In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-1501

STEPHEN LINDER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 14-cv-2714 — Joe Billy McDade, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED APRIL 1, 2019 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, SYKES, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. While tracking down a fugitive, Deputy Marshal Stephen Linder interrogated the fugitive’s father. Another deputy marshal later stated that he 

had seen Linder punch the father in the face. After an investigation by the Marshals Service and the Inspector General of 

the Department of Justice, Linder was indicted for federal 

felonies (witness tampering and using excessive force in violation of the father’s civil rights). The Service put Linder on 
2 No. 15-1501

leave, and Darryl McPherson, the U.S. Marshal for the 

Northern District of Illinois, instructed other deputies not to 

communicate with Linder or his lawyers without approval. 

Frustrated by this barrier to ge^ing information from potential witnesses, Linder’s lawyers asked the district court to 

dismiss the indictment as a sanction. That was done, see 

2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29641 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 5, 2013), the United 

States did not appeal, and Linder returned to work. He remains employed as a deputy marshal.

Linder then filed a Bivens action, see Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 

388 (1971), against Marshal McPherson and three other persons. Later he added a suit against the United States under 

the Federal Tort Claims Act. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2401, 2671–

80. The district court dismissed all of Linder’s claims. Those 

under Bivens have been abandoned on appeal, and we have 

changed the caption to show that the litigation is now

against the United States alone. The statutory claim failed, 

the district court held, because §2680(a) provides that the Act 

does not apply to “[a]ny claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, 

in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not 

such statute or regulation be valid, or 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.” The judge concluded that, 

when deciding when federal employees must seek permission to talk with Linder or his lawyer before trial, Marshal 

McPherson had exercised a discretionary function.
No. 15-1501 3

Linder’s suit accuses the United States of two torts: malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. His principal argument is that the discretionaryfunction exemption of §2680(a) does not apply to suits for 

malicious prosecution. He relies on §2680(h), which says that 

“The provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this 

title shall not apply to— ...

Any claim arising out of assault, ba^ery, false imprisonment, 

false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract 

rights: Provided, That, with regard to acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States Government, the provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this title shall apply to any claim arising, on or after the date of the enactment of this proviso, out of assault, ba^ery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, or malicious prosecution. For 

the purpose of this subsection, “investigative or law enforcement 

officer” means any officer of the United States who is empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests for violations of Federal law.

The first clause of §2680(h) takes malicious prosecution outside the scope of the FTCA, and the proviso puts it right 

back in again if an “investigative or law enforcement officer” 

is at fault. Marshal McPherson was a law enforcement 

officer, and it follows, Linder contends, that his claim is covered by the Act whether or not McPherson was exercising a 

discretionary function. This contention has the support of 

Nguyen v. United States, 556 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. 2009), which 

holds that the proviso overrides the rest of §2680.

Nguyen observes that §2680(h) tells us that “[t]he provisions of this chapter”—which is to say, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671–

80—do not apply to malicious-prosecution suits, except to 

the extent saved by the proviso. It follows, Nguyen con-
4 No. 15-1501

cludes, that the exceptions elsewhere in §2680, such as the 

discretionary-function exception, do not apply to the suits 

saved by the proviso. But that’s just not what the proviso 

says, and we have it on the highest authority that we must 

apply this subsection to mean neither more nor less than 

what the language tells us. See Millbrook v. United States, 569 

U.S. 50, 56 (2013).

The proviso says that “the provisions of this chapter and 

section 1346(b) of this title shall apply to any claim” (emphasis added) for malicious prosecution arising out of a law enforcement officer’s acts. “[T]his chapter” includes §2680(a), 

the discretionary-function exemption. This means that discretionary acts by law-enforcement personnel remain outside 

the FTCA by virtue of §2680(a), even though the proviso allows other malicious-prosecution suits. And so multiple 

courts of appeals have held. See Medina v. United States, 259 

F.3d 220, 224–26 (4th Cir. 2001); Campos v. United States, 888 

F.3d 724, 737 (5th Cir. 2018); Gasho v. United States, 39 F.3d 

1420, 1434–35 (9th Cir. 1994); Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 507–

08 (D.C. Cir. 1983). Nguyen stands alone, and we think that 

the other circuits have this right.

