Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-147_g31h.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

23 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

that could be had under Bivens”); Minneci, 565 U. S., at 120 
(rejecting  Bivens  action  for  Eighth  Amendment  violations 
against employees of a privately operated federal prison be-
cause “state tort law authorizes adequate alternative dam-
ages  actions—actions  that  provide  both  significant  deter-
rence and compensation”).  By the Court’s logic, however,
the existence of any disciplinary framework, even if crafted 
by the Executive Branch rather than Congress, and even if 
wholly nonparticipatory and lacking any judicial review, is
sufficient to bar a court from recognizing a Bivens remedy.
That reasoning, as disturbing as it is wrong, marks yet an-
other  erosion  of  Bivens’  deterrent  function  in  the  law  en-
forcement sphere.8 

C 
The Court thinly veils its disapproval of Bivens, ending
its  opinion  by  citing  a  string  of  dissenting  opinions  and 
single-Member  concurrences  by  various  Members  of  this
Court expressing criticisms of Bivens.  Ante, at 16–17.  But 
the  Court  unmistakably  stops  short  of  overruling  Bivens 
and its progeny, and appropriately so.  Even while declining
to extend Bivens to new contexts, this Court has reaffirmed 
that it did “not inten[d] to cast doubt on the continued force, 
or  even  the  necessity,  of  Bivens  in  the  search-and-seizure 
context in which it arose.”  Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., 
at  11).  Although  today’s  opinion  will  make  it  harder  for 
plaintiffs  to  bring  a  successful  Bivens  claim,  even  in  the 
Fourth  Amendment  context,  the  lower  courts  should  not 
read it to render Bivens a dead letter. 

That said, the Court plainly modifies the Bivens standard 
in a manner that forecloses Boule’s claims and others like 
them  that  should  be  permitted  under  this  Court’s  Bivens 

—————— 

8 Even beyond its doctrinal innovations on the merits, the Court also 
fashions a brand new, Bivens-specific procedural rule under which it ex-
cuses Egbert’s forfeiture of his argument that CBP’s administrative pro-
cess suffices as an alternative remedy.  Ante, at 12, n. 3.