Jack Leaf and Marvin Gunnufson v. United States of America, and Morris Bean

Plaintiffs, owners of an aircraft damaged in Mexico, appeal from a summary judgment in favor of defendant United States. We reverse and remand.

Leaf and Gunnufson brought an action against Bean for negligence, and against the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1346 (b), on theories of negligence and respondeat superior. They charge that the government was negligent because the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) failed to supervise and control Bean, its agent, who leased and used the plaintiff’s airplane. Unresolved fact questions on the merits had to do with the proximate cause of the loss and the relationship of Bean and his aerial mission to the government.

The United States moved for summary judgment, alleging that 28 U.S.C. § 2680 (k) deprived the district court of jurisdiction because plaintiffs’ claim arose “in a foreign country”. The court granted the summary judgment on that ground, holding that the damage to the leased plane was proximately caused by acts occurring wholly in Mexico. Plaintiffs then dismissed against Bean, and pursued this appeal.

Church, a suspected drug smuggler, got in touch with Bean, an informant for the DEA. Plaintiffs assert that Church was responsible…