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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 March 24, 2016 Decided July 12, 2016 

No. 15-5208 

CARLOS LOUMIET, ESQUIRE, 

APPELLANT

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:12-cv-01130) 

Carlos Loumiet, pro se, argued the cause and filed the 

briefs for appellant. 

Steve Frank, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

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

Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney. 

Before: ROGERS and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

USCA Case #15-5208 Document #1624185 Filed: 07/12/2016 Page 1 of 23
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PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Appellant Carlos Loumiet’s 

participation in a bank audit got him into trouble with the 

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a bureau 

within the Department of Treasury. Loumiet claims the 

OCC’s enforcement action against him was trumped-up and 

retaliatory. On this appeal from the district court’s dismissal 

of the case on the pleadings, we address only the timeliness of 

his claims, and whether the Constitution places any limit on 

the governmental policymaking discretion immunized by the 

discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims 

Act (FTCA or the Act). 

After prosecuting Loumiet for nearly three years, 

culminating in a three-week trial, the OCC dismissed its 

enforcement action against him—an action which this court 

has since described as not “substantially justified.” Loumiet 

v. Office of Comptroller of Currency, 650 F.3d 796, 797-98 

(D.C. Cir. 2011). Loumiet then brought suit against the 

United States and four OCC employees, claiming that their 

enforcement action and related conduct were both tortious and 

unconstitutional. The district court dismissed Loumiet’s tort 

claims against the United States under the FTCA’s 

discretionary-function exception and dismissed his 

constitutional Bivens claims against the individual defendants 

as time-barred. 

We conclude, in line with the majority of our sister 

circuits to have considered the question, that the 

discretionary-function exception does not categorically bar 

FTCA tort claims where the challenged exercise of discretion 

allegedly exceeded the government’s constitutional authority 

to act. Nor are Loumiet’s Bivens claims time-barred, because 

the continuing-violations doctrine applies to extend the 

applicable statute of limitations where, as here, a plaintiff 

alleges continuing conduct causing cumulative harm. 

USCA Case #15-5208 Document #1624185 Filed: 07/12/2016 Page 2 of 23
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Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s dismissal order 

and remand for further proceedings. 

I 

We review the district court’s dismissal of Loumiet’s 

claims de novo, accepting as true the factual allegations in the 

complaint. See Jerome Stevens Pharm., Inc. v. FDA, 402 

F.3d 1249, 1250 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 

In the early 2000s, Loumiet was on a team of attorneys 

Hamilton Bank hired to prepare an audit report during a 

securities-fraud investigation of the bank by the OCC. The 

final audit report was unable to reach a conclusion as to 

whether the bank’s executives had engaged in intentional 

wrongdoing. The OCC contested certain of the report’s 

findings, but, after further investigation, Loumiet and his team 

declined to change their conclusions. 

Around that time, Loumiet sent the Treasury Inspector 

General a series of letters in which he expressed concern that, 

while on site at Hamilton Bank during the OCC’s 

investigation, OCC employees had made racist remarks 

regarding the bank’s Hispanic employees. The bank filed suit 

against the OCC in 2002, alleging civil rights violations 

arising out of the investigation. Shortly thereafter, the OCC 

closed Hamilton Bank for operating in an unsafe manner—a 

closure Loumiet alleges was unjustified and incurred 

considerable unnecessary cost for the bank’s receiver, the 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 

On November 6, 2006, the Comptroller initiated an 

administrative enforcement proceeding against Loumiet under 

the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement 

Act, alleging that he was an “institution-affiliated party” who 

knowingly or recklessly breached his fiduciary duty to 

USCA Case #15-5208 Document #1624185 Filed: 07/12/2016 Page 3 of 23
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Hamilton Bank when preparing the audit and caused a 

“significant adverse effect” on the bank. 12 U.S.C. 

§ 1813(u)(4). During the course of the enforcement action 

against him, Loumiet alleges, OCC personnel made 

unsubstantiated charges and false statements to the press. On 

June 18, 2008, after a three-week administrative trial, the 

presiding Administrative Law Judge recommended dismissal 

of the OCC’s claims in their entirety, and on July 27, 2009, 

the Comptroller dismissed the action. Later, this court 

concluded the OCC’s enforcement action was not 

“substantially justified” and awarded Loumiet attorney’s fees. 

Loumiet, 650 F.3d at 797. 

