Sanchez v. United States

KAYATTA, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Angel Sanchez, a widower and the executor of his wife’s estate, sued his wife’s doctors for medical malpractice. As it turned out, those doctors were federal employees, against whom claims are forever barred unless brought within the two-year limitations period Congress allowed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), as opposed to the three-year period allowed by Massachusetts law for medical malpractice claims. As it also turned out, those doctors’ status as federal employees was not readily apparent to one who undertook no investigation. Mr. Sanchez’s…