Robert E. Moore, a Single Man v. The United Kingdom, a Foreign Government Kenneth Southall John Does, I-X

This case, which centers on a January 1997 bar fight in Tacoma, Washington, raises several questions of first impression in this circuit. Central among them is whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Status of Forces Agreement (NATO-SOFA), June 19, 1951, 4 U.S.T. 1792, TIAS No. 2846, precludes suit against the United Kingdom under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602 et seq., for noncommercial torts committed by its servicemen while present within the United States. We conclude that, pursuant to the NATO-SOFA, Moore’s exclusive tort remedy based on the allegations in his complaint is a suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. § 2671 et seq. We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of Moore’s FSIA claim for lack of jurisdiction. We also affirm the district court’s dismissal of Moore’s claim under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 , albeit on different grounds.

I. Background

On the evening of January 17, 1997, Kenneth Southall and several other members of the British military started a bar fight with Robert E. Moore, the plaintiff-appellant in this case, at the Lakewood…