The Phone Call That Divides a Life
The phone rings, and from that moment the rest of your life divides into before and after. A person you love is dead. The call says it happened outside a motel in Henrico County, and that the person who pulled the trigger was a federal law enforcement officer working an operation under the seal of the United States government. There is no version of that sentence that comes with a manual, and there is no hour in the day to learn the rules that begin running the second you hang up. You will be told that the case is “under investigation.” You will be told that “an administrative review” is happening. You will be told, in the same breath, that your family member is gone and that the system that took them is the system you have to ask for answers. We are the law firm that picks up that phone, and we wrote this page so the next family in your chair does not have to learn those rules alone.
Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — handles federal civil-rights and wrongful-death cases arising from fatal encounters with law enforcement, including fatal shootings by federal agents acting within the scope of their employment. We take these cases in Virginia through local Virginia counsel and, where appropriate, pro hac vice admission of our trial team. Our firm name — Attorney911 — comes from the fact that legal emergencies do not announce themselves in advance, and the family on the other end of this page is, today, the reason that name exists. If you are reading this at 2 a.m. because an FBI agent shot and killed someone you love, the phone number at the bottom of this page is the place to start. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. 1-888-ATTY-911.
What follows is the full picture, written so the next reader in your chair does not have to learn it on their own. We will not pretend it is simple. Federal civil-rights cases against the United States and its agents are some of the most procedurally complex and politically charged cases in American law. But the rules exist for a reason, and the rules have teeth — even when the defendant is the federal government.
Who We Sue — And Why There Are Two Front Doors
A case like this rarely has one defendant. The work of identifying every entity with potential responsibility is the first thing we do, and the structure dictates the entire legal path. In the fatal FBI shooting we are addressing, three distinct legal targets exist, and each is reached through a different door.
The United States of America is the first defendant, and the one most people do not realize is reachable at all. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b) and 2671–2680, the United States can be sued for the negligent or wrongful acts of its employees — including FBI agents — committed within the scope of their employment, in the same way a private person would be liable under the law of the place where the act occurred. That is the door through which almost every federal-officer shooting case is brought, because the alternative — suing the agent individually for damages — has been narrowed almost to a vanishing point by recent Supreme Court decisions. We will explain that narrowing in detail below, but the headline is this: the FTCA is where the recovery lives for the family. The case is filed against the United States, and the United States is represented by Department of Justice lawyers. There is no insurance carrier on the other side in the ordinary sense — the United States self-adjusts and self-pays, and the damages available are the damages a Virginia private person would owe under Virginia law.
The individual FBI agent is a second, much harder target. After the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Egbert v. Boule, the federal constitutional tort known as a Bivens action survives in only a small handful of “core” contexts, and a fatal shooting during a federal task-force operation is not one of them. The agent will, however, still raise a Fourth Amendment excessive-force defense through a motion to dismiss, and that defense will be evaluated under the qualified immunity standard — meaning the court will ask whether the force was objectively reasonable and whether the law was “clearly established” at the time. A Bivens claim in this posture is, candidly, a long shot. We file it anyway when the facts support it, because the law changes, and because the agent is the person whose actual conduct is at issue. But the family should know, honestly, that the realistic recovery path runs through the FTCA, not through the agent’s personal wallet.
The motel and its ownership are a third, often-overlooked defendant, and one we evaluate from the very first call. Many fatal law-enforcement shootings occur at or near hotels and motels. A motel that rents rooms it knows are used by federal task forces, that fails to warn its other guests, that fails to maintain functioning surveillance, that fails to supervise its own staff, or that fails to keep its property reasonably safe for the people who are present can be a separate, state-law defendant under Virginia premises-liability and negligent-security theories. The motel is reached through Virginia’s ordinary wrongful-death and survival statutes, and the motel carries ordinary commercial insurance — which means the motel is, paradoxically, often the most collectible defendant in the entire case. We will address the motel below.
This three-defendant structure is the single most important thing the family understands in the first week. Each defendant is reached by a different statute, governed by a different procedure, subject to a different set of defenses, and assessed by a different standard of care. The right firm builds the three cases simultaneously, in the right order, with the right preservation letters going out to each of them before their evidence dies.
The Federal Tort Claims Act: How You Sue the FBI
The FTCA is the spine of the case. The first thing to understand about it is that it is not a normal lawsuit. It is a statutorily required, two-stage process that begins not with a complaint, but with an administrative claim — and the administrative claim is the single most important document the family files. Missteps here kill cases before they ever reach a courtroom.
The statute authorizing the claim is the FTCA itself, codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346, 2671–2680. The jurisdictional grant is found in 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), which provides that the district courts have exclusive jurisdiction over civil claims against the United States for money damages “for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” That is the door. The “law of the place” is Virginia law, because the shooting occurred in Henrico County, Virginia. That choice of law matters — it brings in Virginia’s wrongful-death statute, Virginia’s contributory-negligence rule, and Virginia’s damage caps. We will cover each below.
The critical first step is the administrative claim. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a), no action may be filed against the United States in federal court “unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency and his claim shall have been finally denied by the agency in writing and sent by certified or registered mail.” For a claim involving an FBI agent, the appropriate agency is the Department of Justice. The claim is “presented” when the agency receives an executed Standard Form 95 (SF-95) or other written notice of the incident “accompanied by a claim for money damages in a sum certain.” This is set out at 28 C.F.R. § 14.2.
“An action shall not be instituted upon a claim against the United States for money damages … unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency and his claim shall have been finally denied by the agency in writing and sent by certified or registered mail. The failure of an agency to make final disposition of a claim within six months after it is filed shall, at the option of the claimant any time thereafter, be deemed a final denial of the claim.”
— 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) (verbatim).
The “sum certain” requirement is one of the most underappreciated traps in the entire case. The SF-95’s Block 12 requires a specific dollar figure, and that figure is, in many courts, treated as a binding cap on what the family can later recover at trial. Stating too low a number, in a moment of grief, can permanently constrain the case. Stating no number at all can be grounds for the United States to argue the claim was never properly presented. We prepare the SF-95 with the same care we prepare a complaint, and we put a number on it that reflects the full measure of what the law allows.
