DECIDED: July 7, 2026 · No. 25-50675. Reversed the summary judgment for the government and remanded.
WHY IT MATTERS: When a federal employee causes harm while technically between places, whether the United States can be sued turns on a fact-heavy scope-of-employment question, and summary judgment is often the wrong place to answer it.
When a government employee hurts someone, the first fight is not what happened. It is whether the employee was acting within the scope of the job, because that is what decides whether the United States can be sued at all.
The rule
Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the United States can answer for its employees’ torts, but only when the employee acted within the scope of employment. That question is measured by the respondeat superior law of the state where it happened. Here, Texas.
The facts
A Customs and Border Protection officer struck a pedestrian while leaving a federal station. He was a full-time officer who spent most of his time on union work, and that day he had gone to receive pandemic supplies. The district court held that receiving supplies was not the agency’s business and granted summary judgment for the government.
The holding
The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded. Whether the officer was on a special mission, whether he was still on duty, whether receiving the supplies benefited the agency, whether his union role counted as part of his employment, all of it was genuinely disputed. Drawing every inference for the injured person, a jury could find for either side. Those are jury questions, not summary-judgment questions.
Why it matters
The coming-and-going rule, and its special-mission exception, quietly decides a great many cases where an employee is caught between places. Barrier is a reminder that these questions are usually too fact-bound to resolve on paper, and that the injured person is entitled to have every reasonable inference drawn their way before a case is thrown out.
Barrier v. United States, No. 25-50675 (5th Cir. July 7, 2026), applying Texas respondeat superior law and the special-mission exception to the coming-and-going rule under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Analyzed here for the lawyering, not the politics. This is general information, not legal advice.
