Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05275/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05275-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Charles A. Shuler
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Decided July 15, 2008 

No. 06-5275 

CHARLES A. SHULER, 

APPELLANT

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 05cv02207) 

Patrick M. Regan was on the briefs for appellant. 

Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence

and Darrell C. Valdez, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, were on the 

brief for appellee. 

Before: GRIFFITH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Charles Shuler was shot in the 

back while working for the government as a confidential 

informant. He sues the United States for damages alleging 

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that it negligently put him in harm’s way and failed to protect 

him after promising to do so. The question in this appeal is 

whether Shuler’s claim is the kind for which Congress has 

waived the government’s sovereign immunity under the 

Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”). We conclude that it is not 

and affirm the district court’s dismissal of Shuler’s claim 

because the alleged government misconduct involved 

“discretionary functions” for which the FTCA preserves the 

government’s immunity. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). 

I. 

 According to his complaint, in the winter of 1999 Shuler 

gave information to the FBI, gleaned from his work as a 

confidential informant in the District of Columbia, regarding 

the whereabouts of reputed drug-trafficking boss Kevin Gray. 

Shuler asked that Gray not be arrested immediately, fearing 

that such a move would blow his cover because he alone 

knew of Gray’s whereabouts. The FBI nevertheless arrested 

Gray immediately after receiving Shuler’s information. 

In the days following Gray’s arrest, the FBI ordered 

Shuler to continue to investigate the drug activities of Gray’s 

group. Worried about his safety, Shuler initially refused, but 

after an FBI agent assured him that the FBI would protect 

him, he relented and attempted to arrange illegal drug deals 

with members of Gray’s group. On December 15, 1999, two 

weeks after Gray’s arrest, Shuler’s fears were confirmed. He 

was shot in the back, leaving him permanently paralyzed. 

Shuler believes that the FBI’s hasty arrest blew his cover and 

led Gray to order his murder. 

In December 2001, Shuler filed an administrative claim 

for damages, which the Department of Justice denied. Shuler 

then filed suit in the United States District Court for the 

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District of Columbia asserting jurisdiction under the FTCA. 

28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). The government moved to dismiss 

the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, see FED. R.

CIV. P. 12(b)(1), arguing that Shuler’s claim falls within the 

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

§ 2680(a). The district court agreed; it dismissed Shuler’s 

claim and subsequently denied his motion to alter or amend 

the judgment. 

Shuler appeals both the dismissal of his complaint and 

the denial of his motion to alter or amend the judgment, and 

we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review is 

limited to the district court’s conclusion that it lacked subject 

matter jurisdiction, a legal issue that we review de novo. 

Loughlin v. United States, 393 F.3d 155, 162 (D.C. Cir. 

2004). Shuler bears the burden of demonstrating subject 

matter jurisdiction. Moms Against Mercury v. FDA, 483 F.3d 

824, 828 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

 

II. 

“The United States is protected from unconsented suit 

under the ancient common law doctrine of sovereign 

immunity.” Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 506 (D.C. Cir. 1983). 

However, in 1946, “after nearly thirty years of congressional 

consideration,” and in response to “a feeling that the 

Government should assume the obligation to pay damages for 

the misfeasance of employees in carrying out its work,” 

Congress enacted the FTCA. Dalehite v. United States, 346 

U.S. 15, 24 (1953). The FTCA waives the government’s 

sovereign immunity for suits against the United States 

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 

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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). 

This authorization of suit is subject to several exceptions. 

Relevant to our case is the so-called discretionary function 

exception, which “marks the boundary between Congress’ 

willingness to impose tort liability upon the United States and 

its desire to protect certain governmental activities from 

exposure to suit by private individuals.” United States v. 

Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797, 808 (1984). The United States is 

immune from suit for 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). 

The Supreme Court has provided a two-part test to 

determine “whether the discretionary function exception bars 

a suit against the Government.” Berkovitz v. United States, 

486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988). First, we ask whether a “federal 

statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescribes a course 

of action for an employee to follow.” Id. If so, “the employee 

has no rightful option but to adhere to the directive,” id., and 

“[f]ailure to abide by such [a] directive[] opens the United 

States to suit under the FTCA,” Loughlin, 393 F.3d at 163.

After all, if there is no element of judgment or choice 

involved in the employee’s conduct, there is “no discretion 

. . . for the discretionary function exception to protect.” 

Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536. Second, because the Supreme 

Court has stated that the discretionary function exception 

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“protects only government actions and decisions based on 

considerations of public policy,” id. at 537, even if the 

challenged conduct does involve an element of discretion we 

must also look to whether “the action challenged in the case 

involves the permissible exercise of policy judgment,” id.; see 

also Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 814 (explaining that Congress 

enacted the discretionary function exception 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”). 