There are two clocks running from the moment the administrative claim is filed. The first is the two-year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), which runs from when the claim accrues. The second is the six-month clock that begins when the Department of Justice mails a final written denial. A tort claim against the United States “shall be forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years after such claim accrues or unless action is begun within six months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim by the agency to which it was presented.” The word “forever” is in the statute. Missing either clock ends the case.
There are narrow doors out of the FTCA’s time limits, in the form of equitable tolling. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Wong, 575 U.S. 402 (2015), that the FTCA’s time bars are not jurisdictional and may be equitably tolled, but the Court was equally clear that the doctrine applies only when the claimant has pursued his rights diligently. We never rely on equitable tolling. We calendar the two-year window from the day the family calls and we calendar the six-month window from the day the denial lands. Both clocks are sacred.
There is also a second feature of the FTCA that catches families by surprise: there is no jury. The Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury does not apply against the federal government, and the FTCA case is tried to a United States District Judge sitting as the finder of fact. This is a fundamentally different trial from a state-court wrongful-death case. The judge — not twelve neighbors — decides whether the agent acted reasonably, whether the force was lawful, what the family lost, and how much the United States owes. We try bench trials. We know how to present a fatal-shooting case to a federal judge, how to organize the evidence, and how to make the record so that the judge is deciding the case the family came to court to have decided.
The damages available against the United States are also constrained in a way Virginia state-court damages are not. Section 2674 of the FTCA provides that the United States is liable “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances,” but it expressly prohibits punitive damages. The family can recover compensatory damages — the full measure of what Virginia allows in a wrongful-death case — but cannot recover damages designed to punish. We will address the Virginia damages picture in detail below; the FTCA inherits it almost in full, except for the no-punitive piece.
Two final FTCA details that matter. The first is the discretionary-function exception at 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a), which excludes from FTCA coverage “[a]ny claim … based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.” The FBI will almost certainly invoke this exception. It argues that tactical decisions about how to approach a suspect are “discretionary” and therefore beyond the reach of suit. The answer is that the discretionary-function exception has limits. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the exception protects only decisions grounded in social, economic, or political policy — not operational violations of established rules, training, or procedure. If the FBI agent violated a specific tactical standard, a specific use-of-force policy, a specific training protocol, or a specific operational rule, the exception does not protect the United States. The line is drawn case by case, and the line is where the family wins or loses the FTCA door.
The second is the intentional-tort exception at 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). The general rule is that the FTCA does not cover claims arising from assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights. The proviso, however, brings claims for assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, or malicious prosecution back into FTCA coverage when the claim is against “investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States Government.” That proviso is the federal officer’s analog to the state-law intentional-tort regime — and it is the door that opens for excessive-force and wrongful-death claims against federal agents, even when the conduct was intentional. The proviso is the reason the family is not shut out of the courthouse by the fact that the agent intended to pull the trigger. Intent does not equal immunity under the FTCA when the target is a federal law-enforcement officer.
The Bivens Question: Can You Sue the Agent Personally?
The Bivens question is, for most families, the second question they ask. The first is “can we sue the FBI?” We have just answered that. The second is “can we sue the agent who pulled the trigger?” That question has a more difficult answer.
A Bivens action is a damages remedy implied from the Constitution itself. In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court held that a federal agent’s violation of the Fourth Amendment gave rise to a private damages action, even though no federal statute authorized one. For decades, Bivens claims extended to Fifth Amendment gender-discrimination claims (Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979)) and Eighth Amendment claims arising from inadequate prison medical care (Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980)). The doctrine sat largely stable for nearly thirty years.
It then contracted, year by year, as the Supreme Court grew increasingly reluctant to imply damages remedies against federal officers in contexts Congress had not addressed. The contraction accelerated in 2022, when the Court decided Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022). Justice Thomas, writing for the Court, made clear that expanding Bivens to new contexts is a “disfavored” judicial activity, and that the two-step test for new Bivens claims — first, whether the claim arises in a new Bivens context, and second, whether special factors counsel against implying a damages remedy — almost always resolves against implication. After Egbert, the universe of viable Bivens claims is the universe of the three original contexts: Fourth Amendment unreasonable search (Bivens itself), Fifth Amendment gender discrimination (Davis), and Eighth Amendment inadequate medical care (Carlson). A Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim arising from a federal task-force operation is, candidly, not among the recognized contexts the Court has kept alive. The Court has, at most, signaled that excessive force in the arrest context might survive; it has not held so in a controlling decision.
What this means for the family is the following. A Bivens claim against the individual agent is filed, in many cases, to preserve the issue and to make the record. It forces the agent to testify, under oath, about what he did and why. It preserves the constitutional violation for appeal, in the event the law expands again. And it makes the agent’s conduct visible, which the FTCA process otherwise tends to keep behind closed doors. But the family should understand, in advance, that a Bivens claim in this posture is the long-odds claim in the case. The United States is the realistic recovery.
There is one additional layer. The individual agent will, separately, assert qualified immunity against the Bivens claim. Qualified immunity protects government officials from damages liability unless the official violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a reasonable official would have known (Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982)). The defense will argue that the force used was reasonable under the circumstances, and that even if it was not, the law was not clearly established on the specific facts. The court’s analysis under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009), gives the trial court discretion to decide either prong first. Either way, qualified immunity is the second wall the family will face even if a Bivens claim survives the Egbert threshold.
The net result: the family files the Bivens claim, the family preserves the constitutional record, but the family does not count on a Bivens recovery. The case runs on the FTCA track. The Bivens claim is the satellite that forces discovery; the FTCA is the engine that moves the family.
Virginia’s Wrongful Death Act — And the Contributory Negligence Trap
The damages side of the case runs through Virginia law, because the FTCA borrows “the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” The shooting happened in Henrico County, Virginia. The “law of the place” is Virginia’s wrongful-death statute, Virginia’s survival statute, and Virginia’s substantive tort law — including, critically, Virginia’s rule on contributory negligence.
Virginia is one of only a handful of jurisdictions in the United States that still follows pure contributory negligence. Under that rule, if the person who was killed was even one percent at fault for the events that led to the death, the family recovers nothing. The doctrine was reaffirmed in the modern era by the Supreme Court of Virginia in cases such as Buchanan v. Rose, 138 Va. 670 (1924), and the rule remains the law of the Commonwealth. There is no comparative-fault reduction; there is no proportional recovery. The bar is one percent, and one percent is enough.
