Opinion ID: 185583
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 6 The Civil Service Reform Act, which identifies certain prohibited personnel actions in the federal civil service and creates administrative remedies for the benefit of any employee subjected to such an action, by implication also precludes an aggrieved employee from suing the Government or a fellow employee for damages for engaging in such action. Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367 (1983). In Bush, the Supreme Court held that an employee of the federal government may not recover damages when his superior improperly disciplines him for exercising his rights under the First Amendment because such claims arise out of an employment relationship that is governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving meaningful remedies against the United States, referring to the CSRA. 462 U.S. at 368. The Court reasoned that to creat[e] ... a new judicial remedy for the constitutional violation at issue would disrupt the elaborate remedial system that has been constructed [by the Congress] step by step, with careful attention to conflicting policy considerations. Id. at 388. 7 Fredericks and Taylor maintain that if the CSRA precludes a Bivens action based upon an alleged violation of the First Amendment, then it must similarly preclude Stewart's Bivens action based upon an alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment. Stewart replies by pointing out that in footnote 28 in Bush the Court explicitly distinguished a warrantless search from a violation of the First Amendment: Not all personnel actions are covered by this system.... [C]ertain actions by supervisors against federal employees, such as wiretapping, warrantless searches, or uncompensated takings, would not be defined as 'personnel actions' within the statutory scheme. Id. at 385 n.28. Because, Stewart argues, a warrantless search falls outside the condemnation (and, we presume, the approbation) of the statutory scheme, that scheme cannot preclude a Bivens action based upon such a search. Cf. Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 20-21 (1980) (holding that the Federal Tort Claims Act does not preclude actions for violation of rights under the Constitution). 8 A district court in this circuit accepted the precise argument Stewart advances, McGregor v. Greer, 748 F. Supp. 881, 889 (1990), but the Ninth Circuit took the opposite view in Saul v. United States, 928 F.2d 829, 839 (9th Cir. 1991) (We do not think the footnote [in Bush] was meant to decide whether every allegation that a supervisor has subjected a federal employee to a warrantless search is barred from appeal under the CSRA. Read in context, the footnote indicates only that CSRA remedies, while comprehensive, are not infinitely so). We agree with the district court in McGregor. The disputed footnote in Bush is appended to the Supreme Court's analysis of the comprehensiveness of the statutory scheme. The Court held that the CSRA precludes a Bivens action based upon a violation of an employee's First Amendment rights because the statute covers such a violation (regardless whether it provides a remedy for it). By noting that a warrantless search is not a personnel action[ ] ... covered by this system, and stating that such a search does not fall within the statutory scheme, Bush virtually compels the conclusion that the Act does not preclude a Bivens action for a warrantless search. 9 Fredericks and Taylor contend that Stewart's lawsuit should be dismissed even if it is not precluded by the CSRA, but their arguments are not persuasive. First, the defendants suggest that Stewart must exhaust her remedies under the CSRA before bringing a Bivens action. This makes no sense: The reason the CSRA does not preclude Stewart's lawsuit is precisely that the statute is not concerned with the conduct of which she complains; we cannot ask Stewart to exhaust an administrative remedy that does not exist. 10 Second, the defendants maintain that Stewart lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy in the places they searched -or at least that such an expectation was not clearly established -and that the defendants are therefore shielded from liability by a qualified immunity. But the very case Fredericks and Taylor cite in support of this proposition -O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987 ) -precludes dismissal of Stewart's complaint. O'Connor holds that an unreasonable search in the workplace violates the Fourth Amendment, and that the inquiry into reasonableness must be made on a case-by-case basis. Just as the Court in O'Connor remanded the matter for further proceedings because the record was inadequate for a determination on motion for summary judgment of the reasonableness of the search and seizure, 480 U.S. at 727, so must we remand this case, which did not even get to the summary judgment stage. Without knowing more about the circumstances surrounding the search, a court simply cannot assess whether it was reasonable.