[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [official website] on Tuesday dismissed [opinion, PDF] a defamation suit [complaint, PDF; JURIST report] filed by a former US Marine against Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) [official website] after ruling that Murtha was acting in an official capacity when he made allegedly defamatory statements to the press in 2006. Former US Marine Corps sergeant Frank Wuterich [JURIST news archive] alleged that Murtha's comments suggesting that Wuterich had participated in killing innocent Iraqi civilians were made outside of the scope of official duty on the grounds that they were not "of the kind he is employed to perform" and that they were intended to serve his private interests. The three judge panel held that Murtha was acting in his official duty and that the Westfall Act [text], which grants federal employees absolute immunity from tort claims arising out of actions taken in the course of official duties, applied:

[I]t is clear that Wuterich has not alleged any facts that even remotely suggest that Congressman Murtha was acting outside the scope of his employment when he spoke about the Haditha incident… [T]he underlying conduct – interviews with the media about the pressures on American troops in the ongoing Iraq war – is unquestionably of the kind that Congressman Murtha was employed to perform as a Member of Congress. [citations omitted]