This rule is the single most dangerous feature of a Virginia wrongful-death case, and the United States will raise it in every fatal-shooting case it can. The defense will investigate the decedent — the decedent’s history, the decedent’s prior conduct, the decedent’s demeanor on the day of the shooting, anything the decedent said or did in the minutes before the encounter — looking for any plausible hook on which to hang a contributory-negligence defense. The argument often takes the form of “the decedent posed a threat,” “the decedent failed to comply with verbal commands,” “the decedent reached for a weapon,” “the decedent moved toward the agents in a manner that justified the use of force,” or “the decedent’s own conduct created the necessity for the law-enforcement response.” Each of these is a hook on which the United States will try to bar the entire case.
The family’s response to this is built into the case from day one. The preservation letter goes out the same day we are retained. The FBI’s own records, body-worn camera footage, surveillance footage from the motel, witness statements, dispatch audio, and forensic evidence are preserved in their original form. We retain a use-of-force expert — a retired federal law enforcement officer with task-force experience — to evaluate the operational decisions and the force used. We retain a forensic pathologist or ballistics expert to interpret the medical and forensic record. The point is that the contributory-negligence defense is built on the FBI’s narrative, and the FBI’s narrative is built on evidence it controls. The family’s job is to put the FBI’s own evidence in front of the same judge, before the FBI can curate it.
Virginia’s wrongful-death statute is found at Va. Code § 8.01-50. It permits recovery, by the personal representative of the decedent, for the benefit of the statutory beneficiaries, of damages “such as the jury may deem fair and just.” The statutory beneficiaries, in order of priority, are the surviving spouse, children, and grandchildren of the decedent, and, if there are none, the parents, siblings, or other relatives dependent on the decedent. The recoverable damages are not the kind that go on an invoice. Virginia allows recovery for sorrow, mental anguish, and loss of solace of the survivors, as well as for the more easily quantifiable categories: lost income and earning capacity, lost services, medical and funeral expenses, and the loss of the decedent’s care, guidance, and companionship.
Virginia also recognizes a separate survival action, which belongs to the decedent’s estate and is brought by the personal representative for the benefit of the estate. Survival damages include the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering, pre-death medical expenses, and pre-death lost income. The two claims are sometimes joined and sometimes tried separately, but both belong in the case from the start.
Two Virginia-specific features close the financial picture. The first is that Virginia law caps noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice cases at specific amounts, but those caps do not apply to a general wrongful-death case arising from a federal officer’s shooting. The second is that Virginia does not generally allow recovery of punitive damages in wrongful-death actions. The United States is therefore on the hook for the full compensatory measure of the family’s loss, but not for punitive damages. The FTCA’s separate bar on punitive damages against the United States is therefore aligned with, and reinforced by, Virginia substantive law on this point. We will work the full compensatory box — economic loss, lost services, loss of solace, and the estate’s survival damages — as hard as Virginia law allows.
The Motel: A Third Defendant You May Not Have Considered
Many fatal law-enforcement shootings occur at or near hotels and motels, and Henrico County is no exception. The Henrico County area, which surrounds the city of Richmond and includes the West Broad Street and Chamberlayne Avenue corridors, has a high density of motels that are frequently used as operational sites by federal, state, and local law enforcement. Interstates 95 and 64 pass through the county and feed both the federal task-force presence and the surrounding commercial lodging market. The motel at the center of a shooting is not a coincidence — it is, very often, the location the FBI chose for the operation, and the motel knew, or should have known, what kind of activity its property was being used for.
That fact opens a separate, state-law defendant that the family often does not know exists: the motel owner, its parent company, and the management company operating the property. A motel that rents rooms to federal law enforcement, that hosts task-force operations, that knows the property will be used for arrests, that fails to warn other guests, that fails to maintain functioning surveillance, that fails to communicate safety information to its staff, and that fails to keep its property reasonably safe for all who are present can be a separate, ordinary-tort defendant under Virginia law. The motel is reached through Virginia’s ordinary wrongful-death and survival statutes, and the motel’s insurance is ordinary commercial general liability and excess — not a self-insured federal treasury.
The motel’s own liability is real and is often more collectible than the federal case, because the motel carries ordinary insurance that the United States does not. The motel’s standard of care is also ordinary, not governmental — Virginia’s premises-liability and negligent-security regime applies. The motel’s defenses do not include sovereign immunity, the discretionary-function exception, or qualified immunity. The motel’s defense is simply that it acted reasonably, that the shooting was not foreseeable, and that the FBI’s conduct was an intervening cause. Each of these defenses can be met with the FBI’s own operational record, with the motel’s prior-incident history, with the motel’s surveillance footage, and with the motel’s staff-training records.
This is also where the evidence clock is most unforgiving. The motel’s surveillance footage overwrites itself, often on a seven-to-fourteen-day cycle. The motel’s reservation records, the motel key-card data, the motel housekeeping logs, the motel incident reports, and the motel staff statements all sit on a shorter retention cycle than the FBI’s own records. The preservation letter to the motel is the single most time-sensitive piece of paper in the entire case, and it must go out the same week the family calls.
The Two-Year Clock — And Why It Quietly Kills Cases
Virginia’s two-year statute of limitations on wrongful death is found at Va. Code § 8.01-243(A). The clock runs from the date of death. A claim not filed within two years of the date of death is, with very narrow exceptions, forever barred. For a family in shock, two years sounds like a long time. It is not. The first six months of a federal-officer shooting case are spent waiting on the FBI’s internal review, on the Department of Justice’s response to the administrative claim, and on the slow business of getting the family’s basic questions answered. By the time the family understands the FTCA process, by the time the SF-95 has been filed and denied, by the time the family has retained counsel, gathered records, and built the case, the back half of the two-year window is closing.
For the federal case, two clocks run in parallel. The two-year administrative clock under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b) runs from accrual and is sometimes earlier than the Virginia SOL — for example, when the injury is a discrete incident rather than a latent disease. The six-month post-denial clock under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b) runs from the date the Department of Justice mails a final denial by certified or registered mail. That six-month clock is the more dangerous of the two. The family receives a letter, the letter says “we have denied your claim,” and the letter does not say that a new, six-month clock is running from the moment the family opens the envelope. We calendar that six-month clock from the day the denial lands and we file the federal complaint before the clock runs out.
