Government records show that 7,000 payments highlight ‘devastating mistakes made by federal workers’, according to Corporate Counsel magazine.
Payout
Among the documented cases was that of an air-traffic controller who was allegedly making a personal phone call when a small plane and a helicopter collided, which resulted in an $18.7 million payout to a woman whose husband and son were among the dead.
Institutionalised discrimination was also flagged with the Interior and Treasury departments spending a combined $2.5 billion in taxpayer funds last year as part of a landmark $3.4 billion class action settlement.
Legal fees
In that case - Cobell v Salazar - a group of Native Americans claimed that the federal government cheated them out of land royalties for decades by mismanaging their trust accounts. The settlement included $99 million in legal fees.
The documents also revealed that traffic accidents were the leading culprit when it came to civilians suing the government. According to the report, lawsuits against on-duty government workers involved in accidents ranged from payments of a few thousand dollars to $10m after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent ran a stop sign during a pursuit and killed three women.
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