Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05282/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05282-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 22, 2007 Decided April 15, 2008 

No. 06-5282 

JENNIFER K. HARBURY ON HER OWN BEHALF AND AS 

ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF EFRAIN 

BAMACA-VELASQUEZ, 

APPELLANT

v. 

MICHAEL V. HAYDEN, DIRECTOR,

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 96cv00438) 

Jennifer K. Harbury, appearing pro se, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant. Beth Stephens and Mara E. 

Verheyden-Hilliard entered appearances. 

Tyler Giannini was on the brief for amicus curiae United 

States Representative Barney Frank in support of appellant.

Robert M. Loeb, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey A. 

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Taylor, U.S. Attorney, C. Frederick Beckner III, Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General, and Barbara L. Herwig, 

Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, 

entered an appearance. 

Before: RANDOLPH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, 

and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge

KAVANAUGH, with whom Circuit Judge RANDOLPH joins, and 

with whom Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS joins except as to 

the second sentence of footnote five. 

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: In the early 1990s, 

members of the Guatemalan army killed rebel fighter Efrain 

Bamaca-Velasquez during Guatemala’s civil war. Bamaca’s 

widow, Jennifer Harbury, sued various U.S. Government 

officials, claiming they were legally responsible for the 

physical abuse and death of her husband. The District Court 

long ago dismissed most of Harbury’s claims. Harbury now 

appeals the District Court’s order dismissing her common-law 

tort claims. We affirm for either of two alternative 

jurisdictional reasons: (1) Under this Court’s precedents, the 

case presents a nonjusticiable political question; or (2) the 

Federal Tort Claims Act applies to Harbury’s claims, and the 

FTCA bars suits based on injuries that occurred in a foreign 

country. 

I 

Jennifer Harbury is a U.S. citizen and the widow of 

Efrain Bamaca-Velasquez, who was a citizen of Guatemala 

and a commander of rebel forces in that country’s 35-year 

civil war. According to Harbury, in the 1990s the U.S. 

Central Intelligence Agency hired and trained Guatemalan 

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army officers as informants so that the CIA could gather 

information about the rebel forces. Harbury alleges that the 

CIA obtained information from the Guatemalan army officers 

and shared it with the White House and the State Department 

during the Administrations of President George H.W. Bush 

and President Clinton. Harbury claims, moreover, that “it was 

understood . . . and/or intended by the CIA that this 

information would be obtained through torture and similar 

means.” Second Amended Complaint at 11, Harbury v. 

Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 2d 19 (D.D.C. 2006) (Civ. No. 96-438). 

Harbury specifically contends that Bamaca was captured 

in March 1992 by Guatemalan army officers affiliated with 

the CIA. The CIA allegedly reported to the White House and 

U.S. Government agencies that its Guatemalan counterparts 

had captured Bamaca “and that they would probably fabricate 

his combat death in order to be able to maximize their ability 

to extract information” from him. Id. at 9. At the same time 

that the Guatemalan army publicly maintained that Bamaca 

had committed suicide, its officers allegedly “detained, 

psychologically abused and physically tortured” Bamaca in an 

attempt to get information from him. Id. According to 

Harbury, the Guatemalan officers then killed Bamaca. 

Harbury initially sued and sought damages from many 

U.S. Government officials in their personal capacities – (i) at 

the CIA, Directors John M. Deutch, R. James Woolsey, and 

Robert M. Gates; Deputy Directors David Cohen, John J. 

Devine, Thomas A. Twetten, John C. Gannon, Douglas J. 

MacEachin, and John L. Helgerson; Latin American Division 

Chief Terry R. Ward; National Intelligence Officer Brian 

Latelle; National Intelligence Council Chiefs Richard N. 

Cooper, Christine N. Williams, Joseph S. Nye, and Fritz W. 

Esmarth; Guatemala Station Chiefs Dan Donahue and 

Frederick A. Brugger; and “unnamed employees” of the CIA; 

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(ii) at the State Department, Secretary of State Warren 

Christopher; U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Marilyn 

MacAfee; Assistant Secretary Alexander Watson; Deputy 

Assistant Secretary Anne Patterson; Guatemala Desk Officer 

Peg Willingham; and “unnamed employees” of the State 

Department; and (iii) at the National Security Council, 

National Security Advisor Anthony Lake; NSC staff member 

Richard E. Feinberg; and “unnamed employees” of the 

National Security Council. See id. at 1-2, 5-8. 