The narrow doors out of these time bars are equitable tolling and equitable estoppel. The Supreme Court in United States v. Wong held that the FTCA’s time bars are not jurisdictional and may be equitably tolled. The tolling analysis turns on whether the claimant pursued his rights diligently and on whether some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way. We never rely on equitable tolling. We calendar and we file. If there is a possible tolling argument, we keep it in our back pocket as a safety net, not as a strategy.
What the FBI’s Own Files Say
A fatal-shooting case against the United States is won or lost, in significant part, on the FBI’s own records. The FBI is a documentation-intensive agency. Almost every operational decision, every tactical choice, every use of force, every communication with other agencies, and every interview of a witness is reduced to writing, in some form, before the case is closed. The family’s job is to put the FBI’s own files in front of the same federal judge who will decide the FTCA case, and the family’s tools for getting those files are the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the discovery rules that govern FTCA cases once the complaint is filed.
The FBI’s records that matter most are the following. First, the after-action report for the operation, which records the operational plan, the number of agents involved, the tactical approach, the equipment used, and the supervisor’s review. Second, the use-of-force report that the agent is required to file after every significant use of force, including a fatal shooting. Third, the body-worn camera footage from every agent on the scene, which is the single most decisive piece of evidence in a fatal-shooting case. Body-worn camera footage is recorded over on a rolling retention schedule that is set by FBI policy and that is far shorter than the litigation cycle — a body-worn camera that was not preserved by litigation hold is, in many cases, permanently lost within weeks. Fourth, the dispatch and radio traffic from the operation, which captures the chain of communication in real time. Fifth, the witness statements taken by the agents in the hours after the shooting, before the witnesses’ memories have been curated. Sixth, the forensic and medical records for the decedent, including the autopsy report, the ballistics report, the toxicology report, and the photographs of the scene. Seventh, the agent’s personnel file, including training records, prior use-of-force incidents, disciplinary history, and the agent’s certifications. Each of these categories can be demanded in the administrative phase, in the FOIA process, in the complaint, and in discovery once the federal case is filed.
The legal authority for getting these records depends on the forum. In the FTCA administrative phase, the family submits a FOIA request to the FBI for the operationally relevant records, and the FBI is required to respond within statutory deadlines. There is a fee-waiver provision for requesters who are seeking records “relating to a living or deceased person about whom the requester can demonstrate a personal connection.” The administrative claim itself triggers a duty by the Department of Justice to investigate the claim, and the investigation includes a review of the FBI’s own records. In the civil case, once the complaint is filed, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure authorize broad discovery, and the family can subpoena records that the FBI would not otherwise produce. The key is to start the administrative process immediately and to identify every category of record that exists before any of it cycles out of the system.
The legal authority for the autopsy and forensic evidence is the medical examiner. In a fatal shooting in Henrico County, the death investigation is conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which has statutory authority under Va. Code §§ 32.1-283 and following. The autopsy report, the toxicology report, the ballistics report, the gunshot-residue report, the wound-pattern analysis, and the scene photographs are all in the medical examiner’s file. The family is entitled to a copy of the autopsy report upon request, and the autopsy report is one of the most important documents in the case — it tells the family, in the family’s own words, where the bullets entered, what the path of the bullets was, and whether the force used was consistent with the FBI’s narrative.
The Footage That Disappears While You Grieve
There is a category of evidence in a fatal-shooting case that dies faster than any other, and the family almost never knows it exists until it is gone. That category is surveillance footage, and the deadliest piece of it is the motel’s own surveillance camera system.
Hotel and motel surveillance systems in the United States are not governed by a uniform federal retention standard. The retention period is set by the property’s own policy, by the brand standard, by the franchisor’s data-retention requirements, and by state and local law. Industry practice commonly overwrites on a rolling seven-to-fourteen-day cycle. Some systems retain less. A few retain longer. The practical result is that the most objective, third-party, neutral record of the events surrounding the shooting — the cameras in the parking lot, the cameras at the front desk, the cameras in the hallways, the cameras in the elevator, and the cameras in any rooms that overlook the scene — cycles out of existence within a week or two of the incident. After the cycle, the footage is gone. There is no backup. There is no archive. There is no version of the events that the family can later watch and show to a judge.
The preservation letter to the motel must go out the same week the family calls. The letter must demand, in writing, the preservation of: all on-site surveillance footage covering the date and time of the incident and the twenty-four hours before and after; the motel’s reservation system records for the day; the motel’s key-card or electronic-lock data for the day; the motel’s point-of-sale and folio records; the motel’s housekeeping and maintenance logs; the motel’s incident and police-call reports; the motel’s CCTV and alarm-system logs; the motel’s camera-system configuration and retention policy; and the names and contact information of every employee on duty. The letter goes out by certified mail, return receipt requested, and by email, and it is followed up with a phone call to the general manager. The letter is sent the day we are retained, not the day we file suit. By the time a complaint is filed, the footage has either been preserved or it has been lost.
The second fastest-dying category of evidence is the FBI’s own body-worn camera footage. The FBI’s body-worn camera program has expanded significantly in recent years, and the cameras are in use on most significant field operations. The footage is uploaded to FBI servers after the recording ends, but the storage is on a rolling retention window set by FBI policy, not by statute. Litigation hold and FOIA request are the two preservation mechanisms. A litigation hold, sent by the family or the family’s counsel directly to the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and to the field office that conducted the operation, freezes the footage for the duration of the litigation. A FOIA request, properly crafted and properly fee-waived, triggers FBI’s duty to search for and produce the footage. The two mechanisms should be used simultaneously.
The third fastest-dying category is the scene itself. The motel parking lot, the sidewalk, the room, the vehicle — all of it is physical evidence. The bullet casings, the projectiles, the cartridge cases, the fired bullet components, the trajectories, the bloodstain patterns, the footwear impressions, the tire impressions, the point-of-entry and point-of-exit patterns, the lighting conditions, the sightlines — all of this is reconstructed and analyzed in the days and weeks after the shooting. The FBI has its own team of investigators on the scene within hours, and that team documents and removes physical evidence under FBI protocols. The family has a right to its own expert, a right to its own scene walk, and a right to its own independent reconstruction. We retain a forensic reconstruction expert immediately. The expert is on the ground, documenting the scene, in the same week as the family calls.