According to Loumiet’s complaint in the action now 

before us, the OCC’s frivolous enforcement proceeding 

caused significant damage: his banking-law practice 

evaporated, his income fell significantly, he dropped several 

partnership levels at his firm, and he suffered severe 

emotional distress. Seeking compensation for those harms, in 

2011 Loumiet filed an administrative unlawful-retaliation 

claim, which the OCC denied in January 2012. Loumiet filed 

this suit in federal district court on July 9, 2012. He brought 

common-law tort claims under the FTCA against the 

government for intentional infliction of emotional distress, 

invasion of privacy, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, 

negligent supervision, and civil conspiracy.1

 He sued the 

individual government officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown 

Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 

 

1

 Loumiet also asserted many of these same common-law tort 

claims under the FTCA against the individual defendants, which the 

district court dismissed pursuant to the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2679(d)(1). See Loumiet v. United States (Loumiet I), 968 F. 

Supp. 2d 142, 153 (D.D.C. 2013). Loumiet has not appealed that 

ruling. 

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(1971), claiming retaliatory prosecution in violation of the 

First and Fifth Amendments. Loumiet alleged that the 

officials were “driven by a desire to retaliate” against him in 

bringing a baseless prosecution that interfered with his “right 

to communicate with his client free of Government 

intimidation and punishment.” Compl. ¶¶ 138, 141. 

The district court granted the defendants’ motion to 

dismiss as to most of Loumiet’s claims. See Loumiet v. 

United States (Loumiet I), 968 F. Supp. 2d 142, 144-45 

(D.D.C. 2013). First, the court concluded that many of 

Loumiet’s FTCA claims were “inextricably tied” to the 

OCC’s decision to prosecute, so must be dismissed pursuant 

to the FTCA’s discretionary-function exception, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2680(a). See Loumiet I, 968 F. Supp. 2d at 156-58. A 

prosecutorial decision is a quintessential discretionary 

function even if, in the circumstances of a particular case, the 

prosecution proceeded unreasonably in light of the paucity of 

its evidence. Id. at 156-57. In the court’s view, none of the 

authorities Loumiet cited “specifically prescribe[d] a course 

of action for an employee to follow” so as to bar application 

of the discretionary-function exception here. Id. at 157 

(quoting Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 

(1988)). 

Before dismissing Loumiet’s FTCA claims on that 

ground, however, the court explained that those claims, which 

he filed with the agency on July 20, 2011, were not barred by 

the FTCA’s two-year statute of limitations. Id. at 153-55. 

The malicious-prosecution claim did not accrue until July 27, 

2009, when the OCC dismissed the enforcement action, id. at 

153, and the continuing-violations doctrine delayed accrual of 

his other FTCA claims until the same date because the 

enforcement action constituted a continuing harm until its 

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final disposition, id. at 154-55 (citing Whelan v. Abell, 953 

F.2d 663, 674 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). 

Notwithstanding its application of the continuingviolations doctrine to Loumiet’s FTCA claims and its 

characterization of the Bivens and FTCA claims as 

intertwined, the court held that Loumiet had forfeited that 

doctrine’s applicability to his Bivens claims. Id. at 152 n.3. 

The claims were barred by the applicable three-year statute of 

limitations, the court concluded, because the claims accrued 

when Loumiet knew or had reason to know that the 

enforcement action was retaliatory and was unsupported by 

probable cause, which was either when the OCC first filed the 

action or, at the latest, when the ALJ ruled in his favor four 

years before Loumiet filed his complaint. Id. at 150-51. 

On Loumiet’s motion for reconsideration, the district 

court addressed for the first time his allegations that the 

OCC’s decision to prosecute him was unconstitutionally 

retaliatory and so beyond the governmental policymaking 

authority protected by the FTCA’s discretionary-function 

exception. Loumiet v. United States (Loumiet II), 65 F. Supp. 

3d 19, 25-26 (D.D.C. 2014). “[E]ven ‘constitutionally 

defective’ actions,” the court held, “are in fact protected by 

the discretionary function exception.” Id. at 25. The court 

eventually dismissed Loumiet’s remaining claims on grounds 

not pressed before this court. Loumiet timely appealed. 

II 

We begin with the government’s contention that the 

conduct Loumiet alleges to be tortious under the FTCA 

involved performance of a “discretionary function” and is 

therefore immune from liability under the Act. The FTCA 

provides a limited waiver of the federal government’s 

sovereign immunity from damages liability for torts 

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committed by federal employees acting within the scope of 

their employment. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2674. The Act 

expressly retains immunity from some tort liability through a 

number of statutory exceptions. See id. § 2680. If one of 

those exceptions applies, the court lacks subject-matter 

jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff’s claims. See Simmons v. 

Himmelreich, 136 S. Ct. 1843, 1846 (2016). 

At issue here is the discretionary-function exception, 

which provides that the Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity 

“shall not apply to”: 

Any 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. 

28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). “[T]he purpose of the exception is to 

‘prevent judicial second-guessing of legislative and 

administrative decisions grounded in social, economic, and 

political policy through the medium of an action in tort.’” 

