Hencely v. Fluor Corporation: When Preemption Becomes Immunity

On November 12, 2016, Winston Hencely spotted someone approaching the Veterans Day 5K race at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan who seemed out of place. As Hencely reached out to question him, he felt a bulky explosive vest. Seconds later, Ahmad Nayeb, a former Taliban member hired as a laborer by a Fluor Corporation subcontractor, then detonated the bomb. Six people died, and seventeen were injured. According to an Army investigation, Fluor’s “complacency and lack of reasonable supervision” were “the primary contributing factor[s]” to the attack. Yet when Hencely sued Fluor under South Carolina tort law for negligent supervision, both the district court and the Fourth Circuit dismissed Hencely’s claims on the grounds of federal preemption before he could present them to a jury. This dismissal raises a fundamental question about the scope of preemption in military contexts. Preemption, under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, occurs when federal law overrides conflicting state law, preventing states from regulating in areas where federal authority is supreme or where state law would interfere with federal objectives.