It isn’t possible to read §2680(h) as making all of the Federal Tort Claims Act inapplicable to malicious-prosecution 

suits arising from law-enforcement activity. The proviso 

brings back what the opening clause knocks out—and what 

it brings back is §1346(b) plus all of Chapter 171, which includes §§ 2671 through 2680. Any other reading would make 

a hash of the statute. Section 1346(b) is the jurisdictional 

footing of the suit; if it is really knocked out and not brought 

back by the proviso, there would not be a basis for subjectma^er jurisdiction. If §2675 is knocked out and not brought 
No. 15-1501 5

back by the proviso, the administrative-claim requirement of 

the FTCA, see McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106 (1993), 

would vanish. The statute of limitations that makes this administrative-claim requirement work, see 28 U.S.C. §2401(b); 

United States v. Kawi Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625 (2015), would 

vanish. None of these consequences—and there would be 

more—could be imputed to §2680(h) with a straight face. We 

therefore read the proviso to mean what it says: When malicious-prosecution claims arise from law-enforcement activity, the proviso applies the whole of the FTCA, except for the 

part of §2680(h) that precedes the proviso.

This brings us to the question whether, as the district 

judge held, Marshal McPherson was exercising a discretionary function within the scope of §2680(a). The discretionaryfunction exemption under that subsection has two components: first, the assertedly wrongful conduct must entail an 

element of judgment or choice; second, that discretion must 

be based on considerations of public policy. See, e.g., United 

States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322–23 (1991); BerkoviI v. 

United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536–37 (1988); Reynolds v. United 

States, 549 F.3d 1108, 1112 (7th Cir. 2008). The district judge 

found that Marshal McPherson’s instruction satisfies both 

components. A U.S. Marshal has discretion to decide how 

personnel under his command interact with suspended 

officers (including those facing criminal charges); second, 

that discretion rests on judgments about how best to operate 

the Marshals Service so that it achieves its functions with a 

minimum of internal discord.

Marshal McPherson did not make things up on the spur 

of the moment; he consulted and a^empted to follow the

rules (found in USMS Directive 2.2, covering “Misconduct 
6 No. 15-1501

Investigations”, which refers in turn to still other regulations 

and procedures) specifying how to conduct internal investigations. Many of the steps that Marshal McPherson took

were performed under the direction of the Marshals Service’s General Counsel, and §2.2.F.1.c requires these instructions to be implemented. Section 2680(a) tells us that there is 

no liability even if a regulation or directive is invalid, and 

even if the discretion conferred under it has been abused. 

When dismissing Linder’s indictment in 2013, the district 

court suggested in some places that the Directive is invalid 

and in others that the discretion it confers had been abused

by the General Counsel or the U.S. Marshal, but neither of 

these considerations permits tort liability given §2680(a).

Still, Linder asserts, no one has discretion to violate the 

Constitution—and, when dismissing the indictment, the district court stated that the no-contact-without-approval order 

violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. 

2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29641 at *175. This is problematic. 

Compulsory process is a trial right; the Constitution does not 

entitle a criminal defendant to interview potential witnesses 

or take their depositions before trial. See, e.g., Weatherford v. 

Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 559–61 (1976); United States v. Ruiz, 536 

U.S. 622, 629 (2002). The district judge believed that the nocontact-without-approval order “intimidated” other Deputy 

U.S. Marshals, reducing the probability that they would be 

forthcoming at trial, but that belief was never put to the test 

by holding a trial to see what evidence Linder could obtain. 

The district court’s order dismissing the indictment did not 

mention Weatherford or Ruiz. We do not decide whether the 

district court’s order in 2013 was correct, but it did not rest 

on a conclusion that the Marshals Service had violated any 

statute or a discovery order under Fed. R. Crim. P. 15 or 16.
No. 15-1501 7

What’s more, the theme that “no one has discretion to violate the Constitution” has nothing to do with the Federal 

Tort Claims Act, which does not apply to constitutional violations. It applies to torts, as defined by state law—that is to 

say, “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); emphasis added). The Constitution governs the conduct of public officials, not private ones.

The limited coverage of the FTCA, and its inapplicability 

to constitutional torts, is why the Supreme Court created the

Bivens remedy against individual federal employees. And 

when, in the wake of Bivens, Congress adopted the Westfall 

Act to permit the A^orney General to substitute the United 

States as a defendant in lieu of a federal employee, it prohibited this step when the plaintiff’s claim rests on the Constitution. 28 U.S.C. §2679(b)(2)(A). This leaves the FTCA as a 

means to seek damages for common-law torts, without regard to constitutional theories. And, now that all claims 

against the individual defendants have been abandoned, 

that’s what this suit is.

