Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-14-06207/USCOURTS-ca6-14-06207-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 15a0108p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

GREG ADKISSON et al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

JACOBS ENGINEERING GROUP, INC., 

Defendant-Appellee. 

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No. 14-6207 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville. 

Nos. 3:13-cv-00505; 3:13-cv-00666; 3:14-cv-00020—Thomas A. Varlan, Chief District Judge. 

Argued: April 29, 2015 

Decided and Filed: June 2, 2015 

Before: GILMAN, ROGERS, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: James K. Scott, STOKES, WILLIAMS, SHARP & DAVIES, Knoxville, Tennessee, 

for Adkisson Appellants. Joshua J. Bond, HODGES, DOUGHTY & CARSON, Knoxville, 

Tennessee, for the Thomas and Smith Appellants. S. Joseph Welborn, SMITH, CASHION & 

ORR, PLC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James K. Scott, STOKES, 

WILLIAMS, SHARP & DAVIES, Knoxville, Tennessee, Joshua J. Bond, HODGES, 

DOUGHTY & CARSON, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellants. S. Joseph Welborn, SMITH, 

CASHION & ORR, PLC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. 

_________________ 

OPINION

_________________ 

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge. This case arises out of the cleanup and 

remediation work that Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. (Jacobs) performed at the Kingston Fossil 

>

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Fuel Plant (KIF plant) following a December 2008 coal-ash spill. Jacobs managed the on-site 

work pursuant to a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns and 

operates the KIF plant. 

Individuals who worked on the coal-ash cleanup, along with some of their spouses 

(collectively, the Plaintiffs), filed three separate lawsuits against Jacobs, claiming that the 

workers suffered negative health impacts as a result of Jacobs’s failure to monitor the fly ash 

(which is the finer particles of coal ash), to protect the workers from the fly ash, and to disclose 

the fly ash’s toxic nature. The district court dismissed all of the Plaintiffs’ claims based on a 

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, concluding that Jacobs was entitled to government-contractor 

immunity as a corollary of the discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act 

(FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2674, 2680. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the judgment 

of the district court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. TVA and the coal-ash spill 

TVA is a corporate agency and instrumentality of the United States, created by and 

existing pursuant to the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933. 16 U.S.C. § 831 et seq.; see 

also Tenn. Valley Auth. v. Kinzer, 142 F.2d 833, 837 (6th Cir. 1944). The KIF plant is a coalfired plant generating electricity in Roane County, Tennessee. A byproduct of burning coal for 

the generation of electricity is coal ash. On December 22, 2008, a coal-ash containment dike at 

the KIF plant failed, spilling approximately 5.4 million cubic yards of coal-ash sludge over 300 

acres of adjacent land. Chesney v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 782 F. Supp. 2d 570, 571-73 (E.D. Tenn. 

2011). 

TVA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responded to the coal-ash spill as 

required by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 

1980 (CERCLA) and the EPA’s National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency 

Plan. See Mays v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 699 F. Supp. 2d 991, 998 (E.D. Tenn. 2010). During this 

initial emergency-response phase, the EPA delegated its authority to TVA to remove the coal 

ash. Id. (citing 42 U.S.C. §§ 9604(a)-(b); id. § 9615; 40 C.F.R. § 300.5). TVA has been the lead 

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agency authority for all further coal-ash cleanup, removal, and remediation since the EPA 

terminated the initial emergency-response phase on January 11, 2009. Id. 

B. Jacobs’s contract with TVA 

In February 2009, Jacobs entered into a contract with TVA to serve as the prime 

contractor providing project planning, management, and oversight to assist in the overall 

recovery and remediation associated with the coal-ash spill. Jacobs, pursuant to its contract, 

subsequently prepared and provided to TVA a comprehensive Site Wide Safety and Health Plan 

(SWSHP). The SWSHP applies to all general construction activities at the site, as well as to 

CERCLA remediation activities in accordance with the EPA’s Standard Operating Safety Guide 

and 29 C.F.R. § 1910.120, which governs hazardous-waste operations and emergency response. 

