Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-2_12-cv-00296/USCOURTS-almd-2_12-cv-00296-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:2671 Federal Tort Claims Act

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

NORTHERN DIVISION

CHARLIE MAE WILLETT, )

 )

Plaintiff, )

 ) CASE NO. 2:12-CV-296-WKW

v. ) [WO]

 )

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

 )

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff Charlie Mae Willett brings this Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”)

action. In it, she alleges that the United States’s negligence caused the injuries she

sustained when a hospital employee sexual assaulted her while she was a patient at

the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (“CAVHCS”) facility in

Montgomery, Alabama. 

In January 2013, the court dismissed the First Amended Complaint on the

United States’s motion and granted Ms. Willett leave to amend a second time. (Doc.

# 22.) Ms. Willett accepted that invitation, and the United States moved to dismiss

Ms. Willett’s Second Amended Complaint (Doc. # 23) for lack of subject matter

jurisdiction based upon sovereign immunity. (Doc. # 27.) The parties have fully

briefed the motion. (Docs. # 28, 32, 35.) After careful consideration of the

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arguments of counsel and the relevant law, the motion is due to be denied with leave

to refile after limited jurisdictional discovery.

I. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

The parties do not contest personal jurisdiction or venue. Subject matter

jurisdiction is at issue, as set out below.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) may assert either a factual attack or

a facial attack to jurisdiction. McElmurray v. Consol. Gov’t of Augusta-Richmond

Cnty., 501 F.3d 1244, 1251 (11th Cir. 2007). The United States frames its motion as

a facial attack, and thus asksthe court to examine whether the complaint “sufficiently

allege[s] a basis ofsubject matter jurisdiction.” Id. Practically, however, Defendant’s

motion factually attacks subject matter jurisdiction, asit asksthe court to consider the

pleadings and matters outside them. See Hogan v. U.S. Postmaster Gen., 492 F.

App’x 33, 34 (11th Cir. 2012) (“By arguing that Hogan’s claim is governed by the

discretionary function exception, the United States factually attacks our subject

matter jurisdiction.”); Rodriguez v. United States, 415 F. App’x 143, 145 (11th Cir.

2011) (noting, when reviewing a motion to dismiss based on the FTCA’s

discretionary function exception, the court’s authority to consider “matters outside

the pleadings, such as testimony and affidavits”). 

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A Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests the sufficiency of the complaint against the legal

standard articulated by Rule 8: “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that

the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). To survive a motion to

dismiss brought under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must contain sufficient factual

allegations, “accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550

U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The standard requires the plaintiff to plead “enough fact to

raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence” of the plaintiff’s

claim. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556. 

III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The factual background is laid out in the court’s earlier order on the United

States’s first motion to dismiss. (Doc. # 22.) Ms. Willett alleges that while she was

an inpatient at CAVHCS, CAVHCS employee Marvin Chappell sexually assaulted

her while she was “heavily medicated.” (Doc. # 23 ¶ 12.) She alleges Chappell

“sexually molested” other patients, before and after her assault, and that CAVHCS

administrators were or should have been aware of those assaults. (Doc. # 23 ¶ 9.) 

Ms. Willett’s FTCA action alleges that the United States is liable because her

hospitalization and sedation created a special relationship between her and the

CAVHCS, from which a duty of care flowed. In Ms. Willett’s words, this special

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relationship “[gave] rise to a duty to protect [her] from the criminal acts of third

parties” while she was in CAVHCS’s care. (Doc. # 23, ¶ 17.) Specifically, she

alleges that the United States “negligently failed to protect her” from a foreseeable

sexual assault. (Doc. # 23, ¶ 18.)

IV. DISCUSSION

Absent a waiver, sovereign immunity poses a jurisdictional bar to suit against

the United States. JBP Acquisitions, LP v. U.S. ex rel. F.D.I.C., 224 F.3d 1260, 1263,

(11th Cir. 2000). Under the FTCA, the United States has waived its sovereign

immunity for injuries caused by the “negligent or wrongful act or omission” of a

federal government employee while that employee is “acting within the scope of his

office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private

person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where

the act or omission occurred.” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). Several exceptions in 28 U.S.C. 1

§ 2680 limit this waiver, however, and where the limitations apply, sovereign

immunity remains a jurisdictional bar to suit.