United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 323 (1991) (quoting 

United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797, 814 (1984)). 

Congress enacted the FTCA to remedy and deter tortious 

conduct by federal personnel, but sought in the FTCA’s 

discretionary-function exception to prevent such claims from 

impairing the government’s legitimate exercises of policy 

discretion. See Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians v. United 

States, 800 F.2d 1187, 1195-96 (D.C. Cir. 1986); Gray v. Bell, 

712 F.2d 490, 506 (D.C. Cir. 1983). A factfinder’s post-hoc 

determination in a lawsuit that governmental conduct fell 

short of standards of reasonable care, for example, should not 

be permitted to gainsay the contrary determination of officials 

vested with discretion to decide “how best to accommodate” 

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conflicting policy goals “and the reality of finite agency 

resources.” Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 537 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Duly authorized government personnel, not 

judges or juries, decide what counts as reasonable public 

policy. 

To determine whether governmental conduct falls within 

the discretionary-function exception, we look at the “nature of 

the conduct, rather than the status of the actor,” Gaubert, 499 

U.S. at 322 (quoting Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 813), and ask 

two questions: 

First, we consider whether the challenged conduct 

“involves an element of judgment or choice.” Berkovitz, 486 

U.S. at 536. If an exercise of discretion is involved, then, 

consistent with the last clause of the exception, “the 

discretionary function exception immunizes even government 

abuses of discretion.” Shuler v. United States, 531 F.3d 930, 

935 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a) (excluding 

from the reach of the FTCA government exercises of 

discretion “whether or not the discretion involved be 

abused”). But the element of discretion is necessarily absent 

where “a federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically 

prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow.” 

Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536. The exception thus does not apply 

to a claim that an agency failed to “perform its clear duty” or 

to “act in accord with a specific mandatory directive.” Id. at 

545. 

Second, if the conduct does involve some element of 

judgment or choice, we must ask whether the “judgment is of 

the kind that the discretionary function exception was 

designed to shield,” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322-23 (quoting 

Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536), that is, whether the actions or 

decisions “were within the range of choice accorded by 

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federal policy and law and were the results of policy 

determinations,” Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 538. Even a 

discretionary act within the scope of a federal official’s 

employment is not within the exception if it “cannot be said to 

be based on the purposes that the regulatory regime seeks to 

accomplish.” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325 n.7. The exception 

thus “insulates the Government from liability if the action 

challenged in the case involves the permissible exercise of 

policy judgment,” Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 537, but “[a]n 

employee of the government acting beyond his authority is 

not exercising the sort of discretion the discretionary function 

exception was enacted to protect,” Red Lake, 800 F.2d at 

1196. 

This court has long held that the decision “whether to 

prosecute” is typically a “quintessentially discretionary” 

function that involves judgment and requires balancing policy 

goals and finite agency resources, thus meriting protection 

under the discretionary-function exception. Moore v. Valder, 

65 F.3d 189, 197 (D.C. Cir. 1995); see Gray, 712 F.2d at 514. 

In determining whether the exception applies, we have treated 

the decision to initiate an administrative proceeding as we do 

a decision to pursue a criminal prosecution. See Sloan v. U.S. 

Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev., 236 F.3d 756, 760 (D.C. Cir. 

2001). A decision by the OCC to bring an action pursuant to 

its broad statutory enforcement authority, 12 U.S.C. 

§ 1818(b), (i), therefore ordinarily would appear to qualify for 

the discretionary-function exception, even if a factfinder 

considering a tort claim arising out of the enforcement 

decision might conclude that the prosecution was 

unreasonable or otherwise amounted to an abuse of the 

OCC’s enforcement discretion. 

But our inquiry into the viability of Loumiet’s FTCA 

claims does not end there. This case raises the additional, 

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thorny question—novel in our circuit—whether the FTCA’s 

discretionary-function exception shields the United States 

from common-law tort liability under the Act even when the 

otherwise discretionary conduct the plaintiff challenges 

exceeds constitutional limits on the government’s authority to 

act. Loumiet alleges FTCA tort claims, including claims of 

intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious 

prosecution, based on conduct generally subject to the 

agency’s enforcement discretion. But he also alleges that the 

OCC’s retaliatory enforcement action violated his First and 

Fifth Amendment rights and thus was not an exercise of the 

sort of discretion the exception shields. See Compl. ¶ 111, 

App. Tab 2 at 64 (“Because the defendants’ behavior failed to 

comply with the internal rules and procedures of the OCC 

itself, and also grossly offended the First and Fifth 

Amendments to our Constitution, the ‘discretionary activity’ 

exclusion under the FTCA does not apply.”). 

The government responds that the challenged prosecution 

was, at bottom, discretionary, and that Loumiet’s 

constitutional allegations do not affect the applicability of the 

discretionary-function exception to bar the FTCA claims. 

