Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 51.0

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

7 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

hesitation” and when  Congress has provided an adequate 
alternative  remedy.  446  U. S.,  at  18–19.    The  relevant 
special  factors  in  those  cases  included  whether  the  court
was  faced  “with  a  question  of  ‘federal  fiscal  policy,’ ” 
Bivens, supra, at 396, or a risk of “deluging federal courts 
with  claims,”  Davis,  supra,  at  248  (internal  quotation 
marks  omitted).    Carlson  acknowledged  an  additional 
factor—that  damages  suits  “might  inhibit  [federal  offi-
cials’]  efforts  to  perform  their  official  duties”—but  con-
cluded  that  “the  qualified  immunity  accorded  [federal
officials]  under  [existing  law]  provides  adequate  protec-
tion.”  446 U. S., at 19. 

Fourth,  as  the  Court  recognized  later  in  Carlson,  a 
Bivens remedy was needed to cure what would, without it, 
amount  to  a  constitutional  anomaly.    Long  before  this 
Court incorporated many of the Bill of Rights’ guarantees 
against  the  States,  see  Amar,  The  Bill  of  Rights  and  the
Fourteenth  Amendment,  101  Yale  L. J.  1193  (1992),  fed-
eral  civil  rights  statutes  afforded  a  damages  remedy  to
any  person  whom  a  state  official  deprived  of  a  federal 
constitutional right, see 42 U. S. C. §1983; Monroe v. Pape, 
365  U. S.  167,  171–187  (1961)  (describing  this  history).
But federal statutory law did not provide a damages rem-
edy  to  a  person  whom  a  federal  official  had  deprived  of
that same right, even though the Bill of Rights was at the 
time  of  the  founding  primarily  aimed  at  constraining  the
Federal  Government.  Thus,  a  person  harmed  by  an  un-
constitutional search or seizure might sue a city mayor, a
state legislator, or even a Governor.  But that person could
not sue a federal agent, a national legislator, or a Justice
Department official for an identical offense.  “[Our] ‘consti-
tutional  design,’ ”  the  Court  wrote,  “would  be  stood  on  its 
head  if  federal  officials  did  not  face  at  least  the  same 
liability as state officials guilty of the same constitutional 
transgression.”  Carlson,  supra,  at  22  (quoting  Butz  v. 
Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 504 (1978)).