Opinion ID: 3037281
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claim of False Imprisonment

Text: [1] The United States can be sued only to the extent that it has waived its sovereign immunity. Reed v. United States CONRAD v. UNITED STATES 5285 Dep’t of Interior, 231 F.3d 501, 504 (9th Cir. 2000). The FTCA grants such a waiver and authorizes suits against the United States . . . for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). [2] There are, however, a number of exceptions to this broad waiver of sovereign immunity. Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 535 (1988). The exception relevant to the present case is the discretionary function exception, which maintains the United States’ sovereign immunity for “[a]ny claim . . . based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved is abused.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The discretionary function exception marks the boundary between Congress’ willingness to impose tort liability on the United States and the desire to protect certain decision-making from judicial second-guessing. See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536-37. [3] In assessing whether the discretionary function exception applies to a particular case, we look to “the nature of the conduct, rather than the status of the actor,” and assess the conduct in two ways. Id. at 536 (quoting United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797, 813 (1984)). First, the question is whether the action taken by the government employee is a matter of judgment. Id. (“[C]onduct cannot be discretionary unless it involves an element of judgment or choice.”). The discretionary function exception will not apply if there exists 5286 CONRAD v. UNITED STATES a statute, regulation, or policy mandating particular conduct by a government employee and the statute, regulation, or policy does not allow for the exercise of discretion in fulfilling that mandate. Id. The exception will not apply in such a case because the government employee will have no choice but to follow the mandatory directive. Id. [4] Second, once it has been determined that the challenged conduct involves an element of discretion, the question is whether the discretion is the type of decision-making that the discretionary function exception was designed to protect. Id. The purpose of the discretionary function exception is “to prevent judicial second-guessing of legislative and administrative decisions grounded in social, economic, and political policy through the medium of an action in tort.” Id. at 536-37 (quoting Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 814). Therefore, the discretionary function exception will apply if the discretionary decision made is a permissible exercise of policy judgment. Id. In this case, Conrad argues that the discretionary function exception was not applicable because Agent Osuna was proscribed from exercising any judgment or choice in determining when to present Conrad to a magistrate judge for arraignment. According to Conrad, Agent Osuna’s choice was proscribed by the mandatory directives contained in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) (“Rule 5(a)”) and Internal Revenue Manual (“IRM”) Proposition 9.4.12.14.1 [5] Rule 5(a) requires that “[a] person making an arrest within the United States must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge, or before a state or local judicial officer as Rule 5(c) provides, unless a statute provides otherwise.” FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a) (emphasis added). Similarly, IRM 9.4.12.14 requires that “[a] special agent who makes an arrest, whether with or without an arrest warrant, must take the arrested person, without unnecessary delay, 1 The parties cited this rule as IRM 9447.7. CONRAD v. UNITED STATES 5287 before the nearest available US magistrate or other nearby officer empowered to commit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the United States.” I.R.S. Internal Revenue Manual 9.4.12.14 (July 30, 2004) (emphasis added). The similarities between Rule 5(a) and IRM 9.4.12.14 are striking; IRM 9.4.12.14 even cites Rule 5. Id. It therefore follows that the import of the IRS rule, including its attendant policy considerations, is the same as that of Rule 5. According to Conrad, the use of the word “must” in both rules indicates that Agent Osuna had no choice but to present Conrad to a magistrate judge on the day he was arrested because United States Magistrate Judges, United States Dis- trict Judges, and Fresno County Superior Court Judges were located in close proximity to Conrad’s place of detention and could have conducted the arraignment. Therefore, Conrad contended, because Agent Osuna was required to present Conrad to a magistrate judge without unnecessary delay she was not permitted to exercise any judgment in doing so, and the discretionary function exception would not shield her failure to present Conrad immediately. [6] Conrad’s argument, however, ignores the word “unnecessary” in Rule 5(a) and IRM 9.4.12.14. It is true that by using the word “must” the rules mandate performance as specified. See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 542-43. However, the mandated task in this case is to present an arrested person to the magistrate judge “without unnecessary delay.” By using the qualifying term “unnecessary,” the rule commits some definition of “necessary” to the judgment of the agent in the field. Because the rule does not define the term “unnecessary,” an agent must determine, from all the circumstances existing at the time, how much delay is necessary before presenting a defendant to the magistrate judge. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a) advisory committee’s note (“What constitutes ‘unnecessary delay’, i.e. reasonable time within which the prisoner should be brought before a committing magistrate, must be 5288 CONRAD v. UNITED STATES determined in the light of all the facts and circumstances of the case.”). [7] IRS agents, like other law enforcement officers, are required to avoid unnecessary delay in presenting an arrested person before an appropriate judicial officer. Execution of this duty requires exercise of judgment, the first step in the Varig Airlines analysis. See Reed, 231 F.3d at 504. [8] The second step of the discretionary function analysis is also satisfied in this case because, “[w]hen established governmental policy, as expressed or implied by statute, regulation, or agency guidelines, allows a Government agent to exercise discretion, it must be presumed that the agent’s acts are grounded in policy when exercising that discretion.” United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 324 (1991). Here, the notes of the advisory committee for Rule 5 illustrate the underlying policy decision: that only an agent in the field will be able to adequately determine how much delay is necessary before presenting a defendant to a magistrate judge. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a) advisory committee’s note. [9] There are numerous factors involved in the decision of when to present a suspect to a magistrate judge and no statute, regulation, or policy could adequately predict them all ex ante. Thus, “[Rule 5(a) and IRM 9.4.12.14] allow room for implementing officials to make independent policy judgments” and, therefore, the discretionary function exception must “protect[ ] the acts taken by those officials in the exercise of this discretion.” See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 546. Agent Osuna, acting in conjunction with the AUSA, presented Conrad to a magistrate judge in accordance with the practice of the Eastern District of California, which conducts arraignments principally at times designated by the magistrate judges. Her decision to do so balanced Conrad’s rights under Rule 5(a) with such other considerations as the timing of Conrad’s arrest (see below) and the fact that magistrate judges must perform a broad, varied, and substantial volume of CONRAD v. UNITED STATES 5289 duties that require time themselves: monitoring discovery disputes in civil litigation, trials in delegated civil cases, hearings and fact finding in habeas corpus and other criminal matters, and initial appearances in criminal prosecutions. That Agent Osuna chose to present Conrad at a regularly scheduled time, instead of at a specially arranged one, does not necessitate the conclusion that she abdicated the exercise of judgment. Nor does the record contain evidence that Agent Osuna deliberately delayed arresting Conrad in order to increase the amount of time he would spend in custody. Compare United States v. Jernigan, 582 F.2d 1211, 1214 (9th Cir. 1978) (refusing to dismiss an indictment even though “agent Horn deliberately delayed arresting Jernigan until a time when, as he well knew, Jernigan would not be able to go before a magistrate, have bail reset, and be released”). To the contrary, the time of Conrad’s arrest was chosen to cause the least likelihood of destruction of evidence and the greatest likelihood of seizure of gambling monies. Ultimately, the facts of this case demonstrate that Agent Osuna exercised discretion by not demanding that other players in the investigation/prosecution team cooperate in seeking a special arraignment outside the Eastern District’s schedule. We have been referred to no case holding that such a choice removes an agent’s decision from the protection of the discretionary function exception. That said, we do not suggest that law enforcement agents making arrests may escape the dictates of Rule 5(a) by rigidly adhering to the magistrate judges’ arraignment schedule, thereby abandoning any exercise of individualized judgment or discretion. There is a difference between a case such as this, in which an agent may validly claim that she exercised discretion (even if she has abused it, see 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a)), and a case in which the agent is not exercising discretion but rather exploiting the authority she wields in an effort to circumvent arraignment proceedings. [10] Because Agent Osuna’s decision, to the extent that she was the sole decision maker, involved the exercise of judg5290 CONRAD v. UNITED STATES ment, and because Congress intended to shield this decisionmaking from judicial second-guessing, the discretionary function exception applies to Conrad’s false imprisonment claim. There are no genuine issues of material fact in dispute on the matter. Accordingly, no subject matter jurisdiction exists to hear Conrad’s false imprisonment claim and the district court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the United States. See Gen. Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 139 F.3d 1280, 1283 (9th Cir. 1998) (“If [the discretionary function exception] applies, sovereign immunity is not waived, and no subject matter jurisdiction exists.”).