Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-35287/USCOURTS-ca9-13-35287-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Donna Young
Appellant
Gerald Young
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DONNA YOUNG; GERALD YOUNG,

husband and wife, and as guardians

for minor child J.Y.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 13-35287

D.C. No.

3:11-cv-06043-

BHS

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

Benjamin H. Settle, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

July 11, 2014—Seattle, Washington

Filed October 17, 2014

Before: Arthur L. Alarcón, A. Wallace Tashima,

and Mary H. Murguia, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Murguia

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2 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

SUMMARY*

Federal Tort Claims Act 

The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal for lack

of subject matter jurisdiction of a Federal Tort Claims Act

action brought against the United States for negligently

failing to warn visitors at Mount Rainier National Park of a

known hazard.

Donna Young sustained severe injuries when she fell into

a twelve-foot-deep hole that had formed underneath the snow

near a buried transformer in an area near the Park’s main

visitor center, and she sued the United States for damages

relating to the injuries. The district court dismissed Young’s

complaint as barred by the discretionary function exception

to the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”).

The panel held that the National Park Service’s decision

not to warn of the known hazard was not susceptible to policy

considerations, and therefore it was not protected under the

discretionary function exception to the FTCA. The panel

held that the district court erred in determining, at least at this

stage, that it lacked jurisdiction over the case. The panel

remanded for further proceedings.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 3

COUNSEL

Wayne Mitchell, Anderson & Mitchell PLLC, Seattle,

Washington, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Priscilla To-Yin Chan (argued), Assistant United States

Attorney; Jenny A. Durkan, United States Attorney, Seattle,

Washington, for Defendant-Appellee.

OPINION

MURGUIA, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs Donna and Gerald Young and their minor

daughter J.Y. appeal the district court’s order dismissing their

complaint against the United States for negligently failing to

warn visitors at Mount Rainier National Park of a hazard that

the National Park Service both knew of and created. Donna

sustained severe injuries when she fell into a twelve-footdeep hole that had formed underneath the snow in an area

near the Park’s main visitor center. The Youngs sued the

United States for damages relating to Donna’s injuries, but

the district court dismissed their complaint for lack of subject

matter jurisdiction, finding the action barred by the

discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims

Act. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). On appeal, the United States

maintains that the Park Service’s decision not to warn of the

hazard was policy-driven—that is, guided by policies relating

to access, historic and natural resource preservation, and

conservation—and is therefore protected under the

discretionary function exception. We conclude that the Park

Service’s decision not to warn of the known hazard was not

susceptible to those policy considerations and therefore is not

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4 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

protected under the exception. Accordingly, we reverse the

district court’s judgment and remand this case for further

proceedings.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Mount Rainier National Park (“the Park”) was established

in 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. Over

97 percent of the Park’s 235,000 acres is dedicated wilderness

area, while the remaining three percent includes developed

areas such as roadways and visitor centers. In 1997, the

entire park was designated as a National Historic Landmark

District.

Each year, the Park receives about 1.5 to 2 million

visitors, many of whom have little or no experience with

alpine environments. Most of those visitors stop at the

Jackson Visitor Center (JVC), the Park’s most popular visitor

area, at some point during their stay. The JVC is located in

an area of the Park known as “Paradise,” which is situated on

the southern slope of Mount Rainier and receives an average

annual snowfall of 641 inches. In recent years, Paradise has

been called “one of the snowiest places on the planet.”

When the JVC was constructed in 2008, the National Park

Service (NPS or “the Park Service”) installed a transformer

nearby to power the visitor center building. The NPS

installed the transformer approximately 150 feet away from

the visitor center building in a snowfield across a two-lane

road that services the area. According to NPS staff, the area

in which the transformer is located is “accessible but it’s not

attractive,”; “[i]t’s not one of the areas that [the NPS]

develop[s] and maintain[s] to get people out of the parking lot

and onto the snow.” The transformer operates year-round,

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 5

releasing heat as it transfers electricity from nearby power

lines to the JVC building.

