Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 28

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

23 

Opinion of the Court 

Stanley,  supra,  at  681  (noting  that  the  special-factors
analysis  in  that  case  turned  on  “how  much  occasional, 
unintended  impairment  of  military  discipline  one  is  will-
ing  to  tolerate”).    The  proper  balance  is  one  for  the  Con-
gress,  not  the  Judiciary,  to  undertake.    For  all  of  these 
reasons,  the  Court  of  Appeals  erred  by  allowing  respond-
ents’ detention policy claims to proceed under Bivens. 

IV 

A 

One  of  respondents’  claims  under  Bivens  requires  a
different  analysis:  the  prisoner  abuse  claim  against  the 
MDC’s  warden,  Dennis  Hasty.    The  allegation  is  that
Warden Hasty violated the Fifth Amendment by allowing 
prison guards to abuse respondents. 

The  warden  argues,  as  an  initial  matter,  that  the  com-
plaint does not “ ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on
its  face.’ ”  Iqbal,  556  U. S.,  at  678  (quoting  Bell  Atlantic 
Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U. S. 544, 570 (2007)).  Applying its
precedents, the Court of Appeals held that the substantive 
standard  for  the  sufficiency  of  the  claim  is  whether  the 
warden showed “deliberate indifference” to prisoner abuse.
789 F. 3d, at 249–250.  The parties appear to agree on this
standard,  and,  for  purposes  of  this  case,  the  Court  as-
sumes it to be correct. 

The  complaint  alleges  that  guards  routinely  abused 
respondents;  that  the  warden  encouraged  the  abuse  by
referring to respondents as “terrorists”; that he prevented
respondents from using normal grievance procedures; that 
he  stayed  away  from  the  Unit  to  avoid  seeing  the  abuse;
that  he  was  made  aware  of  the  abuse  via  “inmate  com-
plaints,  staff  complaints,  hunger  strikes,  and  suicide 
attempts”;  that  he  ignored  other  “direct  evidence  of  [the] 
abuse,  including  logs  and  other  official  [records]”;  that  he 
took  no  action  “to  rectify  or  address  the  situation”;  and 
that the abuse resulted in the injuries described above, see