McIntyre v. United States, 367 F.3d 38 (1st Cir. 2004)

First Circuit opinion of May 10, 2004 in two Federal Tort Claims Act suits against the United States arising from the FBI's handling of informants Bulger and Flemmi. It turned on when the claims accrued.

Date: 2004-05-10
Kind: court-opinion
Source: CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
Docket: Nos. 03-1791, 03-1823
Rights: Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit, May 10, 2004. The estates of John L. McIntyre and Roger M. Wheeler sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging FBI wrongdoing in the informant relationship with Bulger and Flemmi that Judge Wolf described in 91 F. Supp. 2d 141. The district court had dismissed both suits as untimely.

The appeal “reviews the single issue, on two sets of facts, of when the claims ‘accrued’ for FTCA purposes. To be timely, the McIntyre claims had to accrue on or after May 25, 1998, and the Wheeler claims on or after May 11, 1999.” The court reversed the dismissal of the McIntyre claim and remanded it, and affirmed the dismissal of the Wheeler claim.

This is a civil case about the accrual of claims. The men named in the caption are named here because the court’s caption names their estates.

itemDonahue v. United States, 634 F.3d 615 (1st Cir. 2011)First Circuit opinion of February 10, 2011 reversing Federal Tort Claims Act judgments for the families of two men killed on Bulger's orders, on the ground that the suits were untimely, while calling the FBI's conduct reprehensible.itemUnited States v. Salemme, 91 F. Supp. 2d 141 (D. Mass. 1999)Judge Wolf's memorandum of September 15, 1999 setting out, after long hearings, the FBI's relationship with informants Stephen Flemmi and James Bulger, the 1981 bugging of 98 Prince Street and the 1989 Medford recording. Reversed in part in 2000.