A wide range of topics is addressed in the SWSHP, including the site’s potential hazards, 

health-hazard monitoring, and training. The SWSHP also sets forth the minimum personal 

protective equipment (PPE) required for workers, as well as a protocol for site controls, work 

zones, and personal hygiene. Additional protection, such as a respirator, is mentioned in the 

SWSHP as a possibility that might be required at times, depending on the type of work being 

performed (e.g., tasks with the highest potential exposure to fly ash). 

C. Three lawsuits 

The Plaintiffs are individuals who worked on the remediation of the coal-ash spill at the 

KIF Plant, plus some of their spouses. Greg Adkisson, along with 48 other individuals, filed suit 

against Jacobs in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in August 

2013, alleging claims of outrageous conduct, battery, negligence, negligence per se, intentional 

and/or reckless failure to warn, reckless infliction of emotional distress, fraud, misrepresentation 

and fraudulent concealment, and strict liability for ultrahazardous or abnormally dangerous 

activity. See Adkisson et al. v. Jacobs Eng’g Grp., Inc., No. 3:13-CV-505. The Plaintiffs allege 

that Jacobs improperly monitored the fly ash; inadequately trained the workers about the hazards 

associated with inhaling toxic fly ash; inadequately monitored their medical conditions; denied 

their requests for respirators, dust masks, and PPE; exposed them to high concentrations of flyash toxic constituents; and fraudulently concealed and denied that they had been so exposed. 

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Alleging “eye problems, sinus problems, pulmonary problems, heart problems and other healthrelated problems” from their work on site, the Plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive 

damages. 

In November 2013, Kevin Thompson, Joy Thompson, and Shaun Travis Smith filed a 

substantially similar suit against Jacobs in the same jurisdiction. See Thompson et al. v. Jacobs 

Eng’g Grp., Inc., No. 3:13-CV-666. Joe and Taylor Cunningham then sued Jacobs on the same 

grounds in January 2014, also in the Eastern District of Tennessee. See Cunningham et al. v. 

Jacobs Eng’g Grp., Inc., No. 3:14-CV-20. Jacobs moved to dismiss all three actions for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the 

first motion being filed in November 2013 and the latter two in February 2014. 

In July 2014, the magistrate judge who was assigned to the case granted a motion by the 

Thompson plaintiffs to consolidate the three cases, with Adkisson, as the first to be filed, serving 

as the lead case. Two months later, the district court granted Jacobs’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion to 

dismiss all of the Plaintiffs’ claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on Jacobs’s 

eligibility for government-contractor immunity as a corollary of the discretionary-function 

exception to the FTCA. This timely appeal followed. 

II. ANALYSIS

A. The Plaintiffs’ case should not have been dismissed for lack of subject-matter 

jurisdiction 

All of the Plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed under Rule 12(b)(1) because the district court 

concluded that Jacobs is immune from suit based on so-called “derivative discretionary-function 

immunity.” In so doing, the court relied heavily on its prior opinion in Chesney v. Tennessee 

Valley Authority, 782 F. Supp. 2d 570 (E.D. Tenn. 2011). The court in Chesney ruled that 

engineering contractors working for TVA on the same coal-ash spill were entitled to derivative 

immunity as set forth in Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Construction Co., 309 U.S. 18 (1940), under the 

discretionary-function doctrine. Chesney, 782 F. Supp. 2d at 586. It dismissed the complaint on 

jurisdictional grounds based on its conclusion that Yearsley entitles government contractors to 

sovereign immunity. Id. Because we conclude that Yearsley immunity is not jurisdictional in 

nature, the district court here erred in dismissing the Plaintiffs’ complaints on that basis. 

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1. Government-contractor immunity under Yearsley

If Jacobs is eligible for any sort of immunity, it is derivative of the immunity that the 

federal government would be entitled to in the same situation. The United States, as a sovereign 

entity, is immune from suit unless it consents to be sued. United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 

535, 538 (1980) (citing United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 586 (1941)). Under the FTCA, 

the United States has waived its sovereign immunity to tort suits, but with certain exceptions. 

28 U.S.C. § 2674. One of those exceptions is for discretionary functions, meaning that the 

United States is not liable for “[a]ny claim . . . based upon the exercise or performance or the 

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

an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.” Id. 

§ 2680(a). TVA, as a federal agency, is a beneficiary of the FTCA’s discretionary-function 

exemption. Id. § 2671 (“[T]he term ‘Federal agency’ includes . . . corporations primarily acting 

as instrumentalities or agencies of the United States . . . .”); see also id. § 2674 (entitling TVA to 

assert the same defenses to tort claims as the United States, based on judicial or legislative 

immunity). 

