Opinion ID: 4558232
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: rayonier in 1957

Text: While today we must apply Gaubert’s above-described two-part test, Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322–23, 111 S. Ct. at 1273–74, we review Rayonier Inc. v. 6 The district court, in a footnote, cited Miller v. United States, 163 F.3d 591 (9th Cir. 1998) (involving a forest fire), and Thune v. United States, 872 F. Supp. 921 (D. Wyo. 1995) (involving a controlled burn) for the proposition that other courts have found that the government must consider a variety of policy implications when deciding how to control a spreading fire. In Thune, the government presented evidence of the Forest Service Manual, which covers “the conduct of both conducting controlled fires and fighting wildfires.” See Thune, 872 F. Supp. at 924 (citing the Forest Service Manual, which “outlin[es] factors to be considered in controlled burns,” as well as “elements to be weighed in efforts to control out of control fires”). The district court in Thune observed that “if the presence of negligence were allowed to defeat the discretionary function exception, the exception would prove a meager shield indeed against tort liability.” Id. at 925 (quoting Kennewick Irrigation Dist. v. United States, 880 F.2d 1018, 1029 (9th Cir. 1989)). 13 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 14 of 132 United States, 352 U.S. 315, 77 S. Ct. 374 (1957), because it too involved an FTCA claim based on the government’s negligent management of a forest fire that spread from government land and damaged plaintiffs’ property. 352 U.S. at 315– 17, 77 S. Ct. at 375. In Rayonier, the government allowed railway trains to run over a right of way that passed through the government land. Id. at 316, 77 S. Ct. at 375. The government negligently allowed highly flammable dry grasses, brush, and other materials to accumulate, and sparks from a railroad engine ignited fires “on the right of way and adjoining land.” Id. at 316, 77 S. Ct. at 375. After the fire was “under control” and “substantially out,” certain spots continued to burn and smolder, but the government kept only a few men guarding the fire, despite strong winds and the presence of a “tinder-dry” accumulation of debris and dead logs. Id. at 316, 77 S. Ct. at 375. The winds blew sparks from the smoldering embers, and the fire “exploded” and spread as far as 20 miles. Id. at 316, 77 S. Ct. at 375. The forest fire destroyed the plaintiffs’ property. Id. at 316–17, 77 S. Ct. at 375. In Rayonier, the Supreme Court held that the government could be subject to suit under the FTCA in cases involving the negligence of government employees in controlling forest fires. Id. at 317–18, 77 S. Ct. at 375–76. In holding the government subject to the FTCA suit, the Supreme Court reasoned that “[t]here is 14 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 15 of 132 no justification for this Court to read exemptions into the [FTCA] beyond those provided by Congress.” Id. at 320, 77 S. Ct. at 377. Rayonier is not controlling here for two reasons. First and foremost, Rayonier was not a discretionary-function case. The Supreme Court did not cite or address the discretionary-function exception in 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). 7 The government did not argue that the decisions of U.S. Forestry Branch officials fell within that discretionary-function exception. Instead, the government asserted threshold claims about the scope of the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity. The government argued that: (1) the FTCA “did not waive the United States’ immunity from liability for the negligence of its employees when they act as public firemen”; (2) the FTCA imposes liability on the United States only where “governmental bodies have traditionally been responsible for the misconduct of their employees”; and (3) neither common law nor the law of the state of Washington “imposes liability on municipal or other local governments for the negligence of their agents acting in the ‘uniquely governmental’ capacity of public firemen.” Id. at 318–19, 77 S. Ct. at 376. The Supreme Court’s decision in 7 Section 2680 was enacted in June 1948, almost nine years before the Supreme Court decided Rayonier in January 1957. Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, § 2680(a), 62 Stat. 869, 984 (1948) (codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. § 2680). Although Congress has since amended portions of § 2680, the current language of the discretionary-function exception—as articulated in subsection (a)—is identical to the language Congress originally enacted. Compare id., with 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). 15 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 16 of 132 Rayonier addresses the scope of the FTCA’s waiver, not the discretionary-function exception to that waiver. Second, and in any event, when Rayonier was decided in 1957, immunity for the negligence of government employees performing discretionary actions was analyzed under a different framework than it is today. In fact, Gaubert’s nowubiquitous two-part test is absent from the Supreme Court’s early jurisprudence in this area. See, e.g., Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 61, 68–69, 76 S. Ct. 122, 126–27 (1955); Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 41–42, 73 S. Ct. 956, 971 (1953). Rather, at the time of Rayonier, federal courts applying early discretionary-function precedent often relied on a distinction between (1) planning or policymaking decisions—to which the discretionary-function exception generally applied—and (2) operational conduct—where the exception’s applicability was less clear. See, e.g., White v. United States, 317 F.2d 13, 17 (4th Cir. 1963) (“The application of [a] policy to [an] individual case is an administrative decision at the operational level which if negligently done will make the Government liable . . . .”); United States v. Hunsucker, 314 F.2d 98, 103–04 (9th Cir. 1962) (“[T]he distinction referred to in Dalehite between decisions made on the planning level as against decisions made on the operational level has been accepted by several courts.”). 16 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 17 of 132 It was not until at least 1984, well after Rayonier, that the Supreme Court began to synthesize its prior precedent and to articulate the two-part test that federal courts apply today. See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 535–37, 108 S. Ct. at 1958– 59; United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797, 813–14, 104 S. Ct. 2755, 2764– 65 (1984); see also Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322–24, 111 S. Ct. at 1273–74 (summarizing Varig Airlines and Berkovitz). In doing so, the Supreme Court rejected the existence of any bright-line dichotomy between planning or policymaking decisions and operational decisions implied by its prior precedent. Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325, 111 S. Ct. at 1275 (“A discretionary act is one that involves choice or judgment; there is nothing in that description that refers exclusively to policymaking or planning functions. . . . Discretionary conduct is not confined to the policy or planning level.”). Accordingly, Rayonier’s holding does not resolve our inquiry as to whether, under Gaubert’s two-part test, the discretionary-function exception in § 2680(a) protects the United States from FTCA liability for its alleged negligent failure to observe, monitor, and maintain a natural or controlled forest fire. 8 Because no 8 Our colleague’s dissent agrees Rayonier does not resolve our inquiry. Dissent at 2 (“Rayonier did not address the FTCA’s discretionary function exception, so it does not control the precise issue before us.”). At least one of our sister circuits also has concluded that Rayonier does not resolve whether the discretionary-function exception operates to bar suit for alleged negligence in failing to control a forest fire. Miller, 163 F.3d at 596–97 (“Because the Supreme Court in Rayonier did not have the question before it of whether the discretionary function 17 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 18 of 132 Supreme Court precedent resolves that issue, we next examine how our own Court has applied Gaubert’s two-part test to government conduct.