The snowfield in which the transformer is located often

accumulates more snow than other areas of the Park, because

the NPS’s road-plowing operations deposit snow there during

in the winter. As a result, the field generally is covered in

snow between November and mid-July. At one point, the

area surrounding the transformer was marked with stakes so

that the Park’s snowplow operator would know where the

transformer was located; the Park’s staff was afraid that “the

weight of the [snowplow], which is considerable, could

collapse onto the transformer” underneath the snow. At the

time of the incident giving rise to this appeal, there were no

warning signs at or near the transformer’s location.

Plaintiffs Donna and Gerald Young and their minor

daughter J.Y. live in Santa Clara, California. In June 2010,

they decided to “explore the Northwest” and travel to

Washington. While in Washington they visited Mount

Rainier National Park, where they hoped to “look around a

little bit” and get their National Park Passport Books stamped

at the JVC. They arrived at the Park in the early evening, just

before the JVC was scheduled to close.

After the Youngs had parked their car, Donna and J.Y.

went into the visitor center, looked around, got their passport

books stamped, and then left the JVC to look for Gerald

outside. They found Gerald standing in the snowfield across

the road, where he was taking pictures of the mountain views. 

J.Y. walked away from her parents to explore snowfield. 

While she was exploring, she found a small hole, about two

or three inches in diameter, in the snow. She asked Donna to

come look at it.

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6 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

When Donna approached the hole, the snow beneath her

collapsed, and she fell approximately twelve feet, landing on

a concrete pad on the ground underneath the transformer. 

According to the NPS Case Incident Record documenting

Donna’s fall, the transformer’s heat had caused the snow

above it to “mel[t] out,” creating a large cavity beneath a

“snow ceiling [that] was thin directly overtop of the

transformer.” Donna suffered severe injuries as a result of the

fall.

Plaintiffs sued the United States under the Federal Tort

Claims Act (FTCA), which permits individuals to sue the

government for money damages to compensate for injuries

arising out of the negligent acts of government employees. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). In their complaint, Plaintiffs

alleged that the NPS negligently failed to warn Plaintiffs of

a known, latent hazard (the transformer) the agency had

created in the area of the JVC. Plaintiffs sought damages for

physical injuries, medical costs, economic losses, pain and

suffering, and loss of consortium.

The government moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint

for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, see Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(1), arguing that Plaintiffs’ claim was barred by the

discretionary function exception to the FTCA, see 28 U.S.C.

§ 2680(a) (excepting from the FTCA’s waiver of immunity

“[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”). According to the government, the NPS’s decision

not to place warning signs in the area of the transformer was

a discretionary, policy-driven decision involving

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 7

consideration of “NPS’s policies and practices with respect to

the discovery, warning and elimination of hazards.”

The district court, applying the two-step test established

in Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536–37 (1988),

for determining whether the discretionary function exception

protected the agency’s actions, granted the government’s

motion to dismiss. The court concluded that the NPS’s

decisions regarding “maintenance of the Park, decisions to

identify and warn visitors from hazards, and the protection of

visitors from hazards” were policy-driven decisions protected

under the exception. Plaintiffs timely appealed the district

court’s order.

II. Standard of Review

We review de novo the district court’s order dismissing

Plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 

Terbush v. United States, 516 F.3d 1125, 1128 (9th Cir.

2008). In doing so, we generally accept as true the factual

allegations of Plaintiffs’ complaint and ask “whether the

allegations state a claim sufficient to survive a motion to

dismiss.” United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 327 (1991)

(citing Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 540). Allegations of

jurisdictional facts, however, are not afforded presumptive

truthfulness; on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter

jurisdiction, the court may hear evidence of those facts and

“resolv[e] factual disputes where necessary.” Robinson v.

United States, 586 F.3d 683, 685 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal

quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original); see also

Augustine v. United States, 704 F.2d 1074, 1077 (9th Cir.

1983). We ordinarily review those factual findings for clear

error. Robinson, 586 F.3d at 685.

