In Preston v. M1 Support Services, a Navy helicopter crashed during a training exercise, resulting in three deaths. Investigators discovered that the crash likely occurred due to holes in a fuel-transfer tube, caused by the chafing of a nearby, improvised plastic zip-tie that was holding together a bundle of wires. The decedents' families and one of the survivors sued the private contractor the Navy had hired to maintain the aircraft.

The contractor moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to the "political question doctrine," under which courts may not review "those controversies which revolve around policy choices and value determinations constitutionally committed for resolution to the halls of Congress or the confines of the Executive Branch." The contractor argued that the doctrine deprived the court of jurisdiction because the case was "inextricable from judicial review of military decisions." The court disagreed, ultimately holding that the action was simply one alleging ordinary negligence.

The court noted that the first question when considering the political question doctrine is the extent to which the case requires a review of military decisions. In a prior case, for example, the court had held the doctrine applied to the design of a dog kennel (from which a dog escaped and caused injury), as it was the military itself that had designed the kennel. In contrast, the Preston plaintiffs claimed the contractor was negligent precisely because it deviated from the Navy's maintenance procedures.

The second question is whether a judicial review of the case would interfere with military strategy or judgment. The contractor claimed it was possible that it was the Navy itself that was responsible for the accident due to its own faulty maintenance. But the court held that, even if that were so, the inquiry would still be one of "mechanical, not military, expertise" – and so the political question doctrine was not implicated.

While not invoked by the Preston court, the political question doctrine can be useful as a defense where a claim is centered on military or governmental discretionary policy decisions that leave little discretion to the private defendant, akin to the government contractor defense.

Preston v. M1 Support Servs., L.P., 2022 Tex. LEXIS 63 (Tex. 2022).

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