Still, Linder insists, just as no one has discretion to violate the Constitution, no one has discretion to commit a tort 

such as malicious prosecution or intentional infliction of 

emotional distress. That’s true, in the sense that a tort is a 

civil wrong. No one should commit a civil wrong. But unless 

§2680(a) is to be drained of meaning, it must apply to discretionary acts that are tortious. That’s the point of an exception: 

It forecloses an award of damages that otherwise would be 

justified by a tort. Nothing in subsection (a) suggests that 

some discretionary but tortious acts are outside the FTCA 
8 No. 15-1501

while others aren’t. See Kiiskila v. United States, 466 F.2d 626 

(7th Cir. 1972).

The upshot of §2680(a) is that, when some legal doctrine 

creates discretion, the fact that the discretion was misused 

and a tort ensued does not lead to liability for the Treasury. 

No one can doubt that the investigation of (potential) crimes, 

and the management of a federal workforce in which one 

employee is a (potential) criminal, are discretion-laden subjects. There is no one right way to investigate an allegation of 

crime, no one right way for federal employees to relate to 

their colleagues who have been suspended pending the resolution of criminal charges. Our opinion in Reynolds shows

that criminal investigation and prosecution are rife with legitimate discretion, and that how discretion is exercised rests 

on potentially contestable visions of wise policy. Other circuits agree with that view. See, e.g., O’Ferrell v. United States, 

253 F.3d 1257 (11th Cir. 2001).

To say that criminal investigation and prosecution are

suffused with discretion does not imply that every possible 

step must be within the scope of §2680(a). Reynolds makes 

this point in holding that although many prosecutorial steps 

are discretionary, knowingly providing false information 

(i.e., perjury) is not. A step “sufficiently separable” from legitimate discretion can be actionable, Reynolds concludes 

(549 F.3d at 1113), even though bona fide discretion is not. 

Linder wants us to use this exception to swallow the rule, 

with the theme that no one has discretion to commit a tort. 

But there is a blanket rule against perjury, in a way that there 

is not a mechanical rule about how a federal workforce 

should be run while one employee is under indictment.
No. 15-1501 9

When dismissing the indictment the district court did not 

find the violation of a rule such as “don’t lie under oath.” 

Instead it found that management’s instructions to the workforce unduly undermined Linder’s ability to gather evidence. Perhaps a different way of limiting contact with other 

deputies would have been proper. Perhaps a different judge 

would have denied the motion to dismiss the indictment, 

observing that the Marshals Service had not violated any 

discovery order. Because Linder does not contend that the 

United States violated any firm rule limiting the scope of 

discretion, the sort of “sufficiently separable” civil wrong 

discussed in Reynolds has not been made out.

We have so far not mentioned Linder’s contention that 

Special Agent Kevin Shirley, who led the criminal investigation on behalf of the Inspector General and the Civil Rights 

Division of the Department of Justice, commi^ed perjury in 

affidavits he submi^ed to the district court in connection 

with Linder’s motion to dismiss the indictment. We must assume that Linder is correct in labeling some statements “perjury,” though that characterization has not been tested; 

Judge Kendall did not find, when dismissing the indictment, 

that Shirley had lied under oath. Perjury is not a discretionary act, as we have explained, and is not covered by 

§2680(a). But it is also not a tort when it is harmless. Linder

prevailed in his effort to have the indictment dismissed. No 

harm, no tort. See, e.g., Saunders-El v. Rohde, 778 F.3d 556, 

561 (7th Cir. 2015). (To the extent that Linder’s claim rests on 

any of Shirley’s investigatory actions, our discussion of the 

discretionary-function exemption applies to him and need 

not be repeated.)
10 No. 15-1501

Congress might have chosen to provide financial relief to 

all persons who are charged with crime but never convicted. 

The Federal Tort Claims Act does not do this, however, and 

Linder has not claimed that he is entitled to relief under 28 

U.S.C. §§ 2513 and 1495, which apply to persons able to 

prove their innocence. The judgment of the district court is 

therefore

AFFIRMED.