Because the FTCA does not waive sovereign immunity for 

constitutional torts, the government objects, there can be no 

unconstitutional-discretion limitation on the exception. In any 

event, it contends, Loumiet alleges no violation of any clearly 

established constitutional directive—the only type of 

constitutional violation that, in the government’s view, might 

render the discretionary-function exception inapplicable. 

We hold that the FTCA’s discretionary-function 

exception does not provide a blanket immunity against 

tortious conduct that a plaintiff plausibly alleges also flouts a 

constitutional prescription. At least seven circuits, including 

the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth, 

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have either held or stated in dictum that the discretionaryfunction exception does not shield government officials from 

FTCA liability when they exceed the scope of their 

constitutional authority. In Nurse v. United States, for 

example, the Ninth Circuit held that “[i]n general, 

governmental conduct cannot be discretionary if it violates a 

legal mandate,” including a constitutional mandate. 226 F.3d 

996, 1002 (9th Cir. 2000). The discretionary-function 

exception was inapplicable, that court explained, because the 

plaintiff had alleged tort claims based on “discriminatory, 

unconstitutional policies which the[] [defendants] had no 

discretion to create.” Id. Likewise, the Eighth Circuit in Raz 

v. United States held that the FBI’s “alleged surveillance 

activities f[e]ll outside the FTCA’s discretionary-function 

exception” where the plaintiff had “alleged they were 

conducted in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment 

rights.” 343 F.3d 945, 948 (8th Cir. 2003); see also, e.g., 

Limone v. United States, 579 F.3d 79, 102 (1st Cir. 2009) 

(holding that challenged “conduct was unconstitutional and, 

therefore, not within the sweep of the discretionary function 

exception”); Medina v. United States, 259 F.3d 220, 225 (4th 

Cir. 2001) (In “determin[ing] the bounds of the discretionary 

function exception . . . we begin with the principle that federal 

officials do not possess discretion to violate constitutional 

rights or federal statutes.” (internal quotation marks, 

alterations, and citations omitted)); U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. 

United States, 837 F.2d 116, 120 (3d Cir. 1988) (“[C]onduct 

cannot be discretionary if it violates the Constitution, a 

statute, or an applicable regulation. Federal officials do not 

possess discretion to violate constitutional rights or federal 

statutes.”); Sutton v. United States, 819 F.2d 1289, 1293 (5th 

Cir. 1987) (“[A]ction does not fall within the discretionary 

function exception of § 2680(a) when governmental agents 

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exceed the scope of their authority as designated by statute or 

the Constitution.”);2 Myers & Myers Inc. v. USPS, 527 F.2d 

1252, 1261 (2d Cir. 1975) (“It is, of course, a tautology that a 

federal official cannot have discretion to behave 

unconstitutionally or outside the scope of his delegated 

authority.”).3

To this court’s knowledge, only the Seventh Circuit has 

held otherwise. Kiiskila v. United States, 466 F.2d 626, 627-

28 (7th Cir. 1972). That court applied the discretionaryfunction exception to immunize the government from FTCA 

liability arising from the decision of a military-base 

commander to exclude the plaintiff, a civilian manager at the 

base’s credit union, from entering the base because she 

carried antiwar literature and planned an off-site antiwar 

 

2

 A panel of the Fifth Circuit later relied on Sutton to hold the 

discretionary-function exception inapplicable to conduct a plaintiff 

had alleged to violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. See 

Castro v. United States, 560 F.3d 381, 389-90 (5th Cir. 2009) 

(subsequent history omitted). The en banc Fifth Circuit summarily 

vacated the Castro panel decision, but in so doing did not address 

the interplay between constitutional allegations and the 

discretionary-function exception. See Castro v. United States, 608 

F.3d 266, 268-69 (5th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Instead, it adopted the 

prior district court opinion, id., which also was silent on the import 

of the plaintiff’s constitutional allegations, see Castro v. United 

States, No. CIV.A. C-06-61, 2007 WL 471095, at *7-*9 (S.D. Tex. 

Feb. 9, 2007) (subsequent history omitted). Notwithstanding 

Sutton, the Fifth Circuit has since observed that the circuit has “not 

yet determined whether a constitutional violation, as opposed to a 

statutory, regulatory, or policy violation, precludes the application 

of the discretionary function exception.” Spotts v. United States, 

613 F.3d 559, 569 (5th Cir. 2010) (citing Castro, 608 F.3d 266). 

3

 The government’s briefing not only failed to distinguish this great 

weight of authority, but did not even acknowledge it. 

