Opinion ID: 4558232
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: applying gaubert’s second part

Text: Again, Plaintiffs do not contend that, under the first part of Gaubert’s test, the U.S. Forestry Branch’s challenged conduct involved no “element of judgment or choice.” See Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322, 111 S. Ct. at 1273 (quotation marks omitted). Nor do they challenge the U.S. Forestry Branch’s decision to initiate the controlled burn. Our inquiry, then, is whether, under the second part of Gaubert’s test, the U.S. Forestry Branch employees’ choices and decisions as to how to observe, monitor, and maintain the burn are “susceptible to policy analysis.” Id. at 325, 111 S. Ct. at 1275. In other words, are those choices and decisions made in executing the controlled burn necessarily “grounded in social, economic, and political policy.” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 323, 111 S. Ct. at 1273. We conclude that they are. As the Defendant points out, numerous policy considerations come into play regarding whether and to what extent a U.S. Forestry Branch employee or official might take a particular action during the monitoring or maintaining a controlled burn. For example, an official might need to consider and balance the following factors in planning and during the controlled burn: (1) the safety of U.S. Forestry Branch personnel, as well as members of the public; (2) what specific level of 24 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 25 of 132 safety measures to take during the controlled burn, such as how many employees and how much equipment to use and where to use it in monitoring the execution of the controlled burn; (3) the allocation of financial resources for fire suppression costs; (4) the need to encourage ecological development; (5) potential risk to private and public property; and (6) how best to balance the need for the controlled burn against the inherent risk to persons and property. Additionally, because the controlled burn here took place in close proximity to a U.S. military base, Forestry Branch employees had to weigh additional important policy considerations related to military personnel and operations. See OSI, Inc. v. United States, 285 F.3d 947, 953 (11th Cir. 2002) (“The nature of the military’s function requires that it be free to weigh environmental policies against security and military concerns.”). These are precisely the sort of social, economic, political, and public policy concerns our Court has recognized as justifying the applicability of the discretionary-function exception. See, e.g., Cranford, 466 F.3d at 960–61 (acknowledging federal officials’ need to take into account the interests of various private actors, along with agency resource constraints, both personal and financial); Hughes, 110 F.3d at 768–69 (recognizing the need to balance safety concerns with the limited resources available and noting that “[d]ay-to-day management . . . regularly requires judgment as to which of a range of permissible courses is the wisest” (alteration in original) (quoting Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325, 25 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 26 of 132 111 S. Ct. at 1275)); Autery, 992 F.2d at 1531 (accepting the Park Service’s need to balance environmental and safety concerns, as well as the limited financial and human resources available). Given these numerous and complex policy implications, the conduct at issue here is far afield from the example used in Swafford of an employee simply “choosing” to carelessly drive a car on official business. See Swafford, 839 F.3d at 1372. Notably, two of our sister circuits have applied the discretionary-function exception to bar FTCA lawsuits arising from government officials’ response to naturally occurring wildfires. See Hardscrabble Ranch, L.L.C. v. United States, 840 F.3d 1216, 1222–23 (10th Cir. 2016) (reasoning as to the second part of Gaubert’s test, that a Forest Service decision to only partially suppress a wildfire required a “balancing of the needs to protect private property, ensure firefighter safety, reduce fuel levels, and encourage natural ecological development,” and that “[t]he nature of the [Forest Service’s] actions in fighting the . . . [f]ire are susceptible to a policy analysis grounded in social, economic, or political concerns”); Miller v. United States, 163 F.3d 591, 595–96 (9th Cir. 1998) (concluding, as to the second step in Gaubert’s test, that “the decision regarding how to best approach the . . . fire . . . required consideration of fire suppression costs, minimizing resource damage and environmental impacts, and protecting private property,” as well as safety, and that “the Forest Service’s decision 26 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 27 of 132 is susceptible to a policy analysis grounded in social, economic, or political concerns”). 9 True, these two decisions involved naturally occurring fires as opposed to controlled burns initiated by the U.S. Forestry Branch. But this distinction does not meaningfully affect our Gaubert analysis. As Plaintiffs themselves concede, there is no contention here that the U.S. Forestry Branch acted negligently, or otherwise improperly, in exercising its discretion to start the fire in the first place. And once the fire was burning, the U.S. Forestry Branch employees tasked with controlling the fire were faced with the same competing policy interests and considerations recognized by our sister circuits as satisfying the second step in Gaubert’s two-part test. The origin of the fire is therefore largely irrelevant to the precise issue before us: whether the government’s measures and conduct in observing, monitoring, and maintaining of a forest fire are “susceptible to policy analysis.” See Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325, 111 S. Ct. at 1275. 9 It is also true, as Plaintiffs point out, the district courts in these cases had before them evidence of particular policy considerations that were at play. But as we have emphasized, under the second part of Gaubert’s test, we are not concerned with the subjective intent of the government employees who oversaw the burn or whether those employees actually weighed particular policy considerations. See Ochran, 117 F.3d at 500; Autery, 992 F.2d at 1530–31 (“Gaubert . . . cautions against conducting a fact-based inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the government actor’s exercise of a particular discretionary function . . . .”). The inquiry is not fact-based; rather our concern is whether the nature of the challenged decision, in an objective or general sense, is “susceptible to policy analysis.” See Hughes, 110 F.3d at 768 (quotation marks omitted). 