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8 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

When the jurisdictional motion “involv[es] factual issues

which also go to the merits,” a court should employ the

standard applicable to a motion for summary judgment

because “resolution of [those] jurisdictional facts is akin to a

decision on the merits.” Augustine v. United States, 704 F.2d

1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 1983). In that posture, the moving party

“should prevail only if the material jurisdictional facts are not

in dispute and the moving party is entitled to prevail as a

matter of law.” Id. Although Plaintiffs bear the initial burden

to establish subject matter jurisdiction under the FTCA, it is

the government’s burden to establish that the discretionary

function exception applies. Oberson v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric.,

514 F.3d 989, 997 (9th Cir. 2008).

In this case, the question whether the Park Service knew

or should have known of the hazard created by the

transformer is a disputed issue of jurisdictional fact that is “so

intertwined” with the substantive dispute that resolution of

the former depends, at least in part, on resolution of the latter. 

See Augustine, 704 F.2d at 1077 (“[W]here the jurisdictional

issue and the substantive issue are so intertwined that the

question of jurisdiction is dependent on factual issues going

to the merits, the jurisdictional determination should await a

determination of the relevant facts on either a motion going

to the merits or at trial.”). Thus, if the fact of the Park

Service’s knowledge of the hazard changes our analysis as to

whether the discretionary function exception applies, then

Plaintiffs’ complaint should not have been dismissed at this

stage, and the question of jurisdiction instead should have

awaited a determination on the merits.

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 9

III. Analysis

FTCA waives the government’s immunity from suits

arising out of certain negligent acts of federal employees. See

28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1).1 The government’s immunity is

restored, however, under what is known as the “discretionary

function exception,” with respect to claims arising out of

certain discretionary duties of federal agencies and

employees. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The exception excludes

from the FTCA’s waiver of immunity

[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.

To determine whether a particular claim is barred by the

FTCA’s discretionary function exception, we must conduct

1 Specifically, the FTCA waives the government’s immunity with

respect to claims for money damages for

injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death

caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of

any employee of the Government while acting within

the scope of his office or employment, under

circumstances where the United States, if a private

person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance

with the law of the place where the act or omission

occurred.

28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1).

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10 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

a two-step inquiry. See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536–37. At

the first step, we must consider whether the agency’s

allegedly negligent conduct is discretionary—that is,

“whether the action is a matter of choice for the acting

employee.” Id. at 536. Conduct is not discretionary unless it

“involves an element of judgment or choice.” Id. Thus, the

exception will not apply “when a federal statute, regulation,

or policy specifically prescribes a course of action for an

employee to follow” but the employee fails to follow it. Id.

At the second step, we must determine whether the particular

exercise of discretion was “of the kind that the discretionary

function exception was designed to shield.” Id. The decision

must be one that is “grounded in social, economic, and

political policy.” Id.

“Whether a challenged action falls within the

discretionary function exception requires a particularized

analysis of the specific agency action challenged.” 

GATX/Airlog Co. v. United States, 286 F.3d 1168, 1174 (9th

Cir. 2002). Thus, before turning to Berkovitz’s two-step

inquiry, we must first identifyPlaintiffs’ “specific allegations

of agency wrongdoing.” 486 U.S. at 540. To identify the

particular agencyconduct with which Plaintiffs take issue, we

look to the allegations of Plaintiffs’ complaint. See Whisnant

v. United States, 400 F.3d 1177, 1184–85 (9th Cir. 2005).

In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that the Park Service

employees were negligent “when they failed to protect Donna

Young from falling into the sinkhole caused by the

transformer, failed to warn Donna Young of the presence of

the latent, dangerous sinkhole, and failed to make the area

safe for visitors.” Plaintiffs further alleged that Park Service

employees knew or should have known that the transformer

would emit heat, that it would thereby create a large cavern

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 11

in the snow, and that park visitors would walk on the snow in

the area of the hazard. In other words, Plaintiffs alleged that

the Park Service was negligent in failing to warn of a hazard

that it both knew of and created.

The district court framed Plaintiffs’ allegations more

broadly, however. It concluded that “the conduct at issue is

the NPS’s maintenance of the Park, decisions to identify and

warn visitors from hazards, and the protection of visitors

from hazards.” Framed in that way, the district court assessed

whether NPS’s decisions about whether to warn the public of

“hazards of a general nature within the park, whether known

or unknown” and however created, were policy driven. 