 

III. 

Shuler seeks to bring a negligence claim for damages 

against the United States. He alleges that the government 

owed him a duty of care to conceal his identity as an 

informant and to protect him; that it breached this duty by 

arresting Gray at a time that blew his cover and by failing to 

protect him from the harm that followed; and that these 

actions were the proximate cause of an injury for which he is 

due substantial damages. Under the FTCA, the district court 

has subject matter jurisdiction to consider the merits of 

Shuler’s claim only if his complaint sets forth facts sufficient 

to demonstrate either that the government employee whose 

conduct caused him harm violated a specifically prescribed 

policy, or that the employee’s harmful conduct was not within 

the sphere of discretion lawfully given him to exercise 

judgment about how best to achieve legitimate policy 

objectives. See Ignatiev v. United States, 238 F.3d 464, 466–

67 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Shuler’s complaint fails to meet this 

standard. 

 Shuler does not identify any “federal statute, regulation, 

or policy specifically prescrib[ing] a course of action” 

regarding the timing of apprehension of criminal suspects. 

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Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536. Neither does he argue that the 

government’s decision to apprehend Gray at the time it did 

was anything other than an exercise of its lawful discretion to 

decide when best to arrest a dangerous criminal suspect. 

Instead, Shuler focuses on the government’s failure to protect 

him, and for good reason. We think it plain that the 

government’s decision to arrest Gray at the time it did falls 

within the discretionary function exception. Decisions 

regarding the timing of arrests are the kind of discretionary 

government decisions, rife with considerations of public 

policy, that Congress did not want the judiciary “ ‘secondguessing.’ ” Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 814; see Gray, 712 

F.2d at 514 (“The federal government’s decisions concerning 

enforcement of its criminal statutes comprise a part of its 

pursuit of national policy.”) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

 

With regard to the government’s alleged failure to protect 

him after taking actions that disclosed his identity, Shuler 

again fails to point to any specifically prescribed government 

policy and fails to show that the decision whether and how to 

protect a confidential informant is outside the sound 

discretion of government officials. Shuler may have an 

argument that the United States owed him a duty of care as a 

confidential informant, see McIntyre v. United States, 367 

F.3d 38, 54 (1st Cir. 2004); Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 

618 (7th Cir. 1982); Leonhard v. United States, 633 F.2d 599, 

614 (2d Cir. 1980), but we may consider that argument only if 

the FTCA grants the district court jurisdiction over his claim, 

and Shuler has failed to show us that it does. As other circuits 

have recognized, the government has discretion to provide 

informants protection in the way it sees fit, taking into 

account the relevant public policies at stake within the 

particular circumstances of the case. See Ochran v. United 

States, 117 F.3d 495, 501 (11th Cir. 1997) (holding that an 

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Assistant U.S. Attorney’s decision as to how to protect an 

informant that had been threatened by a suspected offender 

involved considerations of public policy because the attorney 

“would be expected to balance the victim’s need for 

protection . . . , the allocation of limited government 

resources, and the government’s dealings with the suspected 

offender, such as a plea negotiation or cooperation of the 

suspected offender with law enforcement agencies”); 

Piechowicz v. United States, 885 F.2d 1207, 1213 (4th Cir. 

1989) (holding that the government’s decision not to protect a 

witness, even after the witness had received a threat, was 

discretionary conduct that “depended on considerations of 

public policy”); Bergmann v. United States, 689 F.2d 789, 

793 (8th Cir. 1982) (“Whether or not the witness or his family 

is in danger is a judgment clearly committed to the discretion 

of the Attorney General. . . . Determining whether protection 

of the witness is advantageous to the federal interest rather 

obviously calls for a policy decision of the discretionary 

nature.”). 

In other words, the duty of protection that Shuler alleges 

the government owed him was a discretionary duty, for which 

the discretionary function exception preserves the 

government’s immunity from suit. Shuler alleges that the 

government abused its discretion in this case by not protecting 

him at all. But where, as here, the government conduct 

involves discretion and considerations of public policy, the 

discretionary function exception immunizes even government 

abuses of discretion. 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a) (excepting from 

federal court jurisdiction under the FTCA claims based on 

government exercise of a discretionary function, “whether or 

not the discretion involved be abused”) (emphasis added); see 

also United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 325 (1991) 

(“The focus of the inquiry is not on the agent’s subjective 

intent in exercising the discretion conferred by statute or 

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regulation, but on the nature of the actions taken and on 

whether they are susceptible to policy analysis.”). 

