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NEWARK, N.J. — A civilian Navy engineer who says her ship’s captain raped her in bed will not get a jury trial on her claims against the government. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit after the Labor Department classified her injuries as a workers’ compensation matter.

Elsie Dominguez sued the United States in 2023, alleging that the Navy and Military Sealift Command failed to keep her safe. She also accused officials of failing to provide proper care after she reported the assault.

The dismissal did not resolve those allegations or determine whether the captain committed rape. Instead, federal law left the court without authority to hear the case once the Labor Department placed it under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.

Dominguez alleges captain entered her locked room

Dominguez graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 2014 and became a first assistant engineer. She is also a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve.

In 2021, she worked as a civilian federal employee aboard the USNS Carson City. Military Sealift Command operates the Navy-owned transport ship with a civilian crew.

According to her federal complaint, Dominguez went ashore with crew members in Brindisi, Italy, on Dec. 18, 2021. She believes someone drugged her drink because she became severely impaired and lost consciousness.

Crew members carried her back to the ship and placed her in her room. Dominguez alleges that she awoke the next morning to find Capt. Yamil Sanchez Padilla holding down her arms and raping her.

The complaint says Sanchez Padilla used a master access code to enter the room. Cameras in the surrounding passageways had reportedly been broken for more than a year.

Dominguez argued that the government failed to secure the master code or repair the cameras. She also alleged that senior officials knew about Sanchez Padilla’s alcohol abuse and erratic conduct before the attack.

Sanchez Padilla later acknowledged having intercourse with Dominguez but maintained that it was consensual. He has not been criminally convicted in connection with the allegation.

Reporting system offered Dominguez few choices

Dominguez contacted a Military Sealift Command civilian victim advocate after the alleged assault. She says the advocate told her that civilian employees could not make confidential restricted reports.

An unrestricted report would have removed her from the ship immediately, according to the complaint. She feared she would lose her position and remain sidelined until the investigation ended.

Dominguez also accused officials of discouraging her from seeking medical testing. Getting consistent mental health care proved difficult while she continued working overseas.

For nearly two years, she remained aboard the ship and lived in the room where she said the rape occurred. She initially wedged a chair against the door while waiting for officials to install a deadbolt.

Dominguez formally reported the allegations to Navy and law enforcement officials in June 2023. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Coast Guard Investigative Service then opened investigations.

Military Sealift Command removed Sanchez Padilla from the ship and placed him on paid administrative leave. Dominguez later took a year of unpaid leave to recover, which temporarily cost her health insurance.

Government turned to federal compensation law

Dominguez brought negligence and unseaworthiness claims under the Jones Act and general maritime law. Her case targeted the government’s alleged safety failures rather than seeking damages directly from Sanchez Padilla.

Government attorneys acknowledged that rape was not part of a mariner’s job. However, they argued that FECA could still cover her injuries because she had to live aboard the ship.

That position relied partly on the Labor Department’s “bunkhouse rule.” The policy can cover injuries suffered while an employee reasonably uses housing required by the job.

In 2024, a federal judge paused the lawsuit and asked the Labor Department to decide whether FECA applied. Dominguez’s attorneys argued that rape by a superior could not reasonably qualify as an employment risk.

“We categorically reject the idea that rape can be in the performance of her duties,” attorney Christine Dunn told Task & Purpose. She warned that workers’ compensation would provide a far more limited remedy than a successful maritime lawsuit.

The Labor Department ultimately found that FECA covered Dominguez’s injuries. That administrative finding effectively determined what happened next in federal court.

Under FECA, Labor Department coverage decisions are final and generally cannot receive judicial review. The law also makes workers’ compensation the exclusive remedy for covered claims against the government.

Judge Edward S. Kiel dismissed the case Aug. 11 after reviewing a status letter from Dominguez’s attorneys. The order ended her effort to have a jury examine the Navy’s alleged negligence.

Captain surrendered mariner credential

Military Sealift Command removed Sanchez Padilla from federal service in March 2025. An MSC official cited findings from the NCIS investigation and called his alleged conduct “egregious” and “inappropriate.”

The Coast Guard also filed an administrative complaint seeking action against his merchant mariner credential. Sanchez Padilla surrendered the credential in March 2026 after acknowledging that he faced a sexual assault investigation.

The surrender ended his ability to work as a credentialed merchant mariner. Once he relinquished it, the Coast Guard closed its administrative case.

Dominguez returned to work and continued pursuing her goal of becoming a chief engineer. She told Stars and Stripes that the experience cost her sleep, friendships and camaraderie with coworkers.

A SHARP victim advocate’s perspective

I served in the U.S. Army for 21 years and retired as a Sergeant First Class. During my career, I was also a certified victim advocate in the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program, commonly known as SHARP.

The training did not leave room for confusion about what sexual assault represents. Rape is a crime, an abuse of power and a threat to the trust that holds a military organization together. At no point is it part of anyone’s duties.

I understand that “performance of duty” has a broader legal meaning under federal compensation law. The government did not claim that Dominguez’s job literally included enduring sexual violence.

That distinction does not make the outcome acceptable. A law intended to protect injured federal employees has now prevented one from asking a jury to examine the government’s alleged failures surrounding a rape.

The judge followed the legal effect of the Labor Department’s decision. My objection is to a system that produced this result and then offered the court no room to question it.

The administrative ruling and the dismissal it caused are an affront to survivors. They should also concern everyone who has ever assured a victim that reporting an assault can lead to accountability.

The burden fell on the person who reported

As a victim advocate, my job was to help survivors understand their choices without taking control away from them. Safety, medical care, confidentiality and protection from retaliation were central to that responsibility.

Dominguez alleges that she encountered barriers at nearly every stage. She could not make the confidential report available to many service members, and reporting openly could have disrupted her career.

She continued living in the room where the alleged assault occurred. Her access to mental health care remained inconsistent, and she eventually took unpaid leave to recover.

The accused captain, meanwhile, left the ship on paid administrative leave. That contrast shows exactly where the institution placed the burden.

Military leaders cannot tell victims to trust the process while making them absorb the professional and financial damage of reporting. That message does not encourage accountability. It warns the next victim to remain silent.

The Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office says sexual assault damages readiness and has no place in the military. Those principles must extend beyond annual training and official statements.

USA Herald previously reported on congressional scrutiny of sexual abuse cases on military bases. Although those cases involved children, they raised the same institutional question: What happens when military systems fail the people they should protect?

They must remain visible when a victim asks for help, when an allegation involves someone with authority and when protecting the institution becomes easier than protecting the person.

Workers’ compensation cannot do the work of a jury

Federal employees need workers’ compensation. A mariner injured by machinery or thrown against a wall during rough seas should receive medical care without first proving negligence.

Dominguez’s lawsuit raised a different question. She wanted a court to examine broken cameras, unrestricted access to private rooms and a reporting system she says failed her.

FECA can provide certain medical and wage benefits, but it cannot decide whether the government acted negligently. It also cannot give Dominguez the public civil trial she sought.

If the law truly leaves no path for a federal employee in this position, Congress should create one. No survivor should have fewer legal options because an employer required her to sleep at the workplace.

Dominguez came forward under her own name and continued building her career in a male-dominated profession. Her decision helped expose the captain’s identity and brought public attention to safety aboard Military Sealift Command vessels.

Yet the central questions in her lawsuit remain unanswered. The legal system closed the courthouse before a jury could hear them.

That outcome undermines the promise made every time a military organization urges survivors to report. Accountability cannot depend on whether a rape happened in government-provided housing.