Plaintiffs take issue with that characterization, contending

that it fails to account for their allegations that the agency

knew of the hazard and created it. We agree.

Our cases make clear that when determining whether the

discretionary function exception applies in a particular case,

“the question of how the government is alleged to have been

negligent is critical.” Whisnant, 400 F.3d at 1185. Had

Plaintiffs actually alleged, for example, that the NPS was

negligent in failing to warn of any danger, whether known or

unknown and however created, their claim would likely be

barred, just as the district court concluded. See, e.g., Terbush,

516 F.3d at 1137; Blackburn v. United States, 100 F.3d 1426.

1434 (9th Cir. 1996); Valdez v. United States, 56 F.3d 1177,

1178 (9th Cir. 1995); Childers v. United States, 40 F.3d 973,

975 (9th Cir. 1994). But that is not what Plaintiffs alleged. 

Instead, they alleged that the government was negligent in

failing to warn of a particular danger that it knew of and

created—allegations that, in our view, are meaningfully

different because they encompass conduct that may not be

shielded by the Park Service’s broad discretion. The

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12 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

distinction is therefore important, and the district court erred

in mischaracterizing Plaintiffs’ allegations.

Nonetheless, the government urges us to adopt the district

court’s broad characterization, lest the analysis

“impermissibly collaps[e] the discretionary-function inquiry

into a question of whether the government was negligent.” 

But the government misses the point. We recognize, as we

have before, that “the question of whether the government

was negligent is irrelevant to the applicability of the

discretionary function exception.” Whisnant, 400 F.3d at

1185. By contrast, the question of how the government was

negligent remains “critical” to the discretionary function

exception inquiry—indeed, determining the precise action the

government took or failed to take (that is, how it is alleged to

have been negligent) is a necessary predicate to determining

whether the government had discretion to take that action. 

See generally id.

In our view, the “specific allegatio[n] of agency

wrongdoing” that we must use in determining whether the

discretionary function exception applies in this case is

Plaintiffs’ allegation that NPS staff failed to warn of a known,

latent hazard that the agency itself created. With that

allegation of wrongdoing in mind, we turn to the Berkovitz

two-step inquiry.

A.

In this case, the analysis at Berkovitz’s first step—whether

the decision at issue “involve[d] an element of judgment or

choice”—is relatively straightforward. The parties agree that

the Park’s decision not to place warnings signs at or near the

transformer was a discretionary decision. Neither party

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 13

identifies any statute, regulation, or policy prescribing any

specific course of conduct for warning against hazards the

agency created. The conduct was therefore a matter of choice

for the Park Service staff and was discretionary under

Berkovitz.

B.

The parties’ dispute lies in the analysis at Berkovitz’s

second step—whether the decision was policy-driven. See

486 U.S. at 536–37. The discretionary function exception

protects against “judicial ‘second-guessing’ of legislative and

administrative decisions” only in certain circumstances. Id.

(quoting United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 799, 814

(1984)). Such instances generally involve decisions that are

“based on considerations of public policy”—specifically,

“social, economic, and political policy.” Id. at 537.

Our court has acknowledged the “weaving lines of

precedent regarding what decisions are susceptible to social,

economic, or political policy analysis,” particularly in cases

in which the allegation of agency wrongdoing involves a

failure to warn. Whisnant, 400 F.3d at 1181. We have noted

that “Government actions can be classified along a spectrum,

ranging from those ‘totally divorced from the sphere of policy

analysis,’ such as driving a car, to those ‘fully grounded in

regulatory policy,’ such as the regulation and oversight of a

bank.” Id. (quoting O’Toole v. United States, 295 F.3d 1029,

1035 (9th Cir. 2002)).

We begin by reviewing the specific policies that the

government contends formed the basis of the agency’s

decision. The government first points to the Organic Act,

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14 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

16 U.S.C. §§ 1–4, the statute through which the National Park

Service was created. The Organic Act provides,

The service thus established shall promote and

regulate the use of the Federal areas known as

national parks, monuments, and reservations

hereinafter specified, . . . by such means and

measures as conform to the fundamental

purpose of the said parks, monuments, and

reservations, which purpose is to conserve the

scenery and the natural and historic objects

and the wild life therein and to provide for the

enjoyment of the same in such manner and by

such means as will leave them unimpaired for

the enjoyment of future generations.