On the other hand, the FTCA explicitly excludes independent contractors from its scope. 

See id. § 2671 (“[T]he term ‘Federal agency’ . . . does not include any contractor with the United 

States.”). But Jacobs argues—and the district court held—that Jacobs is nevertheless entitled to 

derivative sovereign immunity for discretionary functions based on Yearsley. In Yearsley, the 

Supreme Court held that a contractor who built river dikes pursuant to a contract with the U.S. 

government, as authorized by Congress, could not be held liable for a Fifth Amendment taking 

when the contractor was simply an agent acting under its validly conferred authority. 309 U.S. at 

21-22. Yearsley thus stands for the proposition that “if [the contractor’s] authority to carry out 

the project was validly conferred, that is, if what was done was within the constitutional power of 

Congress, there is no liability on the part of the contractor for executing its will.” Id. at 20-21. 

Unfortunately, the Court never explained the basis of that protection. 

Over the years, other circuits have recognized the concept of immunity for government 

contractors based on Yearsley. See In re KBR, Inc., Burn Pit Litig., 744 F.3d 326, 343 (4th Cir. 

2014) (recognizing Yearsley immunity for “contractors and common law agents acting within the 

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scope of their employment for the United States”); Ackerson v. Bean Dredging LLC, 589 F.3d 

196, 206-207 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding the district court’s dismissal of a case involving a 

public-works project where the “plaintiffs did not allege that the contractor defendant ‘exceeded 

his authority or that it was not validly conferred’” (quoting Yearsley, 309 U.S. at 21)); Myers v. 

United States, 323 F.2d 580, 583 (9th Cir. 1963) (“To the extent that the work performed by [the 

contractor] was done under its contract with the Bureau of Public Lands, and in conformity with 

the terms of said contract, no liability can be imposed upon it for any damages claimed to have 

been suffered by the appellants.”). 

Yearsley’s spare reasoning, however, creates uncertainty as to the scope of the decision. 

One circuit that previously endorsed the doctrine now questions whether it sweeps as far as its 

language purports to reach. See Gomez v. Campbell-Ewald Co., 768 F.3d 871, 879-80 (9th Cir. 

2014), cert. granted, No. 14-857, 2015 WL 246885 (U.S. May 18, 2015) (commenting in dicta 

that Yearsley is limited to “claims arising out of property damage caused by public works 

projects”). And the Supreme Court has cast Yearsley in terms of preemption, explaining that the 

“‘uniquely federal’ interest” in the performance of government contracts justified displacing 

state-law liability. Boyle v. United Techs. Corp., 487 U.S. 500, 505-06 (1988). 

If Yearsley really does stretch as broadly as its language suggests, the Supreme Court in 

Boyle would presumably not have invented a new test to govern the liability of military 

procurement contractors; it could have simply cited Yearsley and called it a day. But we need 

not resolve the thorny questions these developments present. Because the Plaintiffs do not 

challenge Yearsley’s applicability on appeal, we will assume without deciding that Jacobs 

benefits from Yearsley’s protection on Yearsley’s terms. See 309 U.S. at 20–21. 

2. Yearsley immunity is not jurisdictional in nature 

Even assuming Yearsley’s applicability, however, we face a question of first impression 

in this circuit: does Yearsley immunity pose a jurisdictional bar? The Fourth Circuit has held, 

albeit without elaboration, that the bar is indeed jurisdictional. In Butters v. Vance International, 

Inc., 225 F.3d 462, 466 (4th Cir. 2000), the court characterized Yearsley as derivatively 

extending sovereign immunity to a private contractor. More recently, the Fourth Circuit in In re 

KBR repeatedly referred to Yearsley immunity as “derivative sovereign immunity” and, although 

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it vacated the district court’s dismissal, did not take issue with the lower court’s review of the 

case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1). In re KBR, 744 F.3d at 345-46. 