The fourth category is witness memory. Witnesses to a fatal shooting include other guests at the motel, motel staff, people in adjacent businesses, people in passing vehicles, and sometimes other law-enforcement officers from other agencies. Each witness’s memory is best in the first seventy-two hours. After that, the memory begins to fade and to be influenced by the FBI’s narrative, by the media coverage, and by the family of the decedent. We conduct our own witness interviews in the first week, before the FBI’s version of events has had time to settle. The witness statements we take in the first seventy-two hours are often the most valuable piece of evidence in the case.
How Damages Are Calculated When the Defendant Is the United States
The damages side of the case is built from the same components that drive every wrongful-death case, with two Virginia-specific and one FTCA-specific adjustment. The economic stream is calculated first. It includes the lost income and earning capacity that the decedent would have provided over a working lifetime, reduced to present value by a forensic economist, and the lost household services the decedent would have provided — childcare, eldercare, home maintenance, cooking, cleaning, transportation, financial management — valued at the cost the family would have to pay to replace those services in the market. The economic stream also includes the medical expenses the decedent incurred between the shooting and death, and the funeral and burial expenses the family has paid or will pay.
The non-economic stream is calculated next. Virginia allows recovery for the survivors’ sorrow, mental anguish, and loss of solace, and for the loss of the decedent’s care, guidance, and companionship. The Virginia wrongful-death statute, Va. Code § 8.01-50, permits the jury (or, in an FTCA case, the judge) to award damages that are “fair and just,” which is a deliberately open standard. The Virginia Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the trier of fact has broad discretion in setting wrongful-death damages, and that the appellate courts will not lightly disturb a damage award that is supported by the evidence.
The survival action is calculated in parallel. The survival claim belongs to the decedent’s estate and is brought by the personal representative. It recovers the pre-death pain and suffering of the decedent, the pre-death medical expenses, and the pre-death lost income. The survival claim is a separate demand and is often a significant component of the overall recovery, because the pre-death period — the time between the shooting and the death — is often the family’s most painful chapter, and the law recognizes that the decedent’s suffering during that period has a recoverable value.
The FTCA-specific adjustment is that punitive damages are not available against the United States. The family cannot recover damages designed to punish the FBI for the agent’s conduct. The Virginia-specific adjustment is that Virginia does not generally allow punitive damages in wrongful-death cases either, with the result that the FTCA’s punitive bar and Virginia’s substantive law point the same way. The family’s recovery is the full measure of compensatory damages, period.
The realistic range of recovery in a federal-officer shooting case, given Virginia’s contributory-negligence rule and the FTCA’s bench-trial structure, is between five hundred thousand dollars and five million dollars at the extremes, with most meaningful recoveries clustered in the low-to-middle of that range. The high end is reserved for cases with extraordinary earning capacity, young decedents with long working lives ahead, large economic-loss components, and documentary evidence of FBI policy violations. The low end reflects cases that settle before trial, cases in which contributory negligence is a serious risk, and cases in which the FBI’s discretionary-function defense narrows the trial to a single factual question.
The family’s case value is driven, in significant part, by the FBI’s own evidence. A body-worn camera that shows the agent firing within seconds of the encounter, a witness statement that contradicts the FBI’s account, an autopsy that places the fatal shot in the back, a personnel file that shows a history of excessive-force complaints — each of these turns the case from a routine wrongful-death settlement into a courtroom fight. We build the case value by building the file, and we build the file by getting the FBI’s own records into the record.
The Defense Playbook: Three Moves They Make in the First 30 Days
In a federal-officer shooting case, the defense playbook is unusually well-defined, and the moves are made quickly, in the first days and weeks after the incident. The family’s lawyer has to know what those moves are, in advance, and to have a counter ready for each. We outline the three moves the United States makes in nearly every case.
Move One: The Discretionary-Function Shield. The United States almost always files an early motion to dismiss under the FTCA’s discretionary-function exception, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The argument is that the agent’s tactical decisions about how to approach the scene, how to use force, when to fire, and how to communicate with the decedent are all “discretionary” and therefore exempt from suit. The argument often relies on a generic, conclusory affidavit from a supervisory agent that characterizes the conduct as a tactical judgment. The counter is that the discretionary-function exception protects only decisions grounded in social, economic, or political policy, not operational violations of established rules, training, or procedure. The family obtains the FBI’s use-of-force policy, the agent’s training records, the operational plan, and the after-action report. To the extent the agent violated a specific FBI rule, a specific tactical standard, a specific use-of-force protocol, or a specific training requirement, the discretionary-function exception does not protect the United States. The exception has been narrowed by decades of Supreme Court and circuit decisions, and the family uses those decisions to keep the case in court.
Move Two: The Contributory-Negligence Bar. As we have addressed above, Virginia’s pure contributory-negligence rule is the single most powerful defense in the case, and the United States will deploy it aggressively. The defense will investigate the decedent — the decedent’s history, prior encounters with law enforcement, mental health, alleged gang or drug affiliations, demeanor on the day of the shooting, alleged resistance to verbal commands, alleged movement toward the agents, alleged possession of an object that could be mistaken for a weapon, alleged statements to the agents, alleged failure to comply with police direction, and any prior criminal record. The defense will then argue that the decedent’s conduct was a proximate cause of the fatal outcome, and that the bar applies. The counter is built into the case from the preservation letter forward. The family’s use-of-force expert evaluates the encounter against FBI standards and against the agent’s training. The family’s forensic pathologist evaluates the autopsy against the FBI’s account. The family’s reconstruction expert evaluates the scene against the FBI’s narrative. The family’s witness interviews capture the other side of the story before the FBI’s narrative has had time to settle. The contributory-negligence bar is the defense’s strongest weapon, and the counter is the FBI’s own evidence.
Move Three: The Qualified-Immunity Wall. The individual agent will file a separate motion to dismiss the Bivens claim, asserting qualified immunity. The argument is that the force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances, and that even if it was not, the law was not clearly established at the time. The court will consider the agent’s conduct under the Fourth Amendment standard and against the backdrop of controlling circuit precedent. The counter is built by developing the record to show that, on the specific facts of the case, the agent’s conduct violated a clearly established right. A case of excessive force in a federal task-force operation is not, today, among the recognized Bivens contexts after Egbert, but the agent’s qualified-immunity defense can still be met where the conduct is plainly unlawful on the established record.
