Supreme Court liberals side with Clarence Thomas on Taliban suicide bomber lawsuit, 3 others dissent
Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion was joined by two fellow conservative justices and the three liberal justices
Alex Nitzberg By Alex Nitzberg Fox News
Published April 22, 2026 10:54am EDT
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit brought by a U.S. Army veteran injured in a Taliban suicide bombing to proceed, vacating a lower court ruling that had dismissed it.
Winston Tyler Hencely, a former U.S. Army specialist, suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries when a Taliban operative working for the military contractor Fluor Corporation blew up a suicide vest at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan in 2016.
The U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina made a summary judgment for Fluor, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, the opinion notes.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, rejected a broad "battlefield preemption" theory that would have blocked state-law claims tied to combat activities. Thomas — joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wrote that military contractors are not automatically shielded from liability when their conduct was not authorized by the military — even in war zones.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-liberals-side-clarence-thomas-taliban-suicide-bomber-lawsuit-3-others-dissent
