Van Dorn Preston v. M1 Support Servs., L.P.

• Decision Date: 21 January 2022
• Docket Number: 20-0270
• Parties: Nicole VAN DORN PRESTON, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Lt. J. Wesley Van Dorn, USN, Deceased; Amy Snyder, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Lt. Sean Christopher Snyder, USN, Deceased; Cheyenne Collins, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Andrew Collins, USN, Deceased; and Petty Officer 2nd Class Dylan Morgan Boone, USN, Petitioners, v. M1 SUPPORT SERVICES, L.P., Respondent
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

642 S.W.3d 452

Nicole VAN DORN PRESTON, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Lt. J. Wesley Van Dorn, USN, Deceased; Amy Snyder, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Lt. Sean Christopher Snyder, USN, Deceased; Cheyenne Collins, as Surviving Spouse and Personal Representative for the Estate of Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Andrew Collins, USN, Deceased; and Petty Officer 2nd Class Dylan Morgan Boone, USN, Petitioners,

v.M1 SUPPORT SERVICES, L.P., Respondent

No. 20-0270

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued September 14, 2021

OPINION DELIVERED: January 21, 2022

Rehearing Denied April 1, 2022

James H. Furman, Stephen I. Vladeck, Kevin Mahoney, Francis G. Fleming, for Petitioners.

S. Vance Wittie, George Steven McCall, Dallas, for Respondent.

Justice Bland delivered the opinion of the Court.

In American K-9 Detection Services v. Freeman ,¹ we recognized the political question doctrine in Texas state courts for cases involving the military. In adopting this separation of powers principle, we were careful to observe that state courts retain jurisdiction over "ordinary tort suits" capable of judicial management.² Abstention based on a political question thus requires a case-specific examination to determine whether judicial review of military action in a suit inappropriately encroaches on the Executive Branch's constitutional authority over the armed forces. In such circumstances, we do not allow judicial second-guessing.

In this case, a private contractor maintained a fleet of aging Navy helicopters. When one crashed during a training exercise, the families of the deceased servicemembers and a survivor sued the contractor, alleging claims under the Death on the High Seas Act and maritime law.³ The trial court dismissed the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, ruling that questions of military judgment render this case nonjusticiable. The court of appeals affirmed.

Applying American K-9 ’s principles, we conclude that the issues presented here are capable of judicial management without interfering with the military's judgment. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.

I

A

In January 2014, a Navy MH-53E helicopter caught fire 100 feet above sea level and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast. Three aboard the aircraft—Lieutenant J. Wesley Van Dorn, Lieutenant Sean Snyder, and Petty Officer Third Class Brian Collins—died. Two others, including petitioner Petty Officer Second Class Dylan Boone, were injured.

The Navy recovered the wreckage. Upon inspection, its investigators discovered two holes in the helicopter's aluminum fuel-transfer tube and visible evidence of chafing damage surrounding the breached areas. The holes in the transfer tube would have allowed fuel to leak into the cabin of the aircraft. Investigators suspected that the same chafing exposed poorly insulated wiring, igniting the leaked fuel. Although it was not recovered, investigators further suspected that a wire bundle held together by a plastic zip-tie had rubbed against the fuel tube, causing the chafing damage.

Respondent M1 Support Services, L.P., a Texas-based private contractor, performed "phase maintenance" for the aircraft about three months before it crashed. Phase maintenance requires a top-to-bottom helicopter inspection and repair of any mechanical discrepancies. M1 completed the maintenance and marked the helicopter "safe for flight."

M1 performed its work according to a Navy-provided Performance Work Statement. The work statement required M1 to use "applicable publications, technical directives, instructions, standards, and procedures contained in pertinent manuals," as well as Navy-provided "blueprints, drawings or schematics."

Through these directives—presented in a series of maintenance cards—the Navy prescribed the qualifications and number of M1 employees who were to perform the work and the time allotted to perform it. The Navy regularly inspected M1's activities, although the parties dispute whether these inspections involved more than a review of M1's paperwork. In one maintenance card directing M1's activities, the Navy expressly required that M1 check the "[f]uel and vent lines in [the helicopter's] cabin for leakage, chafing, obvious damage, and security."

