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Page Number: 23

2 

EGBERT v. BOULE 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

think Congress might be better equipped” than a court to
“ ‘weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action 
to proceed’ ”?  Ante, at 7–8; see Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U. S. 
120, ___–___ (2017) (slip op., at 13–14).  But, respectfully,
resolving that much only serves to highlight the larger re-
maining  question:  When  might  a  court  ever  be  “better 
equipped”  than  the  people’s  elected  representatives  to
weigh the “costs and benefits” of creating a cause of action?
It seems to me that to ask the question is to answer it.  To 
create a new cause of action is to assign new private rights
and liabilities—a power that is in every meaningful sense
an act of legislation.  See Sandoval, 532 U. S., at 286–287; 
Nestlé, 593 U. S., at ___ (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op., 
at 5); Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) 
(GORSUCH, J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in  judg-
ment)  (slip  op.,  at  3).    If  exercising  that  sort  of  authority 
may  once  have  been  a  “ ‘proper  function  for  common-law 
courts’ ”  in  England,  it  is  no  longer  generally  appropriate 
“ ‘for federal tribunals’ ” in a republic where the people elect 
representatives to make the rules that govern them.  Sand-
oval, 532 U. S., at 287.  Weighing the costs and benefits of 
new laws is the bread and butter of legislative committees.
It has no place in federal courts charged with deciding cases 
and controversies under existing law.

Instead of saying as much explicitly, however, the Court 
proceeds on to conduct a case-specific analysis.  And there I 
confess  difficulties.  The  plaintiff  is  an  American  citizen 
who argues that a federal law enforcement officer violated 
the  Fourth  Amendment  in  searching  the  curtilage  of  his 
home.  Candidly, I struggle to see how this set of facts dif-
fers meaningfully from those in Bivens itself.  To be sure, as 
the Court emphasizes, the episode here took place near an 
international border and the officer’s search focused on vio-
lations of the immigration laws.  But why does that matter?
The  Court  suggests  that  Fourth  Amendment  violations