Shuler’s final argument in support of the district court’s 

jurisdiction under the FTCA relies on dicta in a footnote in 

the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in Ochran v. United States, 117 

F.3d at 506 n.7. In that case, the court rejected the plaintiff’s 

argument that the government’s promise to protect an 

informant creates a duty, the breach of which may be 

challenged under the FTCA. The court explained that even 

after promising to protect an informant, the decision of how to 

offer its protection “involves discretion grounded in public 

policy considerations” and therefore falls within the 

discretionary function exception. Id. at 506. In a footnote, 

however, the court opined that had the dealings between the 

Assistant U.S. attorney and the informant involved voluntary 

assumption by the United States of a “specific duty that 

involved no policy judgments,” the result might be different. 

Id. at 506 n.7. For example, if the government promised to 

“station U.S. Marshals at [the informant’s] door, but then 

failed to do so because [it] negligently misplaced the paper 

work [sic] and forgot about it,” the negligence might be 

actionable under the FTCA. Id. 

The district court in our case rejected Shuler’s argument 

that his claim fell outside the discretionary function exception 

because the government voluntarily undertook to protect him. 

The court explained that Shuler’s “generalized allegation of a 

promise to provide protection does not fit within the narrow 

exception the Ochran court contemplated.” Shuler v. United 

States, No. 05-2207, mem. op. at 11 (D.D.C. Aug. 21, 2006); 

see also id. at 11–12 (stating that “[a]bsent any claim of an 

explicit promise to provide a specific type of protection, the 

defendant’s protective services constitute a discretionary 

function under the FTCA”). Because Shuler alleged only that 

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government agents repeatedly promised to protect him, and 

did not allege an explicit promise of a specific type of 

protection, we agree with the district court’s conclusion. 

Moreover, we, like the district court, reject Shuler’s 

contention that he should be allowed to conduct discovery on 

the issue of whether government agents made any explicit 

promises of protection. The district court dismissed Shuler’s 

case not because he failed to proffer adequate evidence, but 

because his allegations, even if true, are insufficient to 

demonstrate subject matter jurisdiction under the FTCA. 

Nonetheless, because our court has not addressed the 

issue raised in the Ochran footnote, we think it helpful to 

explain the scope of the discretionary function exception in 

this context. In light of the purpose of the exception — to 

“protect[] against unwarranted judicial intrusion into areas of 

governmental operations and policymaking,” Gray, 712 F.2d 

at 506 — we note that negligent acts that contradict an 

explicit promise to provide a specific type of protection may 

be actionable under the FTCA only to the extent that they are 

devoid of considerations of public policy. In other words, a 

government agent does not abandon his discretion by 

promising to protect an informant or witness in a specific 

manner. The agent’s promise does not become a specifically 

prescribed government policy to which “the employee has no 

rightful option but to adhere.” Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536.

Rather, the government agent retains the discretion to choose 

not to protect the individual or to protect him in a different 

manner — even after promising to do so in a specific way — 

should policy considerations so dictate, without subjecting the 

United States to potential liability under the FTCA. See Red 

Lake Band of Chippewa Indians v. United States, 800 F.2d 

1187, 1196 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (“The discretionary function 

exception shields the government from liability for those 

decisions which involve a measure of policy judgment, and 

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immunizes as well the execution of such decisions in specific 

instances by subordinates, even those at the operational level, 

if they must exercise such judgment too.”). Otherwise, the 

discretionary function exception would fail to serve its 

purpose of keeping the judiciary out of the business of 

reviewing policy judgments by government employees. See 

Gray, 712 F.2d at 511 (explaining that sovereign immunity 

serves to prevent courts “from reviewing or judging the 

propriety of the policymaking acts of coordinate branches” 

and from subjecting the sovereign to liability “where doing so 

would inhibit vigorous decisionmaking by government 

policymakers”). We emphasize in this setting what we have 

stated before: “[t]he [discretionary function] exception always 

insulates a ‘permissible exercise of policy judgment.’ ” 

Ignatiev v. United States, 238 F.3d 464, 466 (D.C. Cir. 2001) 

(quoting Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 37). 

IV. 

By means of the discretionary function exception, 

Congress has shielded certain government conduct from suit 

and retained a measure of the federal government’s 

“exceptional freedom from legal responsibility.” Keifer & 

Keifer v. Reconstruction Fin. Corp., 306 U.S. 381, 388 

(1939). Some negligent acts may go unrecompensed. It is not 

for us to say, however, whether the government was negligent 

in this case, as Congress has not placed this matter within the 

jurisdiction of the federal courts. The government’s decision 

to arrest Gray when it did and its decisions regarding the 

protection of Shuler involved considerations of public policy 

that we have no power to second-guess. The government’s 

actions fall within the discretionary function exception to the 

FTCA, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a), and we therefore affirm the 

district court’s grant of the defendant’s motion to dismiss for 

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lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as well as its denial of the 

plaintiff’s motion to alter or amend the judgment. 

So ordered. 

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