The United States asserts that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over

Ms. Willett’s negligent hiring and supervision claims based upon two exceptions:

 Here, Alabama law is the source of substantive liability. See F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 1

U.S. 471, 478 (1994) (holding that “law of the place where the act . . . occurred,” § 1346(b), is

the “source of substantive liability under the FTCA”). 

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(1) the FTCA’s assault and battery exception, see § 2680(h), and (2) the FTCA’s

discretionary function exception, see § 2680(a). The court will address each in turn. 

A. Plaintiff’s complaint avoids application of the assault and battery

exception.

The FTCA stands as an exception to the general rule of sovereign immunity. 

The assault and battery exception is an exception to that exception; it preserves the

United States’s immunity from claims “arising out of” intentional torts, like battery.

28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). Ms. Willett relies on Sheridan v. United States, 487 U.S. 392

(1988), to argue that her claims arise not from her assailant’s intentional acts, but

from the United States’s failure to exercise a duty of reasonable care to protect her

from the foreseeable criminal acts of third parties during her hospitalization. 

In Sheridan, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the FTCA’s

assault and battery exception does not preclude suit where neither the assailant’s

“employment status nor his state of mind ha[d] any bearing on the basis for” the

plaintiffs’ claim. Id. at 403. In Sheridan, naval corpsmen undertook to assist an

obviously armed and intoxicated serviceman, and they abandoned their efforts when

he broke away and fled, later firing into the plaintiffs’ car. The negligence claim

arose not from the employment relationship between the assailant and the United

States, but rather because of: (1) the Government’s independent duty created by its

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voluntary adoption of regulations with respect to weapons reporting; and (2) the duty

owed by the Government once it “voluntarily under[took] to provide care to a person

who was visibly drunk and visibly armed.” Id. at 401. 

Under Sheridan, a claim for negligence may lie “where the negligence arises

out of an independent, antecedent duty unrelated to the employment relationship

between the tortfeasor and the United States.” Leleux v. United States, 178 F.3d 750,

757 (5th Cir. 1999). In short, if the United States would have owed a plaintiff the

same duty whether the assailant was a civilian or a government employee, the assault

and battery exception does not re-erect immunity as an obstacle to an FTCA claim. 

If Ms. Willett’s allegations are proven, the United States would have owed her

the same duty, whether her assailant was a hospital orderly, a vending machine

serviceman, or a stranger who wandered into the hospital. Under Alabama law, the

hospital owes a general duty of care, Ala. Code § 6-5-484, in addition to a more

specific “duty to a sedated or anesthetized patient, who, because of such condition

and the circumstances surrounding it, is dependent on the hospital.” Young v.

Huntsville Hosp., 595 So. 2d 1386, 1390 (Ala. 1992). The employment status of Ms.

Willett’s assailant is irrelevant to the duty owed based on the special relationship. 

Gess v. United Statesisinstructive on this point. 952 F. Supp. 1529 (M.D. Ala.

1996). In Gess, parents sued under the FTCA when a medical technician

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surreptitiously injected infants in an Air Force hospital’s nursery with toxic doses of

lidocaine. The court rejected the United States’s argument that the FTCA’s assault

and battery exception barred the action because the hospital owed the infants a duty

to protect them against the foreseeable criminal acts of third parties and, as in

Sheridan, that duty was independent of the medical technician’s status as a

government employee. Id. at 1551. 

This is not to say that the employment relationship is wholly irrelevant to the

analysis. As illustrated by Gess, id. at 1558, information gained as a result of the

employment relationship may make criminal acts foreseeable, and the foreseeability

of the criminal acts is a necessary element for proving liability under Young and – by

extension – under the FTCA. Presented with no binding authority to the contrary,2

the court finds that applying the assault and battery exception to prevent liability

because criminal acts are foreseeable based in part on the employment relationship

3

 Other district courts have found that Sheridan does not apply “where an allegedly 2

foreseeable battery was only foreseeable to the [United States] because it happened to be the

assailant’s employer.” Acosta v. United States, 207 F. Supp. 2d 1365, 1369 (S.D. Fla. 2001)

(discussing Bajkowski v. United States, 787 F. Supp. 539, 541–42 (E.D.N.C. 1991)), aff’d 52 F.