16 U.S.C. § 1. We have recognized that the Organic Act

“sets forth the broad policy considerations that govern NPS’s

management of national parks” and that, under the Organic

Act, “[m]uch of the NPS’s work is ‘grounded’ in [a] broad

mandate to balance conservation and access.” Terbush,

516 F.3d at 1130.

The government also relies on more specific policies, all

of which were established pursuant to the NPS’s authority

under the Organic Act, to justify its decision not to warn of

the hazard created by the transformer. Specifically, it points

to the NPS’s 2006 Management Policies and the NPS’s

Director’s Order #50C as additional bases for its conduct.

The NPS’s 2006 Management Policies apply nationwide

and, like the Organic Act, also require the NPS, in providing

for visitor safety, to balance its safety measures against

considerations of conservation and access:

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 15

The saving of human life will take precedence

over all other management actions as the Park

Service strives to protect human life and

provide for injury-free visits. The Service

will do this within the constraints of the 1916

Organic Act. The primary—and very

substantial—constraint imposed by the

Organic Act is that discretionarymanagement

activities may be undertaken only to the

extent that they will not impair park resources

and values.

The policies go on to state that, at the park-specific level,

“[t]he means by which public safety concerns are to be

addressed is left to the discretion of superintendents and other

decision-makers . . . who must work within the limits of

funding and staffing.” “Examples include decisions about

whether to install warnings signs . . . .” Similarly, under

Director’s Order #50C, park superintendents must “use their

discretion to determine the level of program resources and the

types of programs needed to manage visitor risk within their

park.” “Superintendents should strive to minimize the

frequency and severity of visitor incidents by developing a

range of appropriate prevention strategies . . . includ[ing] . . .

where appropriate, feasible, and consistent with the park

mission, providing warnings about dangerous conditions

(e.g., weather, construction areas) that may cause risk to

visitors.” Director’s Order #50C specifies that

superintendents should exercise that discretion in light of

“NPS policies relating to public safety, health, and the

environment.”

Against the backdrop of those and other related agency

policies, our cases have identified important distinctions

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16 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

between protected and unprotected agency actions. The

NPS’s decisions with respect to the design and construction

of roadways and trails, for example, are discretionary

decisions that are “clear[ly] link[ed]” to social and political

policies relating to access and resource preservation. ARA

Leisure Servs. v. United States, 831 F.2d 193, 195 (9th Cir.

1987); see also Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1137 (holding that the

NPS’s decision not to warn of a rockfall hazard involved a

“process of identifying and responding to hazards in the wild”

and “implicate[d] the NPS’s broader policy mandates to

balance access with conservation and safety”); Childers,

40 F.3d at 975 (concluding that the NPS’s decision not to

warn of unmaintained trails was “inextricably linked to

central policy questions” relating to access and preservation). 

Such decisions are therefore protected under the discretionary

function exception.

NPS decisions not to provide warnings at other natural

features within the national parks, even where the NPS has

provided access to those features, may likewise be protected. 

In Valdez v. United States, the plaintiffs sued the United

States alleging a failure to erect barriers at the top of certain

waterfalls in Kings Canyon National Park and a failure to

warn of the dangers the waterfalls posed to the public. 

56 F.3d at 1178. Relying on Childers, we held that the NPS’s

decision not to warn of natural, obvious risks “clearly

implicates a choice between the competing policy

considerations of maximizing access to and preservation of

natural resources versus the need to minimize potential safety

hazards.” Id. at 1180. A year later, we held that the NPS’s

decision not to warn of the dangers of diving off Stoneman

Bridge at Yosemite National Park was protected by the

discretionary function exception because the decision was

“based on considerations of visitor enjoyment, preservation

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 17

of the historical features of the bridge, the need to avoid a

proliferation of man-made intrusions, and protection of

wildlife and the general riparian environment.” Blackburn,

100 F.3d at 1434.

Those cases suggest that, when the NPS decides whether

to warn of dangers that exist naturally in its national parks,

those decisions generally are guided by considerations of

policy. The NPS must balance, for example, its purpose to

provide visitor access to park resources against its need to

protect the public from harm. It must also consider its

obligation to preserve the natural environment “for the

enjoyment of future generations.” See 16 U.S.C. § 1. And,

at times, it must consider how best to protect wildlife and

park ecosystems and to preserve historical features of the

lands it maintains.

