person who is injured by another person can win money for “the loss of enjoyment of life.” This amount is not considered “punitive damages” under state law. Therefore, the high court concluded, the federal government can also be required to pay such an award.

The court sent the Molzof case back to the trial judge to recalculate the amount of money owed to her.

An attorney who represented her said Shirley Molzof was “stunned, and of course, pleased” by Tuesday’s decision. “We are extremely grateful they took a close look at the law and ultimately ruled for us,” said attorney Thomas H. Geyer of Platteville, Wis.