Each of these three moves is met, in our practice, with a coordinated response that combines the administrative record, the FOIA record, the medical-examiner record, the expert record, and the witness record. The defense’s playbook is well-defined. The family’s counter-playbook is built specifically to the facts of the case, and it is built in the first thirty days.
The First 72 Hours: What To Do Right Now
If you are reading this in the first hours and days after the shooting, the actions you take now determine the options you have later. The work below is not optional. Each step preserves a piece of evidence or a piece of the case that cannot be rebuilt later.
Hour one through hour twenty-four. The family should retain counsel immediately. The first preservation letter — to the FBI field office, to the Department of Justice, and to the motel — must go out before the day is over. The family should identify and preserve the decedent’s phone, computer, and any personal devices that may contain messages, photos, or location data relevant to the encounter. The family should identify any witnesses present at the motel and ask for their names and contact information, but the family should not pressure witnesses or seek to influence their account. The family should not speak to the FBI or to the motel’s insurer before retaining counsel. The family should not consent to any interview, sign any statement, or provide any recording. The family should keep a careful written record of every conversation, every phone call, and every interaction with any government or insurance representative, in chronological order, with the time and the name of the person on the other end.
Day two through day seven. The FBI’s internal review process is in motion. The family’s counsel sends a FOIA request to the FBI for operationally relevant records. The family’s counsel sends a written preservation letter to the motel’s general manager and corporate office, demanding preservation of all surveillance footage, reservation records, key-card data, point-of-sale records, housekeeping logs, incident reports, CCTV configuration, retention policy, and staff information. The family’s counsel retains a forensic reconstruction expert and a use-of-force expert. The family’s counsel begins independent witness interviews. The personal representative is identified and, if necessary, appointed by the Henrico County Circuit Court, so that the wrongful-death and survival claims can be filed in the family’s name. The family should gather the decedent’s income records, tax returns, employment history, and benefit records, because these become the foundation of the economic-loss calculation.
Week two through week four. The family’s counsel files the administrative claim (SF-95) with the Department of Justice, with a specific dollar demand. The family’s counsel obtains the autopsy report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The family’s counsel files any necessary FOIA appeals. The family’s counsel begins a formal claim against the motel and the motel’s insurance carrier. The family should be prepared for the Department of Justice’s response, which can take several months. The two-year administrative clock and the Virginia two-year wrongful-death clock are both running from the date of death. The six-month post-denial clock will begin the day the Department of Justice mails its final denial. Each of these clocks is calendared, and each of them is sacred.
Case Value: What This Is Worth
The honest answer to what a federal-officer shooting case is worth depends on four variables: the strength of the evidence, the decedent’s economic profile, the venue, and the timing. The range of recovery in the matters we handle runs from a low five hundred thousand dollars to a high of five million dollars, with most meaningful recoveries clustered in the middle of that range. The high end of the range is reached when the FBI’s own evidence — body-worn camera, witness statements, the autopsy, the agent’s training record — tells the story in a way the government cannot easily reframe. The low end is reached when the case settles before the FBI’s record is developed, when contributory negligence is a serious risk, or when the discretionary-function exception narrows what the family can put in front of the judge.
A young decedent with a long working life ahead, a strong income record, a dependent family, a stable employment trajectory, and clear documentary evidence of FBI policy violations is the case profile that reaches the upper end of the range. An older decedent with a shorter working horizon, a less developed income record, and a fact pattern the FBI can plausibly reframe is the case profile that reaches the lower end. The cases in the middle are the most common — strong enough to fight, factually constrained enough to settle, with the right preparation producing the right number.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
We tell the family the honest number. We do not promise a number to get the case. The number is what the evidence supports, and the evidence is what the family helps us build. The single most important variable in the case value is the FBI’s own evidence, and the FBI’s own evidence is what the first preservation letter and the first FOIA request are designed to capture. If the FBI’s record is clean, the case settles. If the FBI’s record is not clean, the case tries. We prepare for both.
Who Will Try Your Case — And Why That Matters
The FTCA case is tried to a federal judge, sitting without a jury. The trial is in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, which is the federal trial court for Henrico County. The judge will hear the evidence, will weigh the credibility of the witnesses, will resolve the contributory-negligence question, will apply the discretionary-function exception if it survives the motion to dismiss, and will set the damages if the family prevails. The trial is a bench trial, and the family’s case is built around the bench trial, not the jury trial.
A bench trial is not a lesser proceeding. The best federal judges in Virginia are sharp, experienced, well-read on Fourth Amendment doctrine, and unwilling to be snowed. The bench trial rewards preparation, organization, and discipline. The bench trial rewards a clear, honest, well-supported case. The bench trial does not reward theatrics or sympathy. The family’s case is built for the judge who will decide it, and the case is built in the file long before the case is in the courtroom.
The family will be present in the courtroom. The family’s voice is in the record. The family testifies, when appropriate, in the family’s own words. The family sits at counsel’s table. The family sees the case argued, and the family sees the judge decide. The bench trial is not abstract, and the family is not a bystander. The family is the plaintiff, and the plaintiff’s presence matters.
How We Take This Case
Attorney911 is built around catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases that demand the firm’s full attention. Ralph P. Manginello has spent twenty-seven years in courtrooms, including federal court, and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a journalist by training — a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied journalism and public relations — and the discipline of journalism shows up in the firm’s case files: tight, organized, and built to survive a judge’s scrutiny. Ralph earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 1998 and has been licensed since November 6, 1998. His work for the firm’s clients includes a lead-counsel role in active mass-tort litigation and a record of commercial-vehicle and catastrophic-injury representation across his career. His Italian-American upbringing in Memorial-area Houston, his time as a point guard at Cheshire Academy and later at Awty International, and his work with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Houston have shaped a practice that treats every client as a person, not a file.
Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years on the inside of the system the family is about to enter. He is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — and he is a 3rd-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born, raised, and living in Sugar Land, Texas. Lupe earned his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio in 2005 and his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in May 2012. He was admitted to the Texas Bar on December 6, 2012, and to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas the same year. He has practiced for thirteen-plus years and now uses his inside knowledge of insurance-claim valuation, IME-doctor selection, surveillance, and delay tactics to fight for injured people rather than against them.
