Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01718/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01718-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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' . 

PUBLISH 

FILED 

United Scates C?urt of Appeals 

Tenth Ci~~:it 

ViOV 2 J 1989 

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEAL5£lOBERT L. HOECKER 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

Clerk 

CURTIS LOMBARDI, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant, ) 

) 

-vs- ) No. 88-1718 

) 

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, (SBA); ) 

JAMES SANDERS, individually and in his ) 

official capacity as Administrator of ) 

the SBA; MICHAEL CARDENAS, individually ) 

and in his official capacity as ) 

Administrator of the SBA; ROBERT ) 

TURNBULL, individually and in his ) 

official capacity as Acting Administrator ) 

of the SBA; JOE MASS, individually and in ) 

his official capacity as Director of ) 

Personnel for the Central Office of SBA:· ) 

RICHARD OSBORNE, individually and in his ) 

official capacity as Director of Personnel ) 

of SBA Central Office; BARBARA SPIRYDON, ) 

individually and in her ·official capacity ) 

as head of the Presidential Management ) 

Internship Program, SBA Central Office; ) 

JAMES REED, individually and in his ) 

official capacity as Acting Regional ) 

Administrator for SBA; DONALD BEAVER, ) 

individually and in his official capacity ) 

as SBA Assistant Regional Administrator ) 

for Procurement; E. MAINE SHAFER, ) 

individually and in his official capacity ) 

as District Director of the Albuquerque ) 

SBA Office; GREGORY D. DEVEJAN, ) 

individually and in his official capacity ) 

as Assistant Director for Management ) 

Assistance and Assistant Director of the ) 

Albuquerque Minority Small Business ) 

Program; and JACK DALTON, individually and ) 

as District counsel for the SBA Albuquerque) 

District Office, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellees. ) 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

(D.C. NO. CIV-87-0210 JP) 

Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 1 
E. Justin Pennington, Albuquerque, New Mexico, for PlaintiffAppellant. · 

Joan E. Hartman, Appellate Staff Civil Division, U.S. 

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (John R. Bolton, Assistant 

Attorney General, William L. Lutz, United States Attorney, John F. 

Cordes, Attorney, Appellate Staff Civil Division, U.S. Department 

of Justice, Washington, D.C., with her on the brief), for 

Defendants-Appellees. 

Before MOORE, BALDOCK, Circuit Judges, and DAUGHERTY, District 

Judge.* 

*The Honorable Fred Daugherty, District Judge, United States 

District Court for ,the Western District of Oklahoma, sitting by 

designation. 

DAUGHERTY, DISTRICT JUDGE 

Plaintiff-Appellant Curtis Lombardi appeals from a District 

Court order dismissing his Bivens action for lack of subject matter 

jurisdiction. We agree with the dismissal and affirm. 

Plaintiff Lombardi was hired by the Small Business 

Administration {SBA) in August, 1980, as a Presidential Management 

Intern. Presidential Management Intern positions are short-term 

positions and participation in the intern program confers no 

expectation of continued Federal employment upon the participants. 

The Office of Personnel Management has listed interns in the 

program as "excepted service" employees, who are by definition not 

within the competitive service. As a result, the civil Service 

Rules and Regulations do not apply to the Intern's removal from the 

position. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 2 
The Plaintiff-Appellant's employment was terminated on 

February 26, 1982, in order to "promote the efficiency of the 

service". Plaintiff appealed his termination to the Acting 

Administrator of the SBA, stating that his discharge was · in 

retaliation for his party affiliation and for certain activities 

such as discussing racism in the SBA District Office with Equal 

Opportunity investigators and calling attention to improper 

Department of Housing and Urban Development contract oversight 

activities. In May, 1984, Plaintiff Lombardi filed two requests 

under the Freedom of Information Act with the SBA seeking all 

documents relating to his dismissal. The request was denied and 

Lombardi subsequently filed a complaint in the District Court for 

the District of New Mexico under the Privacy Act seeking disclosure 

of the withheld documents. This litigation was settled by the 

parties on May 5, 1986. 

Thereafter, on February 20, 1987, Lombardi filed a "Complaint 

for Violation of Constitutional Rights" in the District Court for 

the District of New Mexico based upon his termination. The 

alle9ations contained in the 1987 Complaint are nearly identical 

to the factual allegations set forth in Lombardi's 1982 

administrative appeals. Defendants moved to dismiss the case 

against the SBA and the individual Defendants in their official 

capacity on the ground of sovereign irnrnuni ty and also moved to 

dismiss the remaining claims for damages against the Defendants in 

their individual capacity based upon the Supreme Court's decisions 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 3 
in Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367 (1983) and United States v. Fausto, 

108 s.ct. 688 (1988). The Defendants also moved to dismiss the 

Complaint in its entirety based upon the expiration of the statute 

of limitations. 

on January 22, 1988, the District Court granted the Motion to 

Dismiss based upon sovereign immunity, dismissing the action 

against the SBA and the individual Defendants in their official 

capacity. On March 29, 1988, the District Court dismissed the 

remaining claims against the individual Defendants, finding that 

there was no subject matter jurisdiction over the Plaintiff's 

claims under Bu~h and Fausto because the Plaintiff was a Federal 

employee whose claims were governed by the Civil Service Reform Act 

of 1978 (CSRA). 

The District Court declined to dismiss based upon the 

expiration of the statute of limitations. The SBA requested that 

the District Court reconsider this decision but the Court declined 

to do so. 

The District Court determined that Plaintiff's Bivens claim 

was precluded by the Supreme Court's holdings in Bush and Fausto. 