The District Court previously dismissed most of 

Harbury’s claims. See Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 2d 

19, 24 (D.D.C. 2006) (citing cases and orders); see also

Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 405 (2002). 

Harbury’s only remaining claims are common-law tort 

claims against the individual CIA Defendants. Harbury 

alleges that the individual CIA Defendants conspired to cause 

Bamaca’s imprisonment, torture, and execution; negligently 

supervised their Guatemalan counterparts, resulting in 

Bamaca’s injury and death; and caused emotional distress to 

Harbury as a result of Bamaca’s injury and death. The 

District Court dismissed these claims under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). Harbury now appeals; our review is 

de novo. 

II 

To explain the District Court’s decision and Harbury’s 

appeal, we begin with a brief overview of the Federal Tort 

Claims Act and the Westfall Act. 

The Federal Tort Claims Act is a limited waiver of the 

Government’s sovereign immunity. Under the FTCA, 

plaintiffs may sue the United States in federal court for statelaw torts committed by government employees within the 

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scope of their employment. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-80. 

But the FTCA does not create a statutory cause of action 

against individual government employees. 

If a plaintiff files a state-law tort suit against an 

individual government employee, a companion statute – the 

Westfall Act – provides that the Attorney General may certify 

that the employee was acting within the scope of employment 

“at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1). Upon the Attorney General’s 

certification, the tort suit automatically converts to an FTCA 

“action against the United States” in federal court; the 

Government becomes the sole party defendant; and the 

FTCA’s requirements, exceptions, and defenses apply to the 

suit. Id.1

In many cases, the Attorney General’s certification 

begins and ends the scope-of-employment analysis. The 

Government takes over as the sole party defendant, and the 

suit proceeds under the FTCA. From the plaintiff’s 

perspective, this can produce a net positive: Although the 

plaintiff must now litigate against the Federal Government, 

the original defendant – a potentially judgment-proof federal 

employee – has been replaced by the seemingly bottomless 

U.S. Treasury. 

 1

 If the Attorney General does not certify that the defendant 

employee was acting within the scope of employment, the 

defendant may petition the court to make such a finding. If the 

court so finds, then the case becomes a federal-court FTCA case 

against the Government, just as if the Attorney General had filed a 

certification. 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(3)-(4). If the court finds that the 

government employee was not acting within the scope of 

employment, then the state-law tort suit may proceed against the 

government employee in his or her personal capacity. 

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Plaintiffs do not always view certification so charitably, 

however. As mentioned earlier, the FTCA is a limited waiver 

of sovereign immunity. The Act contains several exceptions 

– for example, it does not apply to claims for lost mail, suits 

in admirality, claims arising out of the military’s combatant 

activities during wartime, claims based on discretionary 

functions, or claims that arise in foreign countries, among 

other exceptions. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680. When one of the 

FTCA’s exceptions applies – that is, when the Government 

has not waived its sovereign immunity – the Attorney 

General’s scope-of-employment certification has the effect of 

converting the state-law tort suit into an FTCA case over 

which the federal courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction. In 

other words, the combination of the scope-of-employment 

determination and the FTCA’s exceptions may absolutely bar 

a plaintiff’s case. See United States v. Smith, 499 U.S. 160, 

166 (1991). 

In such cases, to try to preserve their lawsuits, plaintiffs 

often contest the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment 

certification. Plaintiffs typically argue that the individual 

government employee defendants did not act within the scope 

of their employment and that the suits should therefore 

continue as state-law tort suits against the government 

officials in their personal capacities. Once a plaintiff 

advances this argument, courts consider the scope-ofemployment issue essentially de novo based on the state law 

of the place where the employment relationship exists. If the 

court agrees with the Attorney General, the suit becomes an 

action against the United States that is governed by the 

FTCA. But if the court disagrees with the Attorney General’s 

determination, the state-law tort suit may proceed against the 

defendant government employee in his or her personal 

capacity. See Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 

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417, 423-24, 434 (1995); Council on Am. Islamic Relations v. 