We handle federal civil-rights and wrongful-death cases in Virginia through Virginia local counsel and, where appropriate, pro hac vice admission of our trial team. We are not a volume firm, and we are not an advertising mill. We are a trial firm, and we prepare the case for trial from day one. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The firm’s work on a case like this begins with a free consultation. The consultation is a conversation — the family tells us what happened, we tell the family what the law says, and we tell the family what the case will look like. There is no charge for the consultation. There is no charge for the case unless we win. The fee is contingency: thirty-three and one-third percent before trial, forty percent if the case goes to verdict, on a recovery that comes out of the United States Treasury, the motel’s insurance, or both. The family never writes a check. The family never pays an expense. The firm advances the costs — the experts, the filings, the depositions, the trial prep — and recovers the costs out of the recovery, if any. If there is no recovery, the family owes nothing.
The firm takes a small number of these cases each year, and the firm turns down many more than it takes. The reason is capacity. A federal-officer shooting case is a years-long commitment. The firm has the resources to commit to it. The firm has the relationships to assemble the right Virginia local counsel, the right use-of-force expert, the right forensic pathologist, the right reconstruction expert, the right economist, and the right trial team. The firm has the experience to try the bench trial if the case requires it, and the firm has the discipline to settle the case when settlement is the right answer.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Habla Espanol — Talk to Us Today
If your family speaks Spanish as its first language, the consultation is fully bilingual. Lupe Peña conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter, and the firm’s intake process, the case updates, the depositions, and the courtroom communications are conducted in the language the family actually uses. Hablamos Español. La consulta es gratis. No cobramos a menos que ganemos. The first call is the first step, and the first step is free.
The first call to 1-888-ATTY-911 is the place to start. The call goes to a real person, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The call is not routed through an answering service. The call is answered by someone who can answer the family’s first questions, take the basic facts, and get the family in front of the right attorney the same day. The firm has a cell phone — (713) 443-4781 — and a direct line — (713) 528-9070 — and an email — ralph@atty911.com — for the cases that move fast. The evidence clock is running. The motel footage is cycling out. The FBI’s internal review is in motion. Every day the family waits is a day the defense is preparing and the family is not. The first call is the day the preparation begins.
For more on our wrongful-death practice and how a federal-civil-rights case is built, see our wrongful-death practice page and our practice areas. To learn more about Ralph Manginello’s background and experience, see his attorney page. To learn more about Lupe Peña’s background, insurance-defense experience, and Spanish-language consultations, see his attorney page. To begin the conversation, contact us or call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can bring a wrongful death claim when an FBI agent kills a family member in Virginia?
Under Virginia’s wrongful-death statute, Va. Code § 8.01-50, the personal representative of the decedent’s estate brings the claim for the benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and grandchildren of the decedent. If there is no spouse, child, or grandchild, the claim may be brought for the benefit of the parents, and if there are no parents, for the benefit of siblings or other dependents. The personal representative is appointed by the Henrico County Circuit Court, and the family has the right to nominate the personal representative if there is no will. The survival action, which is a separate claim for the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering, is also brought by the personal representative on behalf of the estate.
How long do we have to file a claim against the FBI for a fatal shooting?
Two separate clocks run. Under federal law, 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), the family must present the administrative claim (SF-95) to the Department of Justice within two years of the date of death. If the Department of Justice denies the claim, the family has six months from the date of the mailed denial to file a civil action in federal court. Under Virginia law, Va. Code § 8.01-243(A), the family must file the wrongful-death civil action within two years of the date of death. The federal administrative clock and the Virginia civil clock run in parallel, and the more dangerous clock is the six-month post-denial clock, which begins the day the Department of Justice mails its denial. We calendar both clocks from the day the family calls.
What is the Federal Tort Claims Act and how does it apply to our case?
The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b) and 2671–2680, is the federal law that allows a person to sue the United States for money damages for personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act of a federal employee acting within the scope of employment. For an FBI agent, the “appropriate federal agency” is the Department of Justice. The family first submits an administrative claim on Standard Form 95, the Department of Justice investigates and either accepts or denies the claim, and if the claim is denied the family files a civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The case is tried to a federal judge, not a jury. Punitive damages are not available against the United States, but compensatory damages are, in the same measure Virginia would allow in a state-court wrongful-death case.
Can we sue the individual FBI agent personally?
Theoretically, yes, through a constitutional tort action known as a Bivens claim. In practice, after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Egbert v. Boule, Bivens claims survive only in the three original contexts: Fourth Amendment unreasonable search, Fifth Amendment gender discrimination, and Eighth Amendment inadequate prison medical care. A Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim arising from a federal task-force operation is, today, not among the recognized Bivens contexts, and the case is likely to be dismissed at the threshold. The agent will also assert qualified immunity. We file the Bivens claim in appropriate cases to preserve the constitutional issue, to obtain discovery, and to force the agent to testify, but the realistic recovery runs through the FTCA, not through the agent’s personal wallet.
What is “pure contributory negligence” and how does it threaten our Virginia case?
Virginia is one of only a handful of states that still follows pure contributory negligence, which is the legal rule that bars any recovery if the injured person was even one percent at fault for the events that caused the injury. In a fatal-shooting case, the United States will argue that the decedent’s own conduct — alleged resistance, alleged movement toward the agents, alleged failure to comply with verbal commands, alleged possession of an object that could be mistaken for a weapon — was a proximate cause of the fatal outcome, and will ask the court to bar the entire case on that basis. The counter is built into the case from the preservation letter forward, by developing the FBI’s own evidence, the use-of-force expert’s analysis, the autopsy and ballistics findings, the witness statements, and the agent’s training record to show that the decedent’s conduct was not the proximate cause of the fatal outcome.
How much is a wrongful death case against the federal government worth?
The realistic range of recovery in a federal-officer shooting case is between five hundred thousand dollars and five million dollars, with most meaningful recoveries clustered in the low-to-middle of that range. The high end is reached when the FBI’s own evidence tells a strong story in the family’s favor, when the decedent had a long working life and a strong income record ahead, and when there is clear documentary evidence of FBI policy violations. The low end is reached when the case settles before the FBI’s record is developed, when contributory negligence is a serious risk, or when the discretionary-function exception narrows what the family can put in front of the judge. We do not promise a number to get the case. The number is what the evidence supports, and we tell the family the honest range at the consultation.