But those policies, while crucial to the NPS’s operations,

cannot shield every decision the Park Service makes. For that

reason, we have declined to “quickly accept that everyminute

aspect of the NPS’s work is touched by the policy concerns

of the Organic Act.” Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1130. Because

“[i]t is not sufficient for the government merely to [wave] the

flag of policy as a cover for anything and everything it does

that is discretionary,” we have demanded “some support in

the record” that the particular decision the NPS made was

actually susceptible to analysis under the policies the

government identified. Id. at 1134. Cases in which the

government cannot provide such support delimit the scope of

the discretionary function exception’s reach.

Summers v. United States was such a case. In Summers,

the plaintiffs alleged that the government had failed to warn

visitors at Rodeo Beach of the hazards of stepping on hot

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18 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

coals at the beach’s fire pits. 905 F.2d 1212, 1214 (9th Cir.

1990). The government, in response, offered “no evidence

. . . that NPS’s failure to post warnings of the sort that would

have prevented [the plaintiff’s] injury was the result of a

decision reflecting the competing considerations of the

Service’s sign policy.” Id. at 1215. Finding “nothing in the

record to indicate that the failure to provide signs resulted

from a decision grounded in economic, social, or political

policy,” we concluded that the government’s failure to warn

was not protected by the discretionaryfunction exception. Id.

at 1215–16. We reached a similar conclusion in Oberson v.

United States Department of Agriculture, 514 F.3d at 997–98,

noting that the government offered “no evidence to show that

its failure to post a warning [at the location of a known

hazard] was the result of a policy decision.”

Our decision in Sutton v. Earles, 26 F.3d 903, 910 (9th

Cir. 1994), also dealt with a circumstance in which the

agency’s decision was not susceptible to policy analysis. In

Sutton, we held that the Navy’s failure to post speed limit

signs after it placed buoys in navigable waterways was not

protected by the discretionaryfunction exception. Faced with

a circumstance where, as here, the hazard at issue was both

known to and created by the agency, we concluded that the

agency’s decision not to warn of that hazard was not policybased. Specifically, we held that “[a] decision not to warn of

a specific, known hazard for which the acting agency is

responsible is not the kind of broader social, economic or

political policy decision that the discretionary function

exception is intended to protect.” Id.

* * * * *

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 19

Relying on those cases to guide our analysis, we must

decide where this case falls along the spectrum of

government conduct we have described. We conclude that

the NPS’s decision not to warn of the latent dangers

associated with the transformer near the JVC was a decision

“totally divorced” from the policies that the government has

identified as the basis for its decision. See Whisnant,

400 F.3d at 1181. In so doing, we reject the government’s

argument that its decision required it to “balance safety,

access, and preservation” in making judgments about

(1) managing snow, (2) prioritizing inspections,

(3) prioritizing and responding to hazards once identified, and

(4) deciding “what signs, poles, fences or other barriers

would best educate, deter and prevent the public from

accessing places where hazards may be found.”

We have little doubt that NPS staff members make

discretionary decisions every day about managing snow,

prioritizing inspections, and responding to hazards. But those

decisions are not at issue in this case, so we reject the

government’s efforts to make this case about them. Relying,

as we must, on the facts alleged in Plaintiffs’ complaint, this

case is about the NPS’s decision not to place a warning sign

at the location of the buried transformer, even though the

NPS knew that the transformer emitted heat, knew that it was

buried under twelve feet of snow, and knew that it was

located right across the road from the Park’s most popular

visitor area. The NPS’s decision in that respect is not

susceptible to considerations of any social, economic, or

political policy that the government has identified.

