WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for a veteran wounded by a suicide bomb in Afghanistan to sue the government contractor for whom the attacker was working when he built the explosive.
Former Army Spc. Winston Hencely was wounded in 2016 when he stopped a man on his way to detonate an explosive vest at a Veterans Day weekend 5K race at Bagram Airfield. Ahmad Nayeb instead blew himself up when he was confronted, killing five people and wounding more than a dozen, according to court documents.
The projectiles fractured Hencely’s skull and tore through his brain, leaving him without the full use of much of the left side of his body. He also has abnormal brainwaves, seizures and traumatic brain injury, his lawyers wrote.
Hencely acted to sue the company, Fluor Intercontinental, after an Army investigation faulted the company’s failure to supervise Nayeb, an Afghan employee who built the vest on the job site inside the base, court documents say.
The Irving, Texas-based engineering construction company argued that it could not be sued because it was working at the time for the government, which is generally immune to lawsuits.
Hencely said that immunity is only for the government itself, not contractors.
