## Facts

- Mark Roma, a volunteer firefighter with East Dover Township, responded under a mutual-aid agreement to a roof fire at a Navy facility (NAES Lakehurst) while contractors performed roof renovations.
- The mutual-aid agreement stated that the chief of the requesting department would control operations during the response.
- At the scene, a NAES fire chief ordered Roma to remove his self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA); Roma complied after being told it was not allowed and seeing other firefighters without SCBA.
- Roma inhaled a “steamy mist” while spraying water into a wooden sub-roof area, later coughed up blood, was hospitalized briefly, and alleged lasting lung injury.
- Roma asserted two negligence theories: (1) federal defendants and contractors negligently started the fire or failed to prevent it; and (2) federal defendants negligently ordered SCBA removal, causing injury.
- Roma submitted an FTCA administrative claim to the Navy focused on the SCBA-removal order; the Navy denied the claim.

## Issues

1. Whether N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:62A-21 abolished New Jersey’s common-law fireman’s rule, permitting a firefighter to sue private parties alleged to have caused or contributed to the fire.
2. Whether Roma exhausted FTCA administrative remedies for a claim that the United States negligently caused or failed to prevent the fire when his administrative claim focused on the SCBA-removal order.
3. Whether Roma was a “special employee” of NAES under New Jersey law during the mutual-aid response, making workers’ compensation the exclusive remedy for injury allegedly caused by the SCBA order.

## Decision

- Affirmed summary judgment for the federal defendants.
- Held the FTCA claim alleging negligent causation or prevention of the fire was barred for failure to exhaust because that theory was not fairly presented in the administrative claim.
- Held the SCBA-order tort claim against the United States was barred because Roma was a special employee of NAES, triggering workers’ compensation exclusivity.
- Reversed summary judgment for the contractor defendants and remanded.
- Held N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:62A-21 effectively abolished the traditional fireman’s rule, allowing Roma’s negligence claims against contractors alleged to have caused or contributed to the fire.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FTCA, federal courts lack authority over a claim unless the claimant first presents the same claim (including its operative negligence theory) to the appropriate agency.
- New Jersey’s N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:62A-21 permits injured firefighters and certain public-safety officers to sue persons whose negligence causes or contributes to the emergency; the statute displaces the traditional common-law fireman’s rule bar.
- Under New Jersey’s special-employee doctrine, a worker may become the borrowing entity’s employee for workers’ compensation purposes based on factors including control over the work and the working relationship; if so, workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against the special employer for work-related injury.
- In a mutual-aid firefighting response, operational control at the scene can establish special-employee status for responding firefighters with respect to the requesting department.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit allowed negligence claims against private contractors to proceed because New Jersey’s statutory scheme eliminates the traditional fireman’s rule defense, but it affirmed judgment for the United States because Roma failed to exhaust an FTCA theory about causing or failing to prevent the fire and, as to the SCBA-order claim, workers’ compensation exclusivity applied due to special-employee status.


Roma v. United States, 344 F.3d 352 (3d Cir. 2003)