UI Says ROTC Students Damaged Building

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The federal government is asking a judge to throw out a $1.6 million lawsuit brought by the state of Idaho over damages to a building at the University of Idaho. Idaho's attorneys filed the lawsuit in Boise's U.S. District Court last year, contending that members of the Navy ROTC program caused serious damage to a World War II-era building when ROTC students held a barbeque and then failed to fully extinguish the briquettes afterward, causing a fire.

In a motion filed Wednesday, the federal government says the lawsuit should be tossed out because the ROTC students weren't acting in the line of duty — or within the scope of their government employment — when they dumped out the briquettes. The federal government says the barbeque was strictly a social event.