Opinion ID: 764874
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The FTCA Bars Plaintiffs' Tort Claims Asserted Directly Against the FDIC.

Text: 85 The FDIC's organic statute empowers the FDIC to sue and be sued in its corporate capacity. 12 U.S.C. § 1441a(b)(9)(E). The district court rejected plaintiffs' theory that this section entitled them to bring tort claims directly against the FDIC, regardless of the limits in the FTCA. See Franklin III, 970 F.Supp. at 868. The court aptly quoted the Supreme Court's recent holding that, 86 In order to place torts of 'suable' agencies ... upon precisely the same footing as torts of 'nonsuable' agencies, Congress, through the FTCA, limited the scope of sue-and-be-sued waivers such as that contained in [the FDIC's] organic statute. Specifically, Congress stated [in the FTCA]: 87 The authority of any federal agency to sue and be sued in its own name shall not be construed to authorize suits against such federal agency on claims which are cognizable under [the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) ], and the remedies provided by [the FTCA] in such cases shall be exclusive. 88 28 U.S.C. § 2679(a). Thus, if a suit is 'cognizable' under § 1346(b) of the FTCA, the FTCA remedy is 'exclusive' and the federal agency cannot be sued 'in its own name,' despite the existence of a sue-and-be-sued clause. 89 Id. (quoting FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 476, 114 S.Ct. 996, 127 L.Ed.2d 308 (1994) (first alteration in Meyer ) (citation omitted from Meyer )). The court further correctly explained that plaintiffs' suit is cognizable under § 1346(b): it is a straightforward state-law tort suit. See id. (citing In re Cedar Vale State Bank, 257 Kan. 497, 894 P.2d 816 (1995) (recognizing claim against bank receiver)). The court also rejected the argument, which plaintiffs repeat on appeal, that if the tort claim against the United States fails because of the discretionary function exception, it is not cognizable under § 1346(b) and the RTC is subject to the tort claim under its sue-and-be-sued [clause]. Id. As the district court correctly noted, this argument would make the discretionary-function exception a meaningless rule of pleading: Litigants could avoid the force of the statute merely by suing an agency directly. Id. Plaintiffs add no persuasive authority to their theory on appeal. This court affirms the dismissal of their common-law tort claims against the FDIC for substantially the reasons stated in the district court's opinion.