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Acker Gumusyazici v. United States — 9th Cir. (Oct 16, 2026)

No. 25-4580 Argued October 16, 2026 Published October 17, 2026

The Ninth Circuit hears Gumusyazici versus the United States. She was a passenger in a car driven by her sister on a reservation road. The car skidded toward a utility pole near a curve. Her sister steered away, and the car left the road and rolled over, seriously injuring her. She sued over allegedly unsafe road design, including the absence of a guardrail. The road was maintained by a tribe under a federal transportation agreement. The district court ruled for the government without a trial, treating design decisions as protected and finding insufficient evidence that negligence caused the crash. The Federal Tort Claims Act allows certain negligence suits against the United States. Its discretionary-function exception protects discretionary choices that can involve public-policy balancing, even when discretion is abused. Her representatives will argue that this was an ordinary engineering-safety problem, not protected policymaking. They will also distinguish causing the skid from failing to limit her injuries. The government will contend that these road-design choices involve balancing safety, cost and tribal community values.

Acker Gumusyazici v. United States (No. 25-4580) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 16, 2026.

Sources
Argument audio — official Ninth Circuit recording:https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/media/2026/10/16/25-4580.mp3
Case and argument date — official court archive:https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/cases/streams-videos/archive?case=25-4580&hearingDate=2026-10-16
Facts and ruling under review — D. Idaho, June 27, 2025, Doc. 42; not this appeal outcome:https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-idd-2_23-cv-00324/pdf/USCOURTS-idd-2_23-cv-00324-0.pdf
Federal Tort Claims Act — 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1):https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1346
Discretionary-function exception — 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a):https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2680
Tribal transportation design factors — 25 C.F.R. § 170.455:https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/170.455

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