The Fifth Circuit, however, has explicitly reached the opposite conclusion. That court 

first acknowledged that “[i]f the basis for dismissing a Yearsley claim is sovereign immunity, 

then a Yearsley defense would be jurisdictional.” Ackerson, 589 F.3d at 207. But because 

“Yearsley does not discuss sovereign immunity or otherwise address the court’s power to hear 

the case,” the Fifth Circuit held that “concluding Yearsley is applicable does not deny the court 

of subject-matter jurisdiction.” Id. at 207-08. 

We agree with the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that Yearsley is not jurisdictional in nature. 

Although the FTCA is a jurisdictional statute, Milligan v. United States, 670 F.3d 686, 692 (6th 

Cir. 2012), Jacobs’s potential immunity derives not from the FTCA but from Yearsley, which the 

Fifth Circuit correctly notes does not address sovereign immunity. Yearsley immunity is, in our 

opinion, closer in nature to qualified immunity for private individuals under government 

contract, which is an issue to be reviewed on the merits rather than for jurisdiction. See Filarsky 

v. Delia, 132 S. Ct. 1657, 1665-68 (2012) (holding that a private attorney retained by the 

municipal government is entitled to the same qualified immunity from suit under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 that city employees enjoy because immunity for such individuals protects the 

“government’s ability to perform its traditional functions” and helps “ensur[e] that talented 

candidates are not deterred from public service”). 

B. The district court should have considered Jacobs’s motion to dismiss for failure to 

state a claim 

Because of our conclusion that Yearsley immunity is not jurisdictional, Jacobs’s motion 

to dismiss should have been considered under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure for failure to state a claim, not under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter 

jurisdiction. Although we are permitted to sua sponte consider Jacobs’s motion under the Rule 

12(b)(6) standard, we should do so only if the district court’s analysis did not depend on the 

distinction between the two standards. See Morrison v. Nat’l Austl. Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 254 

(2010) (declining to remand the case and proceeding to consider the petitioners’ allegations 

under the Rule 12(b)(6) standard because “nothing in the analysis of the courts below turned on 

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the mistake” of using the Rule 12(b)(1) standard). But we cannot be sure that the erroneously 

applied Rule 12(b)(1) standard here had no effect on the district court’s analysis. 

When a Rule 12(b)(1) motion attacks the factual basis for jurisdiction, as Jacobs’s motion 

did, the district court has broad discretion over what evidence to consider and may look outside 

the pleadings to determine whether subject-matter jurisdiction exists. See Cartwright v. Garner, 

751 F.3d 752, 759 (6th Cir. 2014). On the other hand, when considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion 

to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the district court must “construe the complaint in the light 

most favorable to the plaintiff and accept all factual allegations as true.” Laborers’ Local 265 

Pension Fund v. iShares Trust, 769 F.3d 399, 403 (6th Cir. 2014). 

1. Is Jacobs entitled to Yearsley immunity?

The district court below stated that “[n]one of the allegations of any of the complaints 

alleges that defendant exceeded any scope of authority granted to it by TVA, nor that any 

authority TVA granted to defendant was not validly conferred,” suggesting that it could have 

dismissed on that basis alone. Although this conclusion would seemingly be unaffected by using 

the Rule 12(b)(1) standard versus the Rule 12(b)(6) standard (because the ruling deals solely 

with the Plaintiffs’ allegations), we have no way to be sure because the district court did not 

elaborate on its conclusion. We thus do not know if the court looked outside the pleadings in 

concluding that the allegations were insufficient on this issue. 

Moreover, we do not necessarily agree with the district court’s conclusion when analyzed 

under the Rule 12(b)(6) standard. Although the Plaintiffs do not allege that Jacobs’s contract 

with TVA was invalid, they claim on appeal that Jacobs “acted outside the scope of TVA’s 

quasi-governmental authority and did not comply with Federal and State laws or regulations,” 

and that Jacobs “acted in a manner that was converse to statutory authorization and TVA’s 

contractual directives.” (Emphasis omitted.) 

The Plaintiffs’ complaints, although admittedly less clear in this regard, could plausibly 

be construed as alleging that Jacobs violated the scope of its agreement with TVA. For example, 

the complaint in Adkisson contends that Jacobs, despite its duties under its contract with TVA, 

misrepresented the harmfulness of fly ash. But because the differences between the standards 

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used to assess a Rule 12(b)(1) motion versus a Rule 12(b)(6) motion may have affected the 

district court’s conclusion on this issue, we leave it to the district court to consider in the first 

instance whether Jacobs is eligible for Yearsley immunity under the Rule 12(b)(6) standard. 

