Harriet McGarry Individually, and as Guardian Ad Litem of Dennis McGarry a Minor v. United States of America, Patricia McGarry Schell v. United States

The United States appeals from adverse judgments under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346 (b) and 2671 et seq., granting to the surviving wife and children damages for the wrongful death of an employee of an independent contractor which occurred December 10, 1969.

For use by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) the United States has withdrawn from the public domain a large area in the State of Nevada, northwest of Las Vegas, designated as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and utilized by the Commission as an outdoor laboratory. The Commission does not carry out experiments itself, but contracts for such work with research and development organizations known as scientific users. The Commission does not involve itself in the details of any research program but approves the program objectives only in a general sense. When a scientific user desires to perform an experiment, it sends a “criteria letter” describing the experiment to the NTS Support Office. If funds are available and the experiment is within the program scope the NTS Support Office authorizes other contractors to perform the necessary work. One such contractor was Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co. (REECO),…