Irene H. Allen v. United States

LOGAN, Circuit Judge.

In this action under the Federal Tort Claims Act, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2401(b), 2671-80, nearly 1200 named plaintiffs have sued the United States, alleging some 500 deaths and injuries as a result of radioactive fallout from open-air atomic bomb tests held in Nevada in the 1950s and 1960s. The district court selected and tried twenty-four “bellwether” claims, in order to find a common framework for the rest.1 See Allen v. United States, 588 F.Supp. *1419247, 258 (D.Utah 1984). The court entered final judgment in favor of the government on fourteen of these claims and…