NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JEREMY V. PINSON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

UNKNOWN PARTY, John Doe #1, Special 

Investigative Agent; et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-16744 

D.C. No. 4:13-cv-02059-DCB 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

David C. Bury, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted September 26, 2017**

Before: SILVERMAN, TALLMAN, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges. 

Federal prisoner Jeremy V. Pinson appeals pro se from the district court’s 

summary judgment and dismissal order in her action under Bivens v. Six Unknown 

Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) and the 

Privacy Act, alleging deliberate indifference to her safety. We have jurisdiction 

 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

FILED

OCT 4 2017

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 16-16744 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo a dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 

1915(g), Barren v. Harrington, 152 F.3d 1193, 1194 (9th Cir. 1998), and summary 

judgment, Nunez v. Duncan, 591 F.3d 1217, 1222 (9th Cir. 2010). We reverse and 

remand.

The district court granted summary judgment on Pinson’s deliberate 

indifference claim, concluding that defendants were not deliberately indifferent to 

Pinson’s safety because they identified Pinson as an informant to inmates in a 

facility where Pinson was not housed, and that her identification as an informant 

was not the cause of the subsequent attack on Pinson. However, Pinson presented 

evidence that she suffered an attack that was motivated by defendants’ 

identification of her as an informant. Viewing the evidence in the light most 

favorable to Pinson, Pinson raised a triable dispute as to whether defendants were 

deliberately indifferent to her safety when they identified her as an informant, and 

whether this identification was the cause of the attacks and threats she suffered. 

See Valandingham v. Bojorquez, 866 F.2d 1135, 1138 (9th Cir. 1989) (labelling 

prisoner a “snitch” may violate the prisoner’s right to be protected from violence 

while in custody); see also Lemire v. Cal. Dep't of Corr. & Rehab., 726 F.3d 1062, 

1074 (9th Cir. 2013) (explaining that plaintiffs alleging deliberate indifference in § 

1983 actions “must ... demonstrate that the defendants’ actions were both an actual 

and proximate cause of their injuries”). We reverse the judgment on this claim, 
3 16-16744 

and remand for further proceedings. 

The district court properly determined that defendant Bureau of Prisons 

(“BOP”), as a federal agency, is not a proper defendant in a Bivens action. 

However, the district court did not address Pinson’s claim that the BOP violated 

the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, by improperly disclosing her records without her 

consent. See Schowengert v. General Dynamics Corp., 823 F.2d 1328, 1340 (9th 

Cir. 1987) (the agency is the only proper defendant in a civil action under the 

Privacy Act); 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1). We remand for the district court to consider 

Pinson’s Privacy Act claim against the BOP in the first instance.

We do not consider matters not specifically and distinctly raised and argued 

in the opening brief. See Padgett v. Wright, 587 F.3d 983, 985 n. 2 (9th Cir. 2009).

REVERSED and REMANDED.