Ballenger, 444 F.3d 659, 662 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

Harbury’s case followed this procedural course. Among 

other claims, Harbury brought common-law tort claims 

against the individual CIA Defendants. In March 2000, 

Attorney General Reno certified that the individual CIA 

Defendants had acted within the scope of their employment. 

The Attorney General’s certification removed the individual 

CIA Defendants from the tort action, substituted the United 

States as the sole party defendant, and rendered all of 

Harbury’s tort claims subject to the FTCA and its exceptions, 

including the foreign-country exception. 

Harbury then challenged the Attorney General’s 

certification, arguing based on D.C. law that the individual 

CIA Defendants did not act within the scope of their 

employment. The District Court disagreed: It ruled that the 

FTCA applied to all of Harbury’s tort claims and held that it 

lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the claims fell 

within the FTCA’s exception for claims “arising in a foreign 

country.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(k); see also Sosa v. AlvarezMachain, 542 U.S. 692, 712 (2004) (foreign-country 

exception “bars all claims based on any injury suffered in a 

foreign country, regardless of where the tortious act or 

omission occurred”).

On appeal, Harbury argues that the individual CIA 

Defendants did not act within the scope of their employment 

under D.C. law because “acts of torture can never fall within 

the scope of employment.” Harbury Br. at 14. According to 

Harbury, Attorney General Reno and the District Court erred 

in certifying the acts as within the individual CIA Defendants’ 

scope of employment, the FTCA therefore does not apply, 

and Harbury can maintain tort claims against the individual 

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CIA Defendants in their personal capacities. To the extent the 

scope-of-employment certification was proper and Harbury’s 

claims are converted into FTCA claims against the United 

States, Harbury separately argues that at least some of the 

claimed injuries, such as her emotional distress, occurred in 

the United States, and that the FTCA’s foreign-country 

exception therefore does not bar those claims against the 

Government.2

III 

Pointing to recent cases from this Circuit, the 

Government contends that all of Harbury’s claims pose 

“political questions” that the federal courts may not consider. 

The political question doctrine is an important tenet of 

separation of powers and judicial restraint. But the doctrine is 

notorious for its imprecision, and the Supreme Court has 

relied on it only occasionally. As Judge Bork explained a 

generation ago, “That the contours of the doctrine are murky 

and unsettled is shown by the lack of consensus about its 

meaning among the members of the Supreme Court and 

among scholars.” Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 

F.2d 774, 803 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Bork, J., concurring) 

(citations omitted). Judge Bork’s observation remains true 

today. 

 2

 Unlike under the FTCA and the Westfall Act, no scope-ofemployment certification process is available for Bivens claims 

against individual federal officials. But aliens such as Bamaca who 

were injured outside the United States typically cannot bring such 

constitutional claims. See United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 

U.S. 259, 274-75 (1990). This Court therefore previously 

dismissed Bivens claims that Harbury brought on behalf of her late 

husband. See Harbury v. Deutch, 233 F.3d 596, 602-04 (D.C. Cir. 

2000). 

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The Supreme Court has held that the political question 

doctrine bars judicial resolution of certain issues textually and 

exclusively committed by the Constitution to one or both of 

the other branches of the Federal Government. Baker v. Carr, 

369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962); see also Nixon v. United States, 

506 U.S. 224 (1993); Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996, 

1002 (1979) (opinion of Rehnquist, J., for four Justices); 

Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1 (1973). The Court in Baker

also held that the political question doctrine applies when 

there is a “lack of judicially discoverable and manageable 

standards for resolving” a case; in practice, however, this is 

often equivalent to a merits determination. 369 U.S. at 217; 

see also Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267, 277-291 (2004) 

(plurality opinion). 