27 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 28 of 132 Plaintiffs rely heavily on our statement in Swafford that “once the Corps exercised its discretion to build and maintain the stairs, failure to maintain them in a safe condition [was] simply not a permissible exercise of policy judgment.” Swafford, 839 F.3d at 1372. Plaintiffs argue that, similarly, once the U.S. Forestry Branch “exercised its discretion to conduct [the] controlled burn and to observe, monitor and maintain it, the [government’s negligent] failure to maintain the burn in a safe manner, within the confines and/or perimeters as intended, is simply not a permissible exercise of policy judgment.” They insist that “choosing not to control a prescribed burn is not a permissible exercise of discretion.” At bottom, Plaintiffs’ argument effectively collapses the discretionaryfunction exception into a question of whether the government was negligent, implying that the mere presence of alleged negligence can defeat the exception. But negligence is irrelevant at this point in the Gaubert inquiry. Only after concluding that the government has waived its sovereign immunity would a court consider whether a particular government employee negligently executed the controlled burn. Framing the question as the government’s negligent failure in executing the controlled burn thus begs the question. The relevant conduct at issue here is the U.S. Forestry Branch’s planning and policy decisions about what measures and conduct to take during the controlled burn itself, not their ultimate negligent acts during the controlled burn. 28 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 29 of 132 Further, Plaintiffs’ analogy to Swafford is unpersuasive because it assumes maintaining a staircase and monitoring a fire are analogous activities with similar risks and attendant policy concerns. This is not the case. It is one thing to say that government officials may decline to maintain an already built and static set of stairs in a safe condition, where the alleged policy considerations essentially come down to a determinate budget allocation and where the government has hired a subcontractor to maintain the stairs in good working condition. Here, in contrast, and as discussed above, myriad other factors come into play when dealing with an ongoing and quickly evolving forest fire—whether natural or controlled—such as those listed above and recognized by two Courts of Appeals. See Hardscrabble Ranch, 840 F.3d at 1222–23; Miller, 163 F.3d at 596. Controlled burns are exponentially more complicated, dangerous, and unpredictable than repairing a fixed, static set of stairs. Controlled burns require the consideration and weighing of significantly more factors and elements. The conduct and policy judgment in Swafford are materially different from the conduct and judgment in this case. Plaintiffs do not address head-on the existence or importance of the social, economic, political, or public policy concerns identified by the Defendant. The necessary implication of Plaintiffs’ argument is that Swafford stands for the broad proposition that, wherever the government “exercise[s] its discretion” to affirmatively undertake a particular task, the discretionary-function exception 29 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 30 of 132 cannot apply to except the government from liability for any subsequent negligence. But to read Swafford as broadly as Plaintiffs suggest would come close to resurrecting the strict planning-versus-operational dichotomy rejected by the Supreme Court. See Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325, 111 S. Ct. at 1275; see also Cranford, 466 F.3d at 959 (“The [plaintiffs] would have us rule that the discretionary function exception does not apply to the execution of a governmental decision, but this argument merely restates the operational conduct distinction rejected in Gaubert.”). Moreover, that reading of Swafford does not square either with our prior precedent applying the discretionary-function exception or with other circuits’ decisions applying the exception to the monitoring and maintenance of naturally occurring fires. After all, even where a forest fire begins naturally, the government can still be said to have “exercised its discretion” to undertake the task of “observ[ing], monitor[ing,] and maintain[ing]” the fire. See Hardscrabble Ranch, 840 F.3d at 1222–23; Miller, 163 F.3d at 596. The same can be said for, say, the government’s decision to maintain and remove rotten trees in a national park, Autery, 992 F.2d at 1524, or to operate a post office it elected to place in a particular area, Hughes, 110 F.3d at 766, or to mark the location of a submerged ship it deliberately sank, Cranford, 466 F.3d at 956–57. 30 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 31 of 132 We assume, as we must at this stage, that U.S. Forestry Branch officials were negligent in their observation, monitoring, and maintenance during the controlled burn itself as alleged in the complaint. But that alleged conduct—the steps and measures taken to safely execute a controlled burn—by its nature, involves an exercise of discretion and considerations of social, economic, political, and public policy. See Hughes, 110 F.3d at 767 n.1 (“Our concern under the discretionary function exception is not whether the allegations of negligence are true; instead, our concern is whether the nature of the conduct involves judgment or choice and whether that judgment is of the kind that the exception was designed to protect.”). The government’s decisions about how to monitor and maintain a controlled burn are shielded from judicial second-guessing by the discretionaryfunction exception to the FTCA. Accordingly, we conclude that Plaintiffs failed to “allege a plausible claim that falls outside the discretionary function exception.” See Douglas, 814 F.3d at 1276. Because the discretionary-function exception applies here, the United States has not unequivocally waived its sovereign immunity, and the district court therefore lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ FTCA claims against Defendant United States. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1); Zelaya, 781 F.3d at 1322. 31 Case: 18-15033 Date Filed: 08/24/2020 Page: 32 of 132