[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday heard oral arguments in Will v. Hallock [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs] where it will decide whether a plaintiff who sued the federal government for an alleged constitutional violation is barred from suing individual government employees for the same conduct. In the case, the Court heard the appeal of Susan Hallock, whose computer software company went out of business after her husband Richard was mistakenly targeted in a child pornography investigation. Hallock first filed suit against the government under the Federal Tort Claim Act [LectLaw summary], and later filed a claim against customs agents who seized the plaintiff's computer equipment after the first claim was dismissed. Hallock's attorney alleges that the government's seizure of computers and the subsequent "loss of the computer data and source codes was fatal" to the plaintiff's business. AP has more.