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rally—an exclusion the court had already determined violated 

the First Amendment. Id.; see Kiiskila v. Nichols, 433 F.2d 

745, 746-51 (7th Cir. 1970) (en banc). The bank manager 

sought damages under the FTCA, but the court of appeals 

sustained dismissal of that claim as deriving from an FTCAexcepted governmental “exercise of discretion, albeit 

constitutionally repugnant.” Kiiskila, 466 F.2d at 627-28. 

This circuit has yet to decide whether the FTCA’s 

discretionary-function exception generally immunizes 

allegedly unconstitutional abuses of discretion by the 

government. In deciding that it does not, we follow the clear 

weight of circuit authority. By the same token that the 

government has no policymaking discretion to violate “a 

federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescrib[ing] 

a course of action for [its] employee to follow,” Berkovitz, 

486 U.S. at 536, the government lacks discretion to make 

unconstitutional policy choices. Although the discretionaryfunction exception shields government policymakers’ lawful 

discretion to set social, economic, and political policy 

priorities from judicial second-guessing via tort law, there is 

no blanket exception for discretion that exceeds constitutional 

bounds. 

As we have previously held, the policy discretion of 

federal personnel acting in their official capacity is 

necessarily “circumscribed by the rules that limit the bounds 

of [their] authority.” Red Lake, 800 F.2d at 1197. Thus, in 

Red Lake, we concluded that an FBI agent who, due to FBI 

policy, lacked authority over non-FBI officials at a hostage 

situation was unprotected by the discretionary-function 

exception from a suit challenging orders he gave to officials 

not under his lawful command. Id. at 1196-97. The 

exception did not apply, we explained, because “[a] 

government official has no discretion to violate the binding 

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laws, regulations, or policies that define the extent of his 

official powers. An employee of the government acting 

beyond his authority is not exercising the sort of discretion the 

discretionary function exception was enacted to protect.” Id.

at 1196. 

The discretionary-function exception likewise does not 

shield decisions that exceed constitutional bounds, even if 

such decisions are imbued with policy considerations. See 

Medina, 259 F.3d at 225 (acknowledging, in reliance on 

Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536, and Red Lake, 800 F.2d at 1196, 

that federal officials lack discretion to violate constitutional 

rights). A constitutional limit on governmental power, no less 

than a federal statutory or regulatory one like the FBI policy 

in Red Lake, circumscribes the government’s authority even 

on decisions that otherwise would fall within its lawful 

discretion. The government “has no ‘discretion’ to violate the 

Federal Constitution; its dictates are absolute and imperative.” 

Owen v. City of Independence, Mo., 445 U.S. 622, 649 

(1980). Indeed, the absence of a limitation on the 

discretionary-function exception for constitutionally ultra 

vires conduct would yield an illogical result: the FTCA 

would authorize tort claims against the government for 

conduct that violates the mandates of a statute, rule, or policy, 

while insulating the government from claims alleging on-duty 

conduct so egregious that it violates the more fundamental 

requirements of the Constitution. 

Neither Moore, 65 F.3d 189, nor Gray, 712 F.2d 490, on 

which the government relies, addressed whether the 

discretionary-function exception immunizes even 

unconstitutional decisions to prosecute. In those cases, as 

here, we considered FTCA common-law tort claims against 

the government premised on conduct also alleged to be 

unconstitutional. Moore, 65 F.3d at 191; Gray, 712 F.2d at 

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495. The parties in Moore disputed the scope of the 

discretionary-function exception as applied to various alleged 

misdeeds relating to investigation and prosecution. We drew 

the line between conduct tied to the “quintessentially 

discretionary” decision to prosecute, which we held was 

immunized, and “discrete” and “separable” activity such as 

“disclosing grand jury testimony to unauthorized third 

parties,” which we held was not. Id. at 196-97. The plaintiff 

in Moore did not argue, nor did we consider, whether 

constitutional limits on a prosecutor’s discretion affected the 

discretionary-function exception’s applicability. See id.; see 

also Br. of Plaintiff-Appellant, Moore v. United States, Nos. 

99-5197 & 99-5198, 1999 WL 34834283 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 17, 

1999). Similarly in Gray, the focus of dispute was whether 

the prosecutors’ pre-indictment investigatory actions were 

distinct from their clearly discretionary—and thus, all 

assumed, immunized—decision to prosecute. 712 F.2d at

515-16. In holding that they were not, we nowhere discussed 

any effect the alleged unconstitutionality of the prosecutors’ 

actions might have on the availability of the discretionaryfunction exception. Id. 

