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

Heading: Policy-Related

Text: The third prong of the discretionary function exception requires us to consider whether the judgment at issue is of the kind that the discretionary function exception was designed to shield, Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536, 108 S.Ct. 1954, or, as we have framed the question: whether `the exercise of discretion involve[s] (or is [] susceptible to) policy-related judgments,'  Abreu, 468 F.3d at 26 (alterations in original) (quoting Montijo-Reyes, 436 F.3d at 24). We start with the presumption that the exercise of discretion by a government official implicates a policy judgment. See supra note 15. As with our discussion of the discretionary nature of the conduct, the policy inquiry is influenced by the independent contractor status of Genett and Rainforest Kids. Appellants would like us to ask whether there is a policy rationale for the government's failure to coordinate the scheduling of lawn mowing and outdoor play. That is not the relevant question. The relevant question is whether there is a policy justification for assigning responsibility for such coordination to the independent contractors hired to perform maintenance and run the childcare center. To