Florida Family Sues NASA For Falling Space Junk That Hit Home
NAPLES, Florida - A Florida family is suing NASA for damages to their home caused by space junk that fell to the Earth in March 2024.
In March 2021, NASA ground controllers used the International Space Station’s robotic arm to release a cargo pallet containing aging nickel hydride batteries from the space station following the delivery and installation of new lithium-ion batteries as part of power upgrades on the orbital outpost.
NASA says that the hardware was expected to fully burn up during entry through Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024.
However, a piece of hardware survived re-entry and impacted a home in Naples, Florida.
NASA collected the item in cooperation with the homeowner and analyzed the object at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
On May 22, 2024, attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy submitted a claim to NASA to recover for her clients’ damages resulting from a space debris incident involving property owner, Alejandro Otero and his family.
The Oteros retained Worthy to navigate the insurance and legal process and to make a formal claim against NASA under the Federal Torts Claim Act (“FTCA”) .
However, Worthy implored NASA to consider that persons in the U.S. should not have to make a claim under a negligence legal theory when the U.S. government has committed to being “absolutely liable” under international treaty law for damage to persons or property on the surface of the Earth caused by its space objects.
“If the incident had happened overseas, and someone in another country were damaged by the same space debris as in the Oteros’ case, the U.S. would have been absolutely liable to pay for those damages under the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects also known as the ‘Space Liability Convention," Worthy said.
"We have asked NASA not to apply a different standard towards U.S. citizens or residents, but instead to take care of the Oteros and make them whole. Here, the U.S. government, through NASA, has an opportunity to set the standard or ‘set a precedent’ as to what responsible, safe, and sustainable space operations ought to look like. If NASA were to take the position that the Oteros’ claims should be paid in full, it would send a strong signal to both other governments and private industries that such victims should be compensated regardless of fault.”
Under the FTCA, NASA will have six months to respond to the claims.
According to Worthy, the damages for the Otero family members include non-insured Property Damage loss, Business Interruption damages, Emotional/Mental anguish damages, and the costs for assistance from third parties required in the process. Additionally, the Oteros’ homeowner’s insurance carrier submitted a simultaneous claim for the damages to the property that it had subrogated.
“Space debris is a real and serious issue because of the increase in space traffic in recent years,” Worthy emphasized. She had previously written on the Kessler Effect, where the density of space debris in low Earth orbit becomes so great as to cause catastrophic collisions and a “cascading” effect of damage both in orbit and on the surface of the Earth. This space debris claim is historical in that it involves a “real life example” of the consequences of space debris surviving to the Earth’s surface. How NASA responds to her claim may form the foundation upon which the legal landscape in this field will be built.
“My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives. They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic. If the debris had hit a few feet in another direction, there could have been serious injury or a fatality," Worthy added in a release.