The government also contends that recognition of 

constitutional limitations on the FTCA’s discretionaryfunction exception would run counter to the Supreme Court’s 

statement in FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 478 (1994), that 

“the United States simply has not rendered itself liable under 

[the FTCA] for constitutional tort claims,” which are 

actionable only against individual officials under Bivens, Br. 

of the United States 18-19. Judge Smith voiced a similar 

concern in his dissent from the Fifth Circuit panel decision in 

Castro when he worried that, “by a plaintiff’s artful pleading, 

the United States c[ould] be liable whenever the Constitution 

is violated even though, under Meyer, the sovereign is not 

subject to liability for constitutional torts.” Castro v. United 

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States, 560 F.3d 381, 394 (5th Cir. 2009) (Smith, J., 

dissenting), rev’d on reh’g en banc, 608 F.3d 266 (5th Cir. 

2010). 

But those contentions miscast the relationship between 

FTCA state-law torts and Bivens constitutional claims. The 

state-law substance of an FTCA claim is unchanged by 

courts’ recognition of constitutional bounds to the legitimate 

discretion that the FTCA immunizes. Federal constitutional 

claims for damages are cognizable only under Bivens, which 

runs against individual governmental officials personally. See 

Meyer, 510 U.S. at 482, 485-86. The FTCA, in contrast, 

provides a method to enforce state tort law against the federal 

government itself. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1); cf. Carlson v. 

Green, 446 U.S. 14, 20-21 (1980) (describing distinct goals 

and characteristics of FTCA and Bivens claims and 

concluding that “Congress views FTCA and Bivens as 

parallel, complementary causes of action”). A plaintiff who 

identifies constitutional defects in the conduct underlying her 

FTCA tort claim—whether or not she advances a Bivens

claim against the individual official involved—may affect the 

availability of the discretionary-function defense, but she does 

not thereby convert an FTCA claim into a constitutional 

damages claim against the government; state law is 

necessarily still the source of the substantive standard of 

FTCA liability. The First Circuit has similarly emphasized, in 

holding unconstitutional conduct to fall outside of “the sweep 

of the discretionary function exception,” that it does not view 

the government’s “constitutional transgressions as 

corresponding to the plaintiffs’ causes of action—after all, the 

plaintiffs’ claims are not Bivens claims—but rather, as 

negating the discretionary function defense.” Limone, 579 

F.3d at 102 & n.12.

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The question remains whether or to what degree a 

constitutional mandate must be specific or clearly established 

to render the discretionary-function exception inapplicable. 

Contending that the exception should at least immunize 

governmental policy discretion that is not clearly 

unconstitutional, the government adverts to the qualifiedimmunity doctrine of Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 

(1982), under which a constitutional tort plaintiff seeking to 

defeat an individual official’s qualified-immunity defense 

must show that the claimed constitutional rights were “clearly 

established,” Br. of the United States 19. The government 

appreciates that qualified immunity as such applies only to 

governmental officials sued in their individual capacities, not 

to the government as an entity. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818.

Qualified immunity—a form of official immunity—is directly 

tied to “the risk that fear of personal monetary liability and 

harassing litigation will unduly inhibit officials in the 

discharge of their duties,” to the detriment of the public 

interest. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638 (1987); 

see also Harlow, 457 U.S. at 816, 819. 

We take the government to be arguing by analogy that 

principles similar to those that undergird qualified immunity 

should extend to preserve discretionary-function immunity for 

some unconstitutional acts. We have found no precedent in 

any circuit holding as the government urges, nor does it cite 

any. At this juncture we see no cause to make this the first. 

Indeed, the district court on remand might allow Loumiet’s 

FTCA claims to proceed under a narrow standard such as the 

government suggests.4

 That would leave for another day the 

 

4 Cf. Moore v. Hartman, 704 F.3d 1003, 1004 (D.C. Cir. 2013) 

(noting that “the precedent in this Circuit clearly established in 

1988 . . . the contours of the First Amendment right to be free from 

retaliatory prosecution”); Moore v. Valder, 65 F.3d at 196 (holding 

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18 

question whether the FTCA immunizes exercises of policy 

discretion in violation of constitutional constraints that are not 

already clear. 

To resolve this appeal, we need go no further than to hold 

that the district court erred as a matter of law in barring 

Loumiet’s FTCA claims on the ground that, as a general 

matter, “even constitutionally defective” exercises of 

discretion fall within the Act’s discretionary-function 

exception. Loumiet II, 65 F. Supp. 3d at 25. That broadbrush approach is foreclosed by our holding today. The 

district court should determine in the first instance whether 

Loumiet’s complaint plausibly alleges that the OCC’s conduct 

exceeded the scope of its constitutional authority so as to 

vitiate discretionary-function immunity. 