As noted, the government argues that its decision was

driven by policy considerations relating to access, historic

and natural resource preservation, and conservation. It

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20 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES

contends that this case is just like Childers, Blackburn, and

Valdez—cases in which the agency had failed to warn in

circumstances that we found to implicate considerations of

access, resource preservation, and conservation. See

Childers, 40 F.3d at 975–76 (unmaintained trails relate to

access and resource preservation); Blackburn, 100 F.3d at

1434 (historic bridge relates to access, preservation, and the

environment); Valdez, 56 F.3d at 1180 (barriers atop

waterfalls relate to access and resource preservation). But

here, those considerations are irrelevant.

The snowfield in which the transformer is located is

approximately 150 feet from the visitor center building. 

While the snowfield is accessible—and, indeed, often

accessed—NPS staff members claim that it is “not attractive.”

While the NPS was aware that visitors can access the area,

the area is “not one of the areas that [the NPS] develop[s] and

maintain[s] to get people out of the parking lot onto the

snow.” In other words, although visitors access the area of

the transformer, the NPS does not seek to provide access to it. 

Thus, this is not a case in which the government is faced with

policy considerations related to providing access to visitors in

the face of known dangers.

This is also not a decision susceptible to policy matters

such as historic or natural resource preservation. NPS staff

members suggest that their decisions about where to place

warning signs throughout the Park are often affected by their

responsibility to protect the “look and feel of [the] historic

district” and the “natural environment [and] the ecosystem.” 

They note that “[t]he superintendent has the discretion to act

upon hazards that would help prevent serious injury or

fatality based on a number of things, and that includes the

mission of what our legal mandate is, which is to protect –

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 21

protect the park resources and the values that are in the park,

and to ensure that they’re going to be there for future

generations.” But their decision not to warn about the

dangers associated with the transformer—infrastructure that

itself takes away from the “look and feel of the historic

district”—cannot reasonably be “linked” to those policies. 

Where, as here, the hazard is not located “in the wild,” see

Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1137, has no connection to visitor

enjoyment or “protection of wildlife and the general alpine

environment,” see Blackburn, 100 F.3d at 1434, and was

created by the agency itself, the Park Service’s decision not

to warn can only be considered “totally divorced” from the

policies on which it purports to rely, see O’Toole, 295 F.3d at

1035.

IV. Conclusion

The Organic Act and the regulations promulgated

pursuant to its directive afford the National Park Service

substantial discretion in making decisions related to the

operation of our national parks. In making those decisions,

NPS staff must consider policies concerning access; visitor

enjoyment; historical, wildlife, and natural resource

preservation; and conservation. 16 U.S.C. § 1. Above all,

however, the Park Service must “striv[e]to protect human life

and provide for injury-free visits.” Where, as here, warning

against a hazard known to and created by the NPS would not

implicate concerns for access, visitor enjoyment, or

environmental preservation, the only policy the NPS must

consider is one it appears to have ignored: visitor safety.

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In a similar case, we stated that

a failure to warn involves considerations of

safety, not public policy. It would be wrong

to apply the discretionary function exception

in a case where a low-level government

employee made a judgment not to post a

warning sign, or to erect a guardrail, or to

make a safer path. Such a judgment would be

no different than a judgment made by a

private individual not to take certain measures

to ensure the safety of visitors. To interpret

such a judgment as discretionarywould be too

expansive an interpretation of [Congress’s]

intent in creating the discretionary function

exception.

Faber v. United States, 56 F.3d 1122, 1125 (9th Cir. 1995). 

Here, there is no apparent connection between the agency’s

decision and the policies it identifies as the basis for that

decision. The only rationale for protecting the decision

therefore “falls away.” See ARA Leisure Servs., 831 F.2d at

195. For that reason, we conclude that the NPS’s decision

not to warn of a hazard that it knew of and created—and that

it placed near a visitor center serving 1 million visitors

annually—cannot be shielded by the FTCA’s discretionary

function exception.2 Because that is so, the district court

erred in determining, at least at this stage, that it lacked

jurisdiction over this case. We therefore reverse the district

2 Construing the facts in the light most favorable to the Plaintiffs, as we

are required to do under Augustine, 704 F.2d at 1077, we assume that the

Park Service knew of the hazard created by the transformer.

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YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 23

court’s judgment and remand the case for further

proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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