Hutchins v. Tennessee Valley Authority

Sharon Hutchins appeals the district court’s dismissal of her wrongful death action against the Tennessee Valley Authority (“TVA”) for the drowning death of her husband George Hutchins, who worked as a deckhand at TVA’s Widows Creek Fossil Plant on the Tennessee River in Alabama. The district court held that Hutchins’s wrongful death action brought pursuant to the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.app. § 688, 1 was barred by the exclusivity provision of the Federal Employees Compensation Act (“FECA”), 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c) (1994), which provides:

The liability of the United States or an instrumentality thereof…