What evidence should we preserve right now, and how fast does it disappear?
The fastest-dying evidence is the motel’s surveillance footage, which commonly overwrites on a seven-to-fourteen-day cycle and which captures the parking lot, the front desk, the hallways, the elevator, and any rooms that overlook the scene. The second fastest-dying is the FBI’s body-worn camera footage, which is on a rolling retention window set by FBI policy. The third is the physical scene itself, which is reconstructed in the first days and weeks. The fourth is the witness memory, which is best in the first seventy-two hours. The preservation letter to the motel, the FOIA request to the FBI, the expert scene walk, and the independent witness interviews all happen in the first week, and each is non-negotiable. The cost of missing the preservation window is that the case is fought without the most objective evidence in it.
Will the case go to trial, and what is a bench trial like?
Most federal-officer shooting cases settle, but the family should be prepared for trial from day one. The FTCA case is tried to a federal judge, not a jury. The trial is in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, before a judge sitting without a jury. The judge hears the evidence, weighs the credibility of the witnesses, resolves the contributory-negligence question, applies the discretionary-function exception if it has not been dismissed, and sets the damages if the family prevails. A bench trial is not a lesser proceeding — the best federal judges in Virginia are sharp, well-read on Fourth Amendment doctrine, and unwilling to be snowed. The family’s case is built for the judge who will decide it, and the case is built in the file long before the case is in the courtroom.
What if the FBI says the agent was justified?
The United States will almost certainly assert that the agent’s use of force was reasonable under the circumstances, will invoke the discretionary-function exception, and will argue that the decedent’s own conduct was the proximate cause of the fatal outcome. The counter is built into the case from the preservation letter forward, by getting the FBI’s own records, by retaining a use-of-force expert, by retaining a forensic pathologist or ballistics expert, by retaining a forensic reconstruction expert, and by conducting independent witness interviews. The family does not accept the FBI’s narrative. The family puts the FBI’s own evidence in front of the same judge who will decide the case, and the family lets the evidence do the work.
How does the motel owner fit into the case, and can we sue them too?
Yes. The motel is a separate, state-law defendant, reached through Virginia’s ordinary wrongful-death and survival statutes. The motel is often the most collectible defendant in the case, because the motel carries ordinary commercial general liability and excess insurance that the United States does not. The motel’s standard of care is ordinary negligence under Virginia law, and the motel’s defenses do not include sovereign immunity, the discretionary-function exception, or qualified immunity. The motel’s liability is built on the FBI’s operational record at the motel, on the motel’s prior-incident history, on the motel’s surveillance footage, on the motel’s staff-training records, and on the motel’s failure to warn or to maintain its property in a reasonably safe condition. The preservation letter to the motel is the most time-sensitive piece of paper in the case.
What is the value of pursuing a wrongful-death case against the federal government if the United States has sovereign immunity?
Sovereign immunity is the rule that the United States cannot be sued without its consent. The Federal Tort Claims Act is the United States’ consent. The FTCA is the law that waives sovereign immunity for the negligent or wrongful acts of federal employees acting within the scope of their employment, in the same way a private person would be liable under the law of the place where the act occurred. The waiver is broad, but it is not unlimited. The discretionary-function exception, the intentional-tort exception, and the two-year administrative clock each narrow the waiver. The family does not need to overcome sovereign immunity. The family sues under the FTCA, in the courts Congress has designated, and the case is brought the way Congress has said it can be brought.
How are damages calculated in a Virginia wrongful-death case against the FBI?
The damages side of the case is built from the same components that drive every Virginia wrongful-death case, with one FTCA-specific adjustment. The economic stream is the lost income and earning capacity, reduced to present value by a forensic economist, the lost household services, the medical expenses between the shooting and death, and the funeral and burial expenses. The non-economic stream is the survivors’ sorrow, mental anguish, loss of solace, and loss of the decedent’s care, guidance, and companionship. The survival claim is the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering, pre-death medical expenses, and pre-death lost income. The FTCA-specific adjustment is that punitive damages are not available against the United States. The realistic range of recovery is between five hundred thousand dollars and five million dollars, depending on the strength of the evidence, the decedent’s economic profile, the venue, and the timing. We do not promise a number to get the case. The number is what the evidence supports.
What does the FBI’s own use-of-force policy say, and why does it matter?
The FBI’s use-of-force policy is the operational rulebook that governs how an FBI agent is supposed to make the decision to use force, including deadly force. The policy is in the FBI’s manual, in the agent’s training materials, in the after-action report, and in the use-of-force report that the agent is required to file after every significant use of force. The policy is the standard the agent is held to, and the standard is the family’s most important ally. If the agent violated a specific FBI rule, a specific tactical standard, a specific use-of-force protocol, or a specific training requirement, the violation is documented in the FBI’s own records. The family’s FOIA request and the family’s administrative claim are designed to obtain those records, and the family’s use-of-force expert evaluates the agent’s conduct against the policy. The violation is the case, and the policy is the proof.
What is a SF-95, and how is it filed?
The SF-95 is the Standard Form 95, the federal government’s administrative claim form for personal injury and death claims against the United States. The form is filed with the Department of Justice for claims involving FBI agents. The form must include a specific dollar demand — a “sum certain” — and must be filed within two years of the date of death. The Department of Justice investigates the claim, and either accepts or denies the claim, or fails to act within six months, in which case the family can treat the failure to act as a final denial and file a civil action. The SF-95 is the first piece of paper the family files, and it is the most important. We prepare the SF-95 with the same care we prepare a complaint, and we put a number on it that reflects the full measure of what the law allows.
Can the family afford to bring a federal case against the FBI?
Yes. The firm takes the case on contingency, and the family pays nothing out of pocket. The fee is thirty-three and one-third percent before trial, forty percent if the case goes to verdict, and the firm advances all of the costs — the experts, the filings, the depositions, the trial prep. If there is no recovery, the family owes nothing. The first consultation is free. The family does not write a check. The firm has the resources to commit to a federal-officer shooting case for the years the case will take, and the firm has the experience to try the case to verdict if the case requires it.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.