Although those first two factors – textual commitment 

and lack of judicially manageable standards – are the most 

important, the Court also considers others: “the impossibility 

of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind 

clearly for nonjudicial discretion”; “the impossibility of a 

court’s undertaking independent resolution without 

expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of 

government”; “an unusual need for unquestioning adherence 

to a political decision already made”; and “the potentiality of 

embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various 

departments on one question.” Baker, 369 U.S. at 217. As 

the Baker Court recognized in discussing those political 

question factors, judicial restraint in the area of foreign affairs 

is often appropriate because such cases “frequently turn on 

standards that defy judicial application, or involve the 

exercise of a discretion demonstrably committed to the 

executive or legislature.” Id. at 211. The Court cautioned, 

however, that “it is error to suppose that every case or 

controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond 

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judicial cognizance.” Id. Instead, each case involves a 

“discriminating analysis of the particular question posed.” Id.

Although the contours of the political question doctrine 

may be uncertain, this Court has relied on the doctrine in three 

recent cases that are indistinguishable from this case and 

control our decision here. 

In Schneider v. Kissinger, children of a deceased Chilean 

general brought tort claims against former U.S. officials. 412 

F.3d 190, 192 (D.C. Cir. 2005); see also Schneider v. 

Kissinger, 310 F. Supp. 2d 251, 257 (D.D.C. 2004) 

(describing claims). The plaintiffs alleged that, in 1970, thenNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and then-CIA 

Director Richard Helms supported Chileans in Chile as they 

kidnapped, tortured, and killed General René Schneider 

during a military coup d’etat. 412 F.3d at 191-92. In 

response to the plaintiffs’ charges against Kissinger and 

Helms, the Attorney General certified that both men had acted 

within the scope of their federal employment. Id. at 192. 

This Court held that the case presented a nonjusticiable 

political question. Id. at 198. The Court explained that the 

suit challenged the merits of foreign policy decisions that the 

Constitution assigns to the political branches. Id. at 195. The 

Court also found a lack of judicially discoverable and 

manageable standards regarding “the government’s use of 

covert operations in conjunction with political turmoil in 

another country.” Id. at 197. Citing Baker, the Court stated 

that it could not entertain the lawsuit without expressing a 

lack of respect for a coordinate branch of the Government. 

Id. at 197-98. 

This Court again applied the political question doctrine in 

Gonzalez-Vera v. Kissinger, 449 F.3d 1260 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

In that case, the plaintiffs brought tort claims against former 

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National Security Advisor Kissinger. Id. at 1263. According 

to the plaintiffs, after the U.S. Government and Kissinger 

supported the 1973 coup d’etat in Chile that installed Augusto 

Pinochet as President of the newly formed military junta, they 

supported a “Chilean terror apparatus” that “brutally 

repressed and attempted to eliminate individuals opposed to 

Pinochet’s regime” – including the plaintiffs and their 

relatives. Id. at 1261 (internal quotation marks and alterations 

omitted). In response to the plaintiffs’ charges, the Attorney 

General certified that Kissinger had acted within the scope of 

his employment as a U.S. official. Id. at 1262. 

As in Schneider, the Gonzalez-Vera Court held that the 

plaintiffs’ claims posed a nonjusticiable political question. 

The plaintiffs attempted to distinguish their case from 

Schneider by arguing that they challenged “specific acts of 

torture” that occurred after the coup d’etat rather than the 

“Government’s policy decision to support Pinochet’s rise to 

power.” Id. at 1263 (internal quotation marks omitted). But 

this Court found that evaluating “the legal validity of those 

measures would require us to delve into questions of policy 

textually committed to a coordinate branch of government.” 

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court also 

rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to characterize the defendants’ 

actions as “ultra vires,” noting that Kissinger had acted within 

the authority delegated to him by the President. Id. at 1264. 

The third of this Court’s cases that bears directly on the 

political question analysis is Bancoult v. McNamara, 445 F.3d 

427 (D.C. Cir. 2006). In that case, former residents of the 

island of Diego Garcia sued several current and former 

officials of the Departments of Defense and State under 

international law. Id. at 430-31. The plaintiffs claimed that 

the U.S. Government and individual U.S. officials caused the 

forcible relocation, torture, and killing of island residents in 

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the 1960s as the Government depopulated the island to 

establish a military base. Id. In response to the plaintiffs’ 

allegations, the Attorney General certified that the defendant 

government officials had acted within the scope of their 

employment. Id. at 431. 