We agree that the District Court correctly interpreted those cases 

to preclude the Plaintiff from judicial review of his termination, 

especially in light of the recent Supreme Court case of Schweiker 

v. Chilicky, 108 s.ct. 2460 (1988). 

The Supreme Court in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of 

Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), held that there 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 4 
should be a cause of action for damages against a Federal official 

who engages in unconstitutional conduct. The Court, however, 

cautioned that if there are any "special factors counseling 

hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress", id., 

at 396, Courts should decline to create an additional remedy. 

The existence of a comprehensive statutory scheme such as the 

CSRA was found to be such a special factor in the Bush case. In 

Bush, the Supreme Court held that because a Federal employee's 

claim that his First Amendment rights were violated by his 

superiors arose "out of an employment relationship that is governed 

by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving 

meaningful remedies against the United States, we conclude that it 

would be inappropriate for us to supplement that regulatory scheme 

with a new judicial remedy". Bush, 462 U.S at 368. 

The recent Supreme Court cases of Fausto, relied upon by the 

District Court in the case at bar, and in particular the most 

recent Chilicky case, indicate that the Court will not create a 

Bivens remedy in a Federal employment action even if no remedy 

at all has been provided by the CSRA. The Court stated in Chilicky 

that " [ o] ur most recent decisions have responded cautiously to 

suggestions that Bivens remedies be extended into new context. The 

absence of statutory relief for a constitutional violation, for 

example, does not by any means necessarily imply that the Court 

should award money damages against the officers responsible for the 

violation." Id., at 2467. The Court continued by asserting that 

"the concept of 'special factors counseling hesitation in the 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 5 
absence of affirmative action by Congress' has proved to include 

an appropriate judicial deference to indications that Congressional 

inaction has not been inadvertent. When the design of a Government 

program suggests that Congref;ls has provided what it considers 

adequate remedial mechanisms for constitutional violations that may 

occur in the course of its administration, we have not created 

additional Bivens remedies." Id., at 2468. 

The rationale of the Bush, Fausto and Chilicky cases has been 

applied by this Court in a situation similar to that in the case 

at bar in Hill v. Dept. of Air Force, ___ F.2d ___ , (10th Cir. 

1989) (per curiam) (88-2275, slip op. filed July 7, 1989), and 

Brothers v. Custis, ___ F.2d ___ , (10th Cir. 1989) (per curiam) 

(87-2890, slip op. filed October 4, 1989), in both of which this 

Court declined to create a Bivens remedy. This was also the 

decision of the 8th Circuit in McIntosh v. Turner, 861 F.2d 524 

(8th cir. 1988), the D.C. Circuit in Spagnola v. Mathis, 857 F.2d 

223 (D.C. Cir. 1988) and the 7th Circuit in Feit v. Ward, No. 

88-2553 (7th cir. Sept. 26, 1989). The 9th Circuit case of 

Kotarski v. Cooper, 799 F.2d 1342 (9th Cir. 1986), cited by the 

Appellant here in support of his position, was re~anded by the 

Supreme Court in light of Chilicky, and upon reconsideration the 

9th Circuit held that no Bivens action could be implied. 

Plaintiff-Appellant acknowledged in his reply brief and in 

oral argument that, with Chilicky, the Supreme Court has virtually 

closed the door to any Bivens actions for damages in a federal 

employment context. Appellant maintains, however, that his case 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 6 
is distinguishable due to both the nature of the violation 

involved, and the fact that he is requesting injunctive relief. 

Appellant asserts that he is seeking damages for actions 

"aside from and outside the normal employer-employee relationship". 

Appellant's Reply Brief at 5. Appellant claims that many of the 

violations complained of occurred after the employment relationship 

was terminated and urges that such actions are thus still 

permissible even after Chilicky. 

We find, however, that the violations complained of by the 

Appellant occurred only as a result of the employment relationship 

with the Small Business Administration. His position as a federal 

employee is central to his complaints, and it is this employment 

relationship that the Supreme Court emphasized in Bush and its 

progeny, rather than the nature of the specific violation involved. 

This Court can find no facts in the case at bar that sufficiently 

distinguish it from the numerous other cases finding no Bivens 

remedy in similar situations, especially in light of the Supreme 

Court's clear directive in Chilicky. 

As to Appellant's assertion that injunctive relief is still 

available even after Chilicky, we are of the opinion that the clear 

purpose of Chilicky and the related cases is to virtually prohibit 

intrusion by the Courts into the statutory scheme established by 

Congress. This judicial intervention is disfavored whether it is 

accomplished by the creation of a damages remedy or injunctive 

relief. Reinstatement of a federal employee was denied by the 

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Appellate Case: 88-1718 Document: 010110135867 Date Filed: 11/20/1989 Page: 7 
courts in both Weatherford v. Dole, 763 F.2d 392 (10th Cir. 1985) 

and Kotarski using the Bush rationale. This Court stated in 

Weatherford that "(c)ertain agency personnel decisions are simply 

not subject to judicial review.n Id., at 394. We find that 

Lombardi has failed to distinguish his case from the preceding 

authority and refuse to imply a Bivens action. 

The Appellees in this case assert in their Reply Brief that 

the case should also be dismissed because it is barred by the 

aplicable statute of limitations. The Appellees did not raise this 

issue on cross-appeal and thus we find the statute of limitations 

question not to be properly before us. In any event, our 

substantive disposition of the cause renders such consideration 

unnecessary. 

AFFIRMED. 

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