Army Master Sgt. Richard Stayskal, a Green Beret suffering from terminal lung cancer, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington with his wife Meg in December 2018. Stayskal said doctors at Fort Bragg, N.C., missed the tumor on his lung evident in a scan six months earlier. Stayskal’s story helped inspire Congress to change a more than 70-year-old law to allow service members to file medical malpractice claims against the Defense Department. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)
Master Sgt. Richard Stayskal, the soldier whose story moved Congress to change a more than 70-year-old law to allow service members to file medical malpractice claims against the Defense Department, had his own claim denied this month, he said Wednesday during a news conference in Washington.
“The denial of my claim by the Department of Defense, in my opinion, is a blatant act of betrayal. Not only to myself, but every service member out there,” Stayskal said. “I stand here today on behalf of an entire generation and on behalf of future generations to ensure what happened to me will never happen again and give every breath I have for them.”
The denial of Stayskal’s claim has angered some lawmakers, and three of them vowed Wednesday to pass more legislation to force the Pentagon to create a system with better oversight. Of 155 claims to which the Army has responded since the law took effect in 2019, 144 have been denied, said Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.
“What happened to Rich Stayskal with this misdiagnosis, the malpractice, it's just unforgivable. It's a tragedy,” said Hudson, who counts Stayskal as one of his constituents. “Let me just say this to DOD: You need to fix this. If you don’t fix this, Congress is going to fix it.”
Stayskal, a 41-year-old Green Beret now assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., was diagnosed in 2017 with terminal lung cancer that grew for months as military doctors mistook his symptoms for pneumonia. It’s since spread to his neck, lymph nodes, spleen, liver, spine, a hip joint and other areas of his body.
Since then, Stayskal and his attorney, Natalie Khawam, have fought to change a policy known as the Feres Doctrine. Based on a 1950 Supreme Court decision, the doctrine bars service members from suing the Defense Department for injuries suffered while in the military.
The Sgt. 1st Class Richard Stayskal Act did not overturn the Feres Doctrine, but it carved out space for troops to sue under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The Pentagon announced guidelines for the claims in June 2021.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the claims will cost the federal government roughly $500 million. The Army has 47 claims pending a decision, according to Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Hewitt, a service spokesman.
Hudson, alongside Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., said they have the support of the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees for both parties and plan to include a provision about the claims process in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that outlines defense priorities and spending. The claims process is not working in the way that Congress intended, they said.
“The idea that they would deny Rich Stayskal’s [claim] just shows you the blatant arrogance that they have. I took it as a slap across the face. It’s something that I guarantee you, I'm going to lean into,” said Mullin, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He offered two options for better oversight on the claims process. All denied claims could be required to go through a third party for review, or the military services could review each other’s claims instead of their own.
“The fox is guarding the henhouse, and changes have to be made,” Mullin said.
When Stayskal’s claim was denied, he told The Washington Post that Army Secretary Christine Wormuth offered him $600,000 using her discretionary funding authority, the maximum amount allowed for pain and suffering damages in the military's medical malpractice system. It’s far less than the $20 million that Stayskal and his wife, Megan, were each seeking in separate claims submitted Jan. 1, 2020, according to the Post.
Stayskal refused the money and is appealing the decision, Khawam said.
“The whole point of this law is to be accountable, not to just give handouts,” she said. “The DOD denied Richard’s claim but yet in their letter they admitted to breaching the standard of care. … Breaching a standard of care is malpractice.”
The Army is not pushing Stayskal to give up the right he has to appeal, according to a senior Army official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“If not otherwise compensated under this statutory authority, the Secretary of the Army intends making a payment based on the unique facts of Stayskal’s case using her discretionary authority,” the official said.