This Court concluded that the case presented a 

nonjusticiable political question because the “specific tactical 

measures allegedly taken” to depopulate Diego Garcia and 

build the base were “inextricably intertwined” with foreign 

policy questions – such as “the decision to establish a military 

base” and “the underlying strategy of establishing a regional 

military presence,” neither of which was reviewable. Id. at 

436. The Bancoult Court rejected the plaintiffs’ efforts to 

distinguish between foreign policy and government officials’ 

implementation of that policy. Id. at 436-37. Even if the 

individual defendants’ “actions were not in conformance with 

presidential orders, the actions alleged were still closely 

enough connected to [their] employment to bring them within 

the ambit of the political question doctrine.” Id. at 437. The 

individual defendants acted in pursuit of an authorized goal – 

establishing a military base – and as “high-level executive 

officers,” they “inherently possessed a large measure of 

discretion in carrying out the tasks assigned to them by the 

President.” Id. at 438. The Court held that “when the 

political question doctrine bars suit against the United States, 

this constitutional constraint cannot be circumvented merely 

by bringing claims against the individuals who committed the 

acts in question within the scope of their employment.” Id.

Under our recent decisions in Schneider, Gonzalez-Vera, 

and Bancoult, the political question doctrine plainly applies to 

this case. In all three cases, as in Harbury’s case, the 

Attorney General certified that the defendants had acted 

within the scope of their employment. See Schneider, 412 

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F.3d at 192; Gonzalez-Vera, 449 F.3d at 1262; Bancoult, 445 

F.3d at 431. In Schneider and Gonzalez-Vera, as in Harbury’s 

case, the plaintiffs contended that U.S. officials were 

responsible for physically abusing and killing foreign 

nationals in their home country. Schneider, 412 F.3d at 191-

92; Gonzalez-Vera, 449 F.3d at 1261. And although the 

plaintiffs in all three cases argued that they challenged 

specific acts and not general Executive Branch foreign policy 

decisions, this Court reasoned that the cases sought 

determinations whether the alleged conduct should have 

occurred, which impermissibly would require examining the 

wisdom of the underlying policies. Schneider, 412 F.3d at 

197; Gonzalez-Vera, 449 F.3d at 1263-64; Bancoult, 445 F.3d 

at 436.3

 3

 In all three cases, as in Harbury’s case, the Attorney General 

certified that the government officials had acted within the scope of 

their foreign policy or national security employment. In tort cases 

arising in the national security or foreign policy context – such as 

Schneider, Gonzalez-Vera, and Bancoult – the political question 

doctrine counsels strongly against judicial second-guessing of the 

Attorney General’s certification for much the same reason that 

courts are cautious about entertaining the merits of the tort claims: 

Doing so would require courts to intrude deeply into the foreign 

policy and national security decisionmaking process of the 

Executive Branch. See Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 417 

(2002) (“The action alleged on the part of all the Government 

defendants . . . was apparently taken in the conduct of foreign 

relations by the National Government. Thus, if there is to be 

judicial enquiry, it will raise concerns for the separation of powers 

in trenching on matters committed to the other branches.”); cf. Sosa 

v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 733 n.21 (2004); Republic of 

Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677, 702 (2004). On the other hand, 

the political question doctrine ordinarily would not apply to a tort 

case against an individual government official when the Attorney 

General has affirmatively declined to issue a scope-of-employment 

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In sum, we find no remotely plausible basis to distinguish 

this case from Schneider, Gonzalez-Vera, and Bancoult. 

Therefore, under our precedents, we must dismiss Harbury’s 

claims based on the political question doctrine. 

IV 

A recent decision of this Court considered allegations 

similar to Harbury’s and did not rely on the political question 

doctrine. See Rasul v. Myers, 512 F.3d 644 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

Even if we likewise do not rely on the political question 

doctrine, however, we still affirm the dismissal of Harbury’s 

case on alternative jurisdictional grounds. See Ruhrgas AG v. 

Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 584-85 (1999). The FTCA 

applies to Harbury’s tort claims, and the FTCA bars suits 

based on injuries suffered in a foreign country. 

