A federal judge has refused to let the government escape most of the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Maria “Maer” Malinowski after ATF agents fatally shot her husband, Bryan Malinowski, during a predawn raid at their Little Rock, Arkansas, home.
The ruling is not a final judgment against the ATF or the United States, but it is a major procedural defeat for the government. The government asked the court to dismiss all nine Federal Tort Claims Act claims. Judge Lee P. Rudofsky said no to most of that request.
In his June 17 order in Malinowski v. USA et al., the judge allowed claims for wrongful death, assault and battery, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, manslaughter/negligent homicide under Arkansas’ crime-victim statute, battery, aggravated assault, and criminal mischief to move forward. The court dismissed only the FTCA false-imprisonment claim without prejudice and removed ATF itself as a named defendant because FTCA claims proceed against the United States, not the agency directly.
The government wanted this case stopped before discovery could dig deeper into the planning, timing, body-camera failures, and execution of the raid. Instead, most of Maer Malinowski’s claims survived.
Click the link to read the whole article: Judge Refuses To Toss Claims Over Malinowski Killing