III 

 Loumiet also asserts that the district court erred in 

dismissing his First and Fifth Amendment Bivens claims as 

time-barred.5

 Those claims did not accrue, he contends, until 

the OCC finally dismissed its enforcement action on July 27, 

2009, because the agency’s ongoing prosecution of that action 

inflicted continuing harm until its final dismissal. The 

defendants counter that Loumiet failed to raise that 

continuing-violations argument before the district court and 

 

that a “retaliatory prosecution claim . . . does allege the violation of 

clearly established law”). 

5

 Loumiet’s Fifth Amendment due-process and First Amendment 

speech-based retaliation claims are premised on identical 

allegations, and Loumiet does not argue that they should have 

different dates of accrual. Accordingly, like the district court, we 

do not differentiate between those claims in assessing their 

timeliness. See Loumiet I, 968 F. Supp. 2d at 150 n.2. 

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19 

that the doctrine in any event does not assist him. For the 

following reasons, we conclude that Loumiet adequately 

advanced the continuing-violations doctrine before the district 

court, and that his Bivens claims, staked on continuing, 

harmful conduct, were timely. 

“When a federal action contains no statute of limitations, 

courts will ordinarily look to analogous provisions in state 

law as a source of a federal limitations period.” Doe v. Dep’t 

of Justice, 753 F.2d 1092, 1114 (D.C. Cir. 1985); see id. at 

1114-15 (applying state limitations period in Bivens action). 

In this case, there is no dispute that the District of Columbia’s 

general three-year statute of limitations applies to Loumiet’s 

Bivens claims. See D.C. Code § 12-301(8). Therefore, if 

Loumiet’s claims accrued before July 9, 2009—more than 

three years before he filed his July 9, 2012, complaint—they 

would be barred by the statute of limitations. 

State law dictates the statute of limitations, but the timing 

of the accrual of Loumiet’s claims is a question of federal 

law. Cf. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 388 (2007) (“[T]he 

accrual date of a § 1983 cause of action is a question of 

federal law that is not resolved by reference to state law.”). 

Ordinarily, “accrual occurs when the plaintiff has a complete 

and present cause of action, that is, when the plaintiff can file 

suit and obtain relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks, 

alterations, and citations omitted). In other words, “[a] claim 

normally accrues when the factual and legal prerequisites for 

filing suit are in place.” Earle v. District of Columbia, 707 

F.3d 299, 306 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting Norwest Bank Minn. 

Nat’l Ass’n v. FDIC, 312 F.3d 447, 451 (D.C. Cir. 2002)). 

The defendants contend, and the district court agreed, 

Loumiet I, 968 F. Supp. 2d at 149-53, that under that general 

accrual rule, Loumiet’s First and Fifth Amendment retaliatory 

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20 

prosecution claims are time-barred because all of the events 

underpinning each of the elements of those claims took place 

well before the statute-of-limitations cutoff of July 9, 2009. 

We need not decide whether Loumiet’s claims would have 

been untimely under the general accrual rule, however, 

because we agree with Loumiet’s contention that the 

continuing-violations doctrine displaced it here to render his 

claims timely filed. 

As an initial matter, Loumiet adequately raised, and thus 

preserved for our review, his continuing-violations argument. 

The district court relied on that argument in holding that the 

FTCA claims were timely, but treated it as forfeited for the 

Bivens claims. See Loumiet I, 968 F. Supp. 2d at 152 n.3, 

155; Loumiet II, 65 F. Supp. 3d at 24-25. In addressing the 

timeliness of his claims before the district court, however, 

Loumiet expressly analogized his Bivens retaliatory 

prosecution claims to his FTCA tort claims, characterizing the 

former as “simply an offspring of the OCC’s malicious 

prosecution.” Pl. Opp. to Mot. to Dismiss, App. Tab 3 at 35. 

Loumiet thus adequately incorporated by reference his 

invocation of the continuing-violations theory as to his FTCA 

claims. Compare id. at 35-36, with id. at 49-51. We therefore 

consider the argument. 

Even while this court “do[es] not lightly create 

exceptions to the general rule of claim accrual,” Earle, 707 

F.3d at 306 n.9, it has “recognized various exceptions to, and 

glosses on, the rule” including the “muddled, . . . intricate[,] 

and somewhat confusing” continuing-violations, or 

continuing-tort, doctrine, id. at 309 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The continuing-violations doctrine applies where 

“no single incident in a continuous chain of tortious activity 

can ‘fairly or realistically be identified as the cause of 

significant harm,’” and so it is “proper to regard the 

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21 

cumulative effect of the conduct as actionable.” Page v. 

United States, 729 F.2d 818, 821-22 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (quoting 

Fowkes v. Penn. R.R. Co., 264 F.2d 397, 399 (3d Cir. 1959)). 