In Rasul, former detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at 

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sued a former Secretary of Defense 

and several military officers in their personal capacities, 

alleging wrongful detention, physical abuse, and “cruel, 

inhuman or degrading treatment.” 512 F.3d at 651. In 

response to the charges, the Attorney General issued a 

Westfall Act certification that the individual defendants had 

acted within the scope of their employment, thereby 

converting the claims against the individual officials into 

FTCA claims against the United States. Id. at 655. The Court 

then dismissed the FTCA claims against the Government for 

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the plaintiffs had 

 

certification: It commonly would make little sense to dismiss an 

otherwise cognizable tort case against an Executive Branch official 

as a “political question” when the Executive Branch itself 

disclaimed the conduct and concluded that the official acted outside

the scope of employment. 

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failed to exhaust their administrative remedies as required by 

the FTCA. Id. at 661; see also 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). 

In the Rasul litigation, the Government did not argue that 

the case was nonjusticiable under the political question 

doctrine. And this Court did not address that doctrine or our 

decisions in Schneider, Gonzalez-Vera, or Bancoult. 

The Rasul Court instead considered the detainees’ 

challenge to the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment 

certification. Applying D.C. law, the Court held that the 

defendants’ alleged conduct fell within the scope of their 

employment because the alleged wrongful acts were “tied 

exclusively to the plaintiffs’ detention in a military prison and 

to the interrogations conducted therein.” 512 F.3d at 658 

(internal quotation marks omitted). The alleged torts 

therefore were “incidental to the defendants’ legitimate 

employment duties” in detaining and interrogating suspected 

enemy combatants. Id. at 659. The Court rested its scope-ofemployment analysis on several D.C. cases holding that 

seriously criminal and violent conduct can still fall within the 

scope of a defendant’s employment under D.C. law – 

including sexual harassment, a shooting, armed assault, and 

rape. See id. at 657-58 (citing Howard Univ. v. Best, 484 

A.2d 958, 987 (D.C. 1984) (university dean acted within 

scope of employment in sexually harassing faculty member 

during meetings); Johnson v. Weinberg, 434 A.2d 404, 409 

(D.C. 1981) (laundromat employee acted within scope of 

employment in shooting customer during dispute over 

removing clothes from washing machine); Lyon v. Carey, 533 

F.2d 649, 652 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (mattress deliveryman acted 

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within scope of employment in raping customer after dispute 

arose during delivery)).4

Under D.C. law as applied in Rasul, the individual CIA 

Defendants in this case similarly acted within the scope of 

their employment. Their jobs involved hiring and managing 

informants, conducting covert operations, and gathering 

intelligence. See 50 U.S.C. §§ 403-4(b), 403-4a(d). In 

performing those responsibilities, they allegedly gathered 

information related to a decades-long civil war in Guatemala 

and worked with individuals in Guatemala who abused and 

killed Harbury’s husband. Under D.C. law, those actions 

were incidental to their authorized conduct: The actions were 

“foreseeable” as a “direct outgrowth” of their responsibility to 

gather intelligence and were “undertaken on the 

[Government’s] behalf.” Rasul, 512 F.3d at 657 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Although Harbury alleges that her 

husband suffered physical abuse, that does not alter the scopeof-employment analysis: The Rasul decision – and the D.C. 

 4

 At first blush, D.C. scope-of-employment law might seem 

counterintuitive. How could committing physical abuse, for 

example, be within the scope of an individual’s employment? The 

explanation is straightforward: Many states and D.C. apply the 

scope-of-employment test very expansively, in part because doing 

so usually allows an injured tort plaintiff a chance to recover from a 

deep-pocket employer rather than a judgment-proof employee. See

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF AGENCY § 2.04 cmt. b (2006) 

(“Respondeat superior . . . reflects the likelihood that an employer 

will be more likely to satisfy a judgment.”). The scope-ofemployment test often is akin to asking whether the defendant 

merely was on duty or on the job when committing the alleged tort. 

