Roma v. United States

Mark Roma (plaintiff) was a member of the East Dover Township Volunteer Fire Department. That department was party to a mutual-aid agreement with the United States Naval Air Engineering Station (NAES) Fire Department, which provided that each party would provide firefighting assistance to the other as needed. The agreement stated that if such assistance was requested, the chief of the requesting fire department would be in control of the operations. In November 1997, a large fire emerged on the roof of a hangar at NAES that required the assistance of numerous other fire departments, including East Dover, which responded to the fire. Roma’s commander instructed the East Dover officers to follow NAES’s orders. When Roma arrived on the roof, the NAES fire chief instructed him to remove his breathing respirator. Roma questioned the instruction but was told that the respirator was not needed or allowed, and none of the other firefighters wore one. Roma was tasked with spraying water into a wooden subroof. As he did, a steamy mist rose from the subroof, and Roma inhaled it briefly. Shortly thereafter, on his way back to the East Dover fire station, Roma started to cough up blood. He was hospitalized for one or two days. Roma then submitted a claim to the U.S. Navy (defendant) under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the injuries he suffered because of the NAES fire chief’s instruction to remove his respirator. The Navy denied Roma’s claim, finding that there was no evidence of negligence on the part of the United States (defendant). Roma filed a complaint against the United States, the Navy, several Navy firefighters, and other federal employees (collectively, the federal parties) (defendants), alleging that they were liable for negligently ordering him to remove his respirator. The federal parties filed a motion for summary judgment, which the district court granted because Roma was a special employee of the NAES fire department and his claims were therefore barred by New Jersey’s workers’-compensation statute.