Court Dismisses Suit by Families of Stark’s Sailors

The Supreme Court Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed against military contractors by families of 37 sailors who died on the guided-missile frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf in 1987, on the grounds that permitting the case to proceed could expose military secrets.

The Stark was on patrol on May 17, 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war, when it was struck by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi fighter jet. Iraq apologized for the apparently mistaken attack and later paid $27 million to compensate survivors for the loss.

In their lawsuit, however, the families, joined by the ship’s captain, blamed the deaths and damage on the failure of the Stark’s anti-missile system. They contended that the Phalanx system was defectively designed and that General Dynamics had deceived the Pentagon about its reliability.

But in 1990, then-Navy Secretary Lawrence Garrett killed the lawsuit by taking the “extraordinary measure” of invoking the “state secrets privilege.” This longstanding, though rarely used legal principle permits the government to stop a legal procedure that will reveal military secrets.

Usually, however, it is invoked to block a suit against the government itself, not a suit between two private parties.

In his affidavit to a federal judge, Garrett said that the suit against General Dynamics would reveal classified information about the Navy’s “rules of engagement,” as well as the capabilities of the Phalanx system. Both “would prejudice the national security” and the government could not permit such information to be disclosed, he said.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent dismissed the suit in 1991, and his order was upheld by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

In their appeal to the high court, attorneys for the families contended that the government’s “bare assertion” of a threat to state secrets should not be enough to scuttle a trial. They said that they could prove their case without relying on classified information.

But the high court rejected the appeal and ended the suit in the case (Bareford vs. General Dynamics, 92-1209).