Hencely v. Fluor Corp

In 2016, military contractor Fluor Corporation hired Ahmad Nayeb to work at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan as part of "Afghan First," a Pentagon program requiring contractors to employ local Afghans to help stabilize the country's economy. Nayeb was secretly a Taliban operative, and he carried out a suicide bombing on the base that killed five people and wounded seventeen. 

Army Specialist Winston Hencely suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries while helping stop Nayeb before he could reach a larger crowd. The Army's own investigation found Fluor primarily responsible, concluding the company had negligently supervised Nayeb's compliance with base security procedures. Hencely sued Fluor in South Carolina state law for negligent supervision, negligent entrustment, and negligent retention.

The district court and the Fourth Circuit both dismissed the suit as preempted, reasoning that any state-law tort claim arising from a contractor's conduct in an active wartime combat setting was off-limits to state courts, regardless of whether the government had actually ordered or authorized the specific misconduct alleged. 

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether that categorical "battlefield preemption" rule was too broad, hearing oral argument on November 3, 2025, and issuing its decision, authored by Justice Thomas, on April 22, 2026.

Fluor argued that state courts have no business second-guessing security and personnel decisions made in an active war zone, since doing so risks entangling juries in judgments about military risk-tolerance and strategy that belong exclusively to the federal government, and that a blanket rule shielding wartime contractor conduct was the only administrable way to keep courts out of that territory. 

Hencely argued that the government never ordered or authorized the specific negligent supervision at issue, since nobody in the military told Fluor to let a Taliban operative wander the base unsupervised, and that without a specific government directive behind the challenged conduct, there's nothing for state tort law to conflict with, so ordinary preemption principles simply don't apply.

A 6–3 Court sided with Hencely, rejecting the Fourth Circuit's categorical rule. Thomas's opinion held that state-law suits against military contractors are preempted only when the challenged conduct can fairly be attributed to the military's own decision, meaning the government specifically required or authorized it, not simply because the conduct happened to occur in a combat zone. 

Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, dissented, warning that letting state judges and juries evaluate contractor security decisions on an active battlefield risks intruding on war powers the Constitution assigns exclusively to the federal government. Coming on the heels of the Court's decision in GEO Group v. Menocal, the ruling continues a pattern of narrowing the immunity defenses available to federal contractors, making it meaningfully easier for injured service members and their families to hold battlefield contractors accountable in state court.