B

Petty Officer Boone and the families of the deceased servicemen—the petitioners here—sued M1 for damages under the Death on the High Seas Act and general maritime law. The petitioners allege that M1 negligently failed to detect and repair damage to the fuel-transfer tube and the wire bundle during M1's phase maintenance, which in turn caused their injuries.

M1 denies the petitioners’ allegations. It asserts several defenses, including the "proportionate responsibility of Plaintiffs and non-parties." M1 further asks that the trial court apply settlement proceeds obtained from other defendants as credits should the court render any judgment against it.⁴

When discovery was nearly complete, M1 moved for summary judgment, raising the government-contractor defense to liability that the Supreme Court recognized in Boyle v. United Technologies Corp.⁵ The trial court never ruled on that motion. In the interim, M1 sought to dismiss this suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, relying on our recent decision in American K-9 . In its jurisdictional plea, M1 argued that the adjudication of this case is inextricable from judicial review of military decisions, raising the prospect of political interference of the sort that had made the claims in American K-9 nonjusticiable.

In support of its plea, M1 adduced statements from naval officers who averred that the Navy commonly used spare parts obtained from inoperable aircraft for repairs on the helicopter fleet. One officer related an instance in which the Navy requested she maintain an aircraft without the proper technical manuals. And M1 observed that the command investigation recognized that the Navy had inspected the crashed helicopter before the accident and authorized it safe for flight. These complaints involve the Navy's maintenance procedures, M1 argued, and thus adjudicating the petitioners’ claims would require the trial court to evaluate the Navy's decisions.

The petitioners responded that, unlike the questions presented in American K-9 , this case simply involves the proper maintenance of a particular aircraft. The Navy required M1 to inspect and replace defective fuel lines, and M1 allegedly failed to do so in compliance with those requirements. These claims do not require second-guessing of the Navy's military judgment, the petitioners urged, but an analysis of whether M1 complied with the Navy's maintenance procedures. Any review of the Navy's actions in this case thus does not infringe on its strategic decision-making. In short, as we anticipated in American K-9 , this case is an ordinary tort suit that is "subject to judicial review."⁶

The trial court granted M1's plea, concluding that this case would "inextricably involve a reexamination of professional Navy decisions beyond the Court's power to conduct" and would require "judicial second guessing" of the Navy's "procurement and maintenance" decisions. Such second-guessing, it ruled, runs counter to the political question doctrine we outlined in American K-9 . The court of appeals largely adopted the trial court's reasoning, holding that the Navy maintained control over some of M1's operations.⁷ We granted review.

II

A

Congress has the power to declare war and to raise and support the military, and the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces.⁸ Even as the Supreme Court acknowledged the judiciary's power to determine whether actions of the political branches are lawful in Marbury v. Madison , it recognized the limits of this principle.⁹ When the Executive Branch acts within its constitutional discretion, "nothing can be more perfectly clear than that their acts are only politically examinable."¹⁰ Thus, as a matter of separation of federal power, the Judicial Branch has declined to review military action "intended by the Constitution to be left to the political branches directly responsible ... to the electoral process."¹¹ The political question doctrine insulates decisions constitutionally committed to the other branches from judicial second-guessing.¹²

The Supreme Court examined the contours of the federal political question doctrine in Baker v. Carr .¹³ In rejecting the argument that the congressional apportionment issues in that case presented political questions, the Court listed factors that may indicate one exists.¹⁴ Chief among them are whether there is "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department" or "a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it":

Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.¹⁵

While we have never determined whether the Baker factors apply in Texas courts, the Texas Constitution expressly enshrines the separation of powers as a fundamental principle of limited government.¹⁶ Accordingly, under our own Constitution, Texas state courts decline to exercise jurisdiction over questions committed to the executive and legislative branches.¹⁷

In American K-9 , we considered the power of the Texas judiciary to adjudicate cases in...