The long-running legal battle between CACI International and Iraqi nationals who seek to hold that government contractor liable for abuses they suffered at the hands of certain U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison during Operation Iraqi Freedom is now back for another visit to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
An October 2016 ruling by the Fourth Circuit remanded the litigation back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. See Abu Ghraib Contractor Still Faces Potential Tort Liability for Alleged Detainee Abuse.
In March 2019, the district court dismissed CACI’s third-party claims against the United States. A Bloomberg Law article, published on April 25, 2019, reports on the latest developments. The article quotes Lawrence S. Ebner, founder of Capital Appellate Advocacy PLLC, who indicated that “CACI will have ‘an uphill battle on appeal’ based on the high bar the Fourth Circuit has set for contractor immunity based on military directives in other contexts.”