Because of the broad scope-of-employment standard in many states 

and D.C., and because the FTCA and the Westfall Act incorporate 

the relevant state’s test, tort claims against federal government 

employees often proceed against the Government itself under the 

FTCA rather than against the individual employees under state law. 

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cases on which the Rasul Court relied – hold that allegations 

of physical abuse still fall within the scope of employment if 

such actions were foreseeable. See id. at 660 (“[T]he tortious 

conduct was triggered or motivated or occasioned by the 

conduct then and there of the employer’s business even 

though it was seriously criminal.”) (internal quotation marks 

and alterations omitted); see also Lyon, 533 F.2d at 655; 

Weinberg, 434 A.2d at 409; RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF 

AGENCY § 228(1) (1958). 

Because the alleged actions of the individual CIA 

Defendants were within the scope of their employment, 

Harbury’s claims against the individual CIA Defendants are 

properly converted into claims against the Government under 

the FTCA. But Harbury’s FTCA claims against the 

Government fall squarely within the FTCA’s exception for 

claims “arising in a foreign country.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(k). 

In particular, Harbury’s claims on behalf of her husband’s 

estate arise in Guatemala because he suffered the alleged 

injuries there. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 

700-01 (2004). And to the extent Harbury alleges her own 

emotional injuries in the United States as a result of the death 

of her husband, those derivative claims similarly arise in 

Guatemala for purposes of the FTCA because they are based 

entirely on the injuries her husband suffered there. A plaintiff 

in Harbury’s situation cannot plead around the FTCA’s 

foreign-country exception simply by claiming injuries such as 

“emotional distress” that are derivative of the foreign-country 

injuries at the root of the complaint. Much like the nowdefunct “headquarters doctrine,” that practice would threaten 

to “swallow the foreign country exception whole.” Id. at 703; 

see also Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 2d 19, 43 (D.D.C. 

2006). We follow the lead of Sosa and decline to allow this 

kind of creative pleading to water down the foreign-country 

exception to the FTCA. 

USCA Case #06-5282 Document #1110919 Filed: 04/15/2008 Page 17 of 19
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In sum, even apart from the political question doctrine, 

we lack subject-matter jurisdiction to consider Harbury’s tort 

claims because the FTCA applies and the claims fall within 

that statute’s foreign-country exception.5

 5

 Harbury also argues that count 28 of her complaint raised a 

claim against the individual CIA Defendants under the Torture 

Victim Protection Act. As the District Court held, however, count 

28 asserted only a common-law international tort claim that, like 

Harbury’s other tort claims, was converted into an FTCA claim 

against the United States by the Attorney General’s proper scopeof-employment certification. See Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F. Supp. 

2d 19, 37-43 (D.D.C. 2006). Even if Harbury’s complaint had 

asserted a TVPA claim, moreover, the claim would pose a 

nonjusticiable political question under our precedents. See, e.g., 

Gonzalez-Vera v. Kissinger, 449 F.3d 1260, 1264 (D.C. Cir. 2006) 

(TVPA claim, “like any other, may not be heard if it presents a 

political question”). (Judge Williams would affirm the dismissal of 

count 28 solely on political question grounds and not on the 

alternative ground that Harbury failed to state a claim under the 

TVPA. In support of that view, he points to the language in count 

28 claiming that the individual CIA Defendants participated or 

collaborated in torture and extrajudicial execution in violation of 

“the law of the United States,” and to two prior opinions of the 

District Court (those of March 9, 2000, and March 13, 2001, see

J.A. 112, 119) characterizing Harbury as having “name[d]” the 

TVPA as a basis for count 28.) 

Apart from those defects, to state a TVPA claim, Harbury 

would still have to clear the hurdle of showing that the individual 

CIA Defendants – who are of course American officials – acted 

“under actual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign 

nation.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note; see also Arar v. Ashcroft, 414 F. 

Supp. 2d 250, 266 (E.D.N.Y. 2006). Because Harbury’s complaint 

did not allege a TVPA claim and because such a claim would pose 

a nonjusticiable political question, we need not address the scope of 

the TVPA as applied to U.S. officials, however. 

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* * * 

We affirm the District Court’s judgment dismissing 

Harbury’s suit. 

So ordered. 

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