2. Does Jacobs’s conduct fall under the discretionary-function exception? 

Even if the district court determines that Jacobs is eligible for Yearsley immunity, 

Jacobs’s exemption from liability will depend on whether its specific conduct at issue would fall 

under the corollary of the discretionary-function exception of the FTCA. Because the court 

made numerous references to documents outside of the pleadings in discussing the application of 

the discretionary-function exception, the Rule 12(b)(1) standard almost certainly affected its 

analysis here. We therefore remand the case for the district court to consider in the first instance 

whether Jacobs’s conduct qualifies for the exception under the narrower Rule 12(b)(6) standard, 

and write further solely to clarify the scope of conduct to which the discretionary-function 

exception potentially applies. 

A two-part test governs whether conduct is protected by the discretionary-function 

exception. First, the conduct must be discretionary, meaning that “it involves an element of 

judgment or choice.” Berkovitz ex rel. Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988). 

Jacobs therefore remains subject to tort liability if its course of action was nondiscretionary, or 

“specifically prescribe[d].” See id. In addition to being discretionary, the conduct must also be 

of the type that the discretionary-function exception was designed to shield. Rosebush v. United 

States, 119 F.3d 438, 441 (6th Cir. 1997) (citing United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322-23 

(1991)). “[W]here there is room for policy judgment and decision, there is discretion of the sort 

protected by Section 2680(a).” Id. (citing Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 36 (1953)). 

The district court, in holding that the discretionary-function exception applied, found that 

various regulations, contractual provisions, and the SWSHP all failed to prescribe a specific 

course of action that Jacobs had to follow. But just because certain conduct fails to be 

specifically mandated does not necessarily mean that the government contractor is protected 

from liability. Discretionary conduct may fall outside the protection of the discretionaryfunction exception if the conduct is not a “deliberate or necessary result of a discretionary 

general policy”; in other words, government conduct “does not necessarily amount to an exercise 

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of a discretionary function merely because carrying out the general policy provided the 

opportunity for the negligent act.” Bultema v. United States, 359 F.3d 379, 383-85 (6th Cir. 

2004) (holding that the prison staff’s alleged failure to carry out the prison’s bunk-passnotification policy was not protected by the discretionary-function exception because, even if the 

policy allowed for discretion, the staff’s alleged negligence was “not a necessary concomitant of 

the prison’s notification policy”). 

Even clearly discretionary conduct is thus not necessarily protected by the discretionaryfunction exception. Assume, for example, that a Jacobs employee negligently injured a third 

party while driving toward the KIF plant with a truckload full of safety equipment. Or that the 

employee, while removing coal ash from the spill site, negligently caused that coal ash to fall 

from the truck. Jacobs’s counsel conceded at oral argument that in neither scenario would 

Jacobs be exempt from tort liability, despite the decidedly discretionary conduct involved. 

The distinction between these two examples and, say, deciding what PPE on-site workers 

should wear, stems from the second part of the test for the discretionary-function exception, in 

that the exception was arguably designed to protect decisions regarding the health and safety of 

those working on post-spill cleanup at the KIF plant. Such “[d]ecisions concerning the proper 

response to hazards are protected from tort liability by the discretionary function exception.” See 

Rosebush, 119 F.3d at 443-44 (holding that the National Forest Service’s decisions “to have open 

fire pits, [regarding] the design of the pits, whether to enclose them within railings, and whether 

to warn of their dangers” fall within the discretionary-function exception, which precluded 

claims for related personal injuries). On the other hand, Congress expressly wanted to exclude 

“ordinary common-law torts” from falling under the exception. Dalehite, 346 U.S. at 28 

(discussing § 2680(a)’s legislative history and Congress’s express desire to waive immunity for 

tort liability such as “negligence in the operation of vehicles”). 

In sum, we leave it to the district court on remand to decide in the first instance whether 

the Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The court specifically should 

consider whether, based on the pleadings, (1) Jacobs is eligible for government-contractor 

immunity under Yearsley, and (2) Jacobs’s conduct would fall under the corollary of the 

discretionary-function exception to the FTCA. 

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III. CONCLUSION

For all of the reasons set forth above, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court 

and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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