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Page Number: 21.0

16 

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI 

Opinion of the Court 

70,  and  n. 4.    The  Court  explained  that  special  factors 
counseled  hesitation  and  that  the  Bivens  remedy  was 
therefore unavailable.  534 U. S., at 74. 

For similar reasons, the holding of the Court of Appeals
in  the  instant  suit  is  inconsistent  with  this  Court’s  ana- 
lytic framework in Chappell.  In Davis, decided before the 
Court’s  cautionary  instructions  with  respect  to  Bivens 
suits,  see  supra,  at  11–12,  the  Court  had  held  that  an 
employment-discrimination  claim  against  a  Congressman 
could proceed as a Bivens-type action.  Davis, 442 U. S., at 
230–231.  In Chappell, however, the cautionary rules were
applicable;  and,  as  a  result,  a  similar  discrimination  suit 
against military officers was not allowed to proceed.  It is 
the Chappell framework that now  controls; and, under it, 
the  Court  of  Appeals  erred  by  holding  that  this  suit  did 
not present a new Bivens context. 

The proper test for determining whether a case presents 
a new Bivens context is as follows.  If the case is different 
in  a  meaningful  way  from  previous  Bivens  cases  decided 
by this Court, then the context is new.  Without endeavor-
ing  to  create  an  exhaustive  list  of  differences  that  are
meaningful  enough  to  make  a  given  context  a  new  one, 
some  examples  might  prove  instructive.    A  case  might 
differ  in  a  meaningful  way  because  of  the  rank  of  the
officers  involved;  the  constitutional  right  at  issue;  the 
generality or specificity of the official action; the extent of
judicial  guidance  as  to  how  an  officer  should  respond  to
the  problem  or  emergency  to  be  confronted;  the  statutory 
or other legal mandate under which the officer was operat-
ing;  the  risk  of  disruptive  intrusion  by  the  Judiciary  into
the  functioning  of  other  branches;  or  the  presence  of  po-
tential  special  factors  that  previous  Bivens  cases  did  not 
consider. 

In the present suit, respondents’ detention policy claims
challenge  the  confinement  conditions  imposed  on  illegal 
aliens pursuant to a high-level executive policy created in