App’x 486 (11th Cir. 2002) (table decision). The Eleventh Circuit has too, but in an unpublished

opinion premised on negligent hiring and supervision, not based on an affirmative duty arising

from a special relationship. See Reed v. U.S. Postal Serv., 288 F. App’x 638, 640 (11th Cir.

2008) (holding that where awareness “of the assailant’s purportedly violent history” came only

from knowledge the United States gained as his employer, the assault and battery exception

under the FTCA barred a negligent hiring claim). 

 An attack by an employee could be foreseeable simply because it had happened before, 3

the same way an earlier attack by hospital intruder might make a later attack by a hospital

intruder foreseeable. Here, foreseeability based on a prior similar act would be only incidentally

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between the assailant and the Government perversely exonerates “the Government

because of the happenstance that [the assailant] was on a federal payroll.” Sheridan,

487 U.S. at 402. So long as the duty arises independent of the employment

relationship, it is of no moment that the employment relationship – rather than some

other means – made the attack foreseeable. Sheridan focused on the independence

of the employment status, not the independence of the foreseeability. Id. at 401

(“[T]he negligence of other Government employees who allowed a foreseeable

assault and battery to occur may furnish a basis for Government liability that is

entirely independent of [the assailant’s] employment status.”). 

Ms. Willett’s earlier complaint lacked allegations allowing reliance on

Sheridan. The allegations of her Second Amended Complaint, however, comport

with Sheridan and are consistent with Young. Ms. Willett’s claim, therefore, survives

application of the assault and battery exception. The court must still decide whether

the discretionary function exception applies. 

B. The court lacks sufficient information to rule on the discretionary

function exception, making limited jurisdictional discovery

appropriate. 

The discretionary function exception is another exception to the FTCA’s broad

waiver of immunity. It bars claims based on “the exercise or performance or the

linked to the employment relationship.

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failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal

agency or the employee of the Government, whether the discretion involved be

abused.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). 

Atwo-parttest determines whether the discretionary function exception applies

to re-erect sovereign immunity as a bar to suit. United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S.

315, 322 (1991), Autery v. United States, 992 F.2d 1523, 1526 (11th Cir. 1993). 

First, the court asks whether the nature of the government actor’s conduct “involves

an element of judgment or choice.” Ochran v. United States, 117 F.3d 495, 499 (11th

Cir. 1997) (internal quotations omitted). Where “a federal statute, regulation, or

policy specifically prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow,” there is

no element of judgment or choice, and the discretionary function exception therefore

does not apply. Id. (internal quotations omitted). If, however, nothing expressly

prescribes the conduct, the court moves to the second step to ask whether the

judgment at issue “is of the kind that the discretionary function exception was

designed to shield.” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322–23 (internal quotations omitted). The

exception exists “to prevent judicialsecond-guessing oflegislative and administrative

decisions grounded in social, economic, and political policy.” Id. at 323 (internal

quotations omitted). 

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Defendant has asserted affirmatively “that there are no federal statutes,

regulations, or policies mandating specific security features or procedures that

[Defendant] must follow to prevent violent crimes by third parties.” (Doc. # 28 at 11;

Doc. # 35 at 9.) Plaintiff has not successfully contested that assertion, but absent

publicly available statutes or regulations, it is practically difficult for her to do so. 

The court will grant Plaintiff an opportunity to contest Defendant’s assertion after

limited jurisdictional discovery. 

4

Dismissalsfor lack ofsubject matter jurisdiction are disfavored where, as here,

“the factual and jurisdictional issues are completely intermeshed.” Chatham Condo.

Ass’ns v. Century Village, Inc., 597 F.2d 1002, 1011 (5th Cir. 1979). Defendant is 5

in the best position to know whether an internal hospital policy or procedure exists

that would have prevented the assault suffered by Plaintiff. The court will not

 Because Defendant challenges the court’s subject matter jurisdiction rather than the 4

merits of Plaintiff’s claim at this point, Plaintiff may not conduct discovery on the merits of her

claim. Jurisdictional discovery will be permitted only to investigate whether CAVHCS

employees and administrators were under a mandatory duty to avoid allegedly tortious acts or

omissions. See Loughlin v. United States, 286 F. Supp. 2d 1, 7–8, n.9 (D.D.C. 2003) (recounting

a similar allowance for jurisdictional discovery).