The court has recognized two types of continuing violations, 

only the second of which is implicated here: (1) where 

defendants violated a statutorily imposed continuing 

obligation, Earle, 707 F.3d at 307; or (2) where the “character 

[of the challenged conduct] as a violation did not become 

clear until it was repeated during the limitations period, 

typically because it is only its cumulative impact (as in the 

case of a hostile work environment) that reveals its illegality,”

id. at 306 (quoting Taylor v. FDIC, 132 F.3d 753, 765 (D.C. 

Cir. 1997)). 

In Page, we recognized the latter type of continuing 

violation in the context of an FTCA claim alleging a 

“gradual” injury “resulting from the cumulative impact of 

years of allegedly tortious drug treatment.” 729 F.2d at 822. 

It “seem[ed] unrealistic,” we explained, “to regard each 

prescription of drugs as the cause of a separate injury, or as a 

separate tortious act triggering a new limitation period.” Id. at 

822-23. Accordingly, we held that the plaintiff’s claim did 

not accrue until the conclusion of what was alleged to have 

been nearly twenty years of tortious drug treatment. Id. at 

819, 822-23. 

Under our decision in Whelan, that reasoning holds true 

where a plaintiff has alleged that the full course of legal 

proceedings effected a single, cumulative harm. We held 

there that a claim of tortious interference with business 

opportunities could proceed even if the business opportunities 

did not exist at the time of the allegedly interfering lawsuit, 

because under the continuing-violations doctrine, “a lawsuit is 

a continuous, not an isolated event,” the effects of which 

“persist from the initial filing to the final disposition of the 

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22 

case.” 953 F.2d at 673. Put another way, a lawsuit “is 

repetitive in that it represents the assertion, every day, of the 

plaintiff’s claim,” and “[a] defendant subject to a lawsuit is 

likely to suffer damage not so much from the initial complaint 

but from the cumulative costs of defense and the reputational 

harm caused by an unresolved claim.” Id. A lawsuit is thus 

different from the typical case of a “mere failure to right a 

wrong and make the plaintiff whole.” Id. (quoting Fitzgerald 

v. Seamans, 553 F.2d 220, 230 (D.C. Cir. 1977)). 

Page and Whelan are dispositive here. Loumiet alleges 

continuing harm resulting not only from the filing of the 

OCC’s frivolous, retaliatory legal proceedings against him, 

but also from the agency’s continued prosecution of Loumiet 

and associated publicity over a period of many years. It is not 

only the initiation of the OCC’s action that Loumiet identified 

as harmful; he also cited, among other things, the experts the 

OCC sought to put on the stand, Compl. ¶¶ 93-94, App. Tab 2 

at 52-54, statements made to the press, id. ¶¶ 15-16, 85, 91, 

App. Tab 2 at 4-5, 48-49, 51-52, the three-week trial in which 

Loumiet had to defend himself against baseless allegations, 

id. ¶¶ 94-105, App. Tab 2 at 59-60, the testimony levelled 

against him, id. ¶¶ 94-95, 98-105, App. Tab 2 at 53-54, 56-60, 

and the four years of decreased income, downgraded 

partnership stake, and continuing emotional distress he alleges 

he suffered throughout the pendency of the OCC enforcement 

action, id. ¶ 106, App. Tab 2 at 60-61. As with the ongoing 

tort in Whelan, the commencement of the OCC action at issue 

here was but “the first link in a chain of conduct that d[id] not 

end until the [OCC] cease[d] prosecution of the suit.” 953 

F.2d at 674 (citing Page, 729 F.2d at 821-22). 

The defendants contend that neither Page nor Whelan

applies because neither case involved a Bivens claim. 

Limitations doctrines are typically trans-substantive, however, 

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23 

and this one is no exception. Whelan places squarely within 

the scope of the continuing-violations doctrine ongoing legal 

proceedings that cause continuing harm. 953 F.2d at 673-74. 

The defendants offer no reason why that rule should differ in 

the Bivens context. Cf. Va. Hosp. Ass’n v. Baliles, 868 F.2d 

653, 663 (4th Cir. 1989), aff’d sub nom. Wilder v. Va. Hosp. 

Ass’n, 496 U.S. 498 (1990) (applying continuing-violations 

doctrine to delay accrual in § 1983 case). Loumiet filed his 

Bivens claims on July 9, 2012, within three years of the 

OCC’s July 27, 2009, dismissal of its enforcement action 

against him. Those claims were therefore timely. 

Accordingly, we remand to the district court for its 

consideration of the remaining defenses raised but not yet 

decided in the district court. See Loumiet I, 968 F. Supp. 2d 

at 149.6

* * * 

 For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the dismissal order 

of the district court and remand for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered.

 

6

 Because we reverse the dismissal of Loumiet’s Bivens claims, we 

need not reach the question whether the district court abused its 

discretion in denying Loumiet’s motion for reconsideration as to 

those claims. 

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