Opinion ID: 616409
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of the Conduct

Text: The second step of the inquiry is to determine whether the identified conduct involves a matter that the political branches have left to the actor's choice. Fothergill, 566 F.3d at 253. If a federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow ... the employee has no rightful option but to adhere to the directive. Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536, 108 S.Ct. 1954. In such circumstances, where the employee's conduct cannot appropriately be the product of judgment or choice,... there is no discretion in the conduct for the discretionary function exception to protect. Id.; see also Montijo-Reyes, 436 F.3d at 25. Where, however, the government actors in question have latitude to make decisions and choose among alternative courses of action, the conduct is discretionary. Bolduc, 402 F.3d at 61. Appellants argue that the GSA employees overseeing the Federico Degetau complex had no discretion to forego safety measures that would have prevented the unsafe, overlapping activities by Genett and the childcare center on federal property. Although they point to no federal law, regulation or policy requiring GSA to control the interaction between the contractors on safety issues, [17] they maintain that the government had an obligation under Commonwealth law applicable to landowners, as well as under the contract, to ensure the children's safety by establishing and enforcing a schedule barring lawn mowing during the children's outdoor playtime. Appellants further suggest that the government was required to take action because GSA officials knew that maintenance personnel had previously mowed the lawn near the childcare center while children were playing outside. We consider in turn the significance of Commonwealth law, the contract, and the allegation of knowledge.
Appellants may not invoke Puerto Rico law as a basis for determining whether the government's failure to adopt and enforce lawn-mowing safety procedures was protected discretionary conduct. State law cannot override the FTCA's grant of immunity for discretionary conduct: [A]lthough the threshold inquiry into governmental liability as defined by the FTCA requires an examination of state law to define tortious conduct, the question of whether a state law tort can be applied against the United States is exclusively one of federal law. Claimants obtain their right to sue [the federal government] from Congress [and they] necessarily must take it subject to such restrictions as have been imposed. Berkman v. United States, 957 F.2d 108, 111-13 (4th Cir.1992) (alterations in original) (quoting Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 31, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953) (quoting Fed. Hous. Admin. v. Burr, 309 U.S. 242, 251, 60 S.Ct. 488, 84 L.Ed. 724 (1940))); see also, e.g., Sydnes v. United States, 523 F.3d 1179, 1184 (10th Cir.2008) (Considering state tort law as a limit on the federal government's discretion at the jurisdictional stage impermissibly conflates the merits of plaintiffs' claims with the question whether the United States has conferred jurisdiction on the courts to hear those claims in the first place.); Abreu, 468 F.3d at 23 (Even where the government conduct would create state tort liability in a suit against a private party, the FTCA provides that sovereign immunity is not waived if the challenged governmental action involved the exercise of discretion.). [18] But see Dickerson, Inc. v. United States, 875 F.2d 1577, 1583 (11th Cir.1989) (holding that the independent contractor exception in the FTCA would not insulate the Government from the contractor's negligence if the duty was non-delegable under Florida law). Thus, whether the government may be held liable under the FTCA for the failure to implement and enforce safety measures turns on whether federal law left it to the discretion of the applicable GSA officials to adoptor notsuch measures. Cf. Logue, 412 U.S. at 528, 93 S.Ct. 2215 (Congress... could have left the determination as to whose negligence the Government should be liable for under the Federal Tort Claims Act to the law of the State involved, as it did with other aspects of liability under the Act. But it chose not to do this....). As noted, appellants have identified no pertinent federal law obliging GSA to assume the day-to-day responsibility for safety.
We already have rejected appellants' argument that the government retained responsibility for safety in its agreements with Rainforest Kids and Genett. See supra Section II.B.2. We see no basis on which the government's chosen allocation of authority could be deemed improper. Where no federal law or policy limited the government's discretion to delegate the coordination of schedules, or other lawnmowing safety precautions, to the independent contractors, the United States had the flexibility to craft the balance of authority in the contracts as it saw fit. See, e.g., Muniz-Rivera v. United States, 326 F.3d 8, 16 (1st Cir.2003) (noting that, in a case involving flooding of federally supported housing, no applicable statute, regulation, or policy directed the manner in which the supervision is to be carried out nor specif[ied] the taking of the actions that the plaintiffs claim would have prevented their plight); Bolduc, 402 F.3d at 61 (Where ... the government actors in question have latitude to make decisions and choose among alternative courses of action, the conduct is discretionary.). Indeed, the decision to assign independent contractors the responsibility for safety, in particular, has been found to be within the government's discretion. See, e.g., Wood, 290 F.3d at 40 (noting that delegation of safety issues to a contractor reflected a judgment that in obtaining the `best value' for the American taxpayer, worker safety should be a primary concern of the contractor); Shuman v. United States, 765 F.2d 283, 294-95 (1st Cir.1985) (endorsing dismissal of FTCA claim based on discretionary decision to delegate safety responsibility to independent contractor); cf. Shansky v. United States, 164 F.3d 688, 693 (1st Cir.1999) ([T]here is no principled basis for superimposing a generalized `safety exception' upon the discretionary function defense.); McMichael, 751 F.2d at 307 (finding that government inspectors' failure to enforce safety requirements not protected by discretionary function exception where inspectors were given a number of precise inspections to perform which involved no judgment concerning agency policy). [19] As a matter of course, GSA's permissible judgment to delegate to the contractors the day-to-day responsibility for safety in the performance of their activities meant that the government had the discretion not to prescribe lawn-mowing and outdoor play schedules. The contractors, not the United States, bore responsibility for implementing procedures to ensure the safety of the Rainforest Kids children. [20]
Appellants suggest that, even if the United States otherwise had the discretion to delegate the coordination of activities to the contractors, the government was obliged to act here because it had knowledge that the dangerous conduct at issue had occurred previously. Assuming for the sake of argument that government knowledge could be part of the discretionary function analysis, appellants' attempt to invoke that factor here is unavailing. The only evidence of government knowledge in the record is a limited, disputed request for admission. When the United States failed to respond to appellants' requests for admission within the thirty days specified by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36(a), appellants moved to deem admitted, inter alia, a statement that GSA, through its employees, had knowledge that maintenance personnel had previously mowed the lawn surrounding the Rainforest Kids Child Development Center at the same time that children were playing outside the facility. In its opposition to the deeming motion, the government attributed its delayed response to its normal reliance on the relevant agency to coordinate and provide the information necessary to respond to discovery requests and stated that it had by that time responded to the appellants' requests for admissions and production of documents. The district court did not rule on appellants' motion to deem before dismissing the case. Even if the statement is deemed admitted, however, it is an insufficient basis on which to deny the government the protection of the discretionary function exception. The statement says only that the overlap had occurred before, at an unspecified time, and not that it had been occurring routinely. Whatever the significance generally of government knowledge of its independent contractors' safety performance, we reject the notion that a single problem would shift hands-on responsibility to the government. Under the contracts, Genett and Rainforest Kids had the obligation to make sure the overlap did not recur. We are thus satisfied that the record shows that the allegedly harmful conductthe failure to establish and enforce a schedule for safe mowingcan fairly be described as discretionary, Fothergill, 566 F.3d at 252, satisfying the second prong of the discretionary function inquiry.