091025P.pdf   09/07/2011  Nancy Mader  v.  United States
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  09-1025
   U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska - Omaha   
   [PUBLISHED] [Judge Beam, Author, for the Court En Banc, joined in
   whole or part by Riley, Chief Judge, and Wollman, Loken, Colloton,
   Gruender and Benton, Circuit Judges]
   Civil case - Federal Tort Claims Act. When there are conflicting panel
   opinions, the earliest panel opinion must be followed as it should have
   controlled the subsequent panels that created the conflict; a properly
   presented claim under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2675(a) must include evidence of a
   representative's authority to act on behalf of the claim's beneficiaries
   under state law; such an interpretation is consistent with the Attorney
   General's regulation 28 C.F.R. Sec. 14.2(a); compliance with the
   presentment requirement is a jurisdictional precondition to filing a Federal
   Tort Claims Act suit in federal court; since there was no such compliance
   in this case, the district court properly dismissed the suit for want of
   subject-matter jurisdiction; alternatively, in light of plaintiff's concession
   that her appointment as personal representative expired before she sought
   to present a wrongful death claim to the VA, she did not have standing to
   assert the wrongful death claim at issue. Judge Bye, dissenting, joined by
   Murphy, Melloy, Smith and Shepherd, Circuit Judges.
  
091025P.pdf   08/31/2010  Nancy Mader  v.  United States
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  09-1025
   U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska - Omaha   
   [PUBLISHED] [Bye, Author, with Beam and Shepherd, Circuit Judges]
   Civil case - Federal Tort Claims Act. Adopting the "better rule," the
   court holds that a plaintiff meets the Federal Tort Claims Act's
   jurisdictional prerequisites when she provides the relevant agency with
   (1) sufficient information for the agency to investigate the claims and (2)
   the amount of damages sought; because it is undisputed that plaintiff met
   these requirements, the district court erred when it dismissed the case for
   lack of jurisdiction; complaint was timely filed. Judge Beam, dissenting
   on the ground plaintiff is jurisdictionally barred from pursuing her
   Federal Tort Claims Act action.