 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), the 5

Eleventh Circuit adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed

down prior to October 1, 1981. 

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foreclose her the opportunity to discover such a policy or to come forward with an

applicable mandatory statute or regulation.6

The policies cited by Plaintiff do not allow her to overcome the discretionary

function exception for two reasons. First, they apply to medical centers participating

in Medicare and Medicaid services, of which CAVHCS is not one. United States v.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ala., 999 F.2d 1542, 1546 (11th Cir. 1993) (remarking that

“VA hospitals may not recover expenses from Medicare”). Second, the regulations

do not demand a prescribed course of conduct sufficient to overcome immunity based

on the discretionary function exception. Only regulations that mandate a specific

course of conduct will apply. Ochran, 117 F.3d at 499. A mandatory duty of care is

not, itself, a prescribed course of conduct. See Cohen v. United States, 151 F.3d

1338, 1342 (11th Cir. 1998) (“[E]ven if [a statute] imposes on the BOP a general duty

of care to safeguard prisoners, the BOP retains sufficient discretion in the means it

may use to fulfill that duty to trigger the discretionary function exception.”). 

The court has not expressed, and does not now express, any opinion on the

merits of Plaintiff’s claim, and nothing in this or its earlier order (Doc. # 22) should

 If Plaintiff cannot identify a mandatory duty with the benefit of discovery, the court will 6

move to the second step of the discretionary function analysis and ask whether Defendant’s

alleged negligence was borne of a decision grounded in considerations of public policy. 

Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322–23. “Burden of production on policy considerations that might

influence challenged conduct must be on government.” Ochran, 117 F.3d at 504 n.4 (discussing

the burden on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on the

discretionary function exception to the FTCA). 

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be construed to the contrary. In allowing Ms. Willett’s claim to advance, the court

does not “foreclose the possibility that, when the facts are developed, it will turn out

that governmental discretion isinvolved to the point where the discretionary function

exception in fact applies.” Collazo v. United States, 850 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1986)

(reversing grant of motion to dismiss granted by the district court based on

discretionary function exception because the plaintiff’s claim rested on medical

malpractice, not the type of decision meant to be protected by § 2680(a)). 

C. Plaintiffs have stated a claim upon which relief can be granted. 

Defendant’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion is due to be denied. Plaintiff’s Second

Amended Complaint (Doc. # 23) satisfies Rule 8’s requirement that a complaint offer

a short and plain statement of Plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiff pleads facts indicating that

a special relationship existed between her and CAVHCS. She alleges that CAVHCS

employees and administrators were aware of the dangerous propensities of her

assailant and that they nonetheless failed to protect her. Her pleading – while short

and plain – is enough to create a reasonable expectation discovery will reveal

evidence in her favor. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (stating the standard for a Rule

12(b)(6) motion and for pleading under Rule 8). 

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V. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. # 27)

is DENIED. Defendant may refile its motion on or before September 9, 2013. 

It isfurther ORDERED that Plaintiff is GRANTED LEAVE to conduct limited

jurisdictional discovery. Discovery islimited to the existence of a statute, regulation,

or policy specifically prescribing a course of action such that there was no element

of judgment or choice for CAVHCS employees and administrators. Discovery on the

merits will not be permitted.

It is further ORDERED that based on said discovery, Plaintiff should file a

response to anymotion to dismiss fromDefendant on or before September 30, 2013. 

The Defendant’s reply brief, if any, shall be filed on or before October 7, 2013. The

court’s General Briefing Order (Doc. # 29) otherwise remains in effect.

It is further ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike (Doc. # 33) is

DENIED. Motions to strike are permissible only to ask the court to “strike from a

pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or

scandalous matter.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) (emphasis added). A motion is not a

pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(a) (listing types of pleadings). 

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DONE this 27th day of June, 2013.

 /s/ W. Keith Watkins 

CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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