Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988
US federal law
The Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988, also known as the Westfall Act, is a law passed by the United States Congress that modifies the Federal Tort Claims Act to protect federal employees from common law tort lawsuit while engaged in their duties for the government, while giving private citizens a route to seek damage from the government for violations. The law was passed in response to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Westfall v. Erwin, 484 U.S. 292 (1988), which had created a precedent that left federal employees open to liability to civil suits for actions they took while performing their duties for the government.
Background
Since Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court has upheld that individual federal officers can be liable for civil tort suits for violations of constitutional rights that occur as part of their duties. The Supreme Court case Westfall v. Erwin, 484 U.S. 292 (1988), involved a warehouse worker, William Erwin, who had been working on an army depot who suffered physical injuries from the spilled contents of a bag of sodium carbonate in his face and eyes. Erwin sued the warehouse supervisor, Rodney Westfall, a member of the U.S. Army, along with other Army employees, for negligence. The district court ruled to dismiss the case on the basis that federal employees had absolute immunity for actions they perform in the course of their official duties. The Eleventh Circuit reversed this decision, and the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Eleventh's reversal.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988” is uS federal law. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Federal, Employees and Liability, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “uS federal law” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q61334179. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988 and 1971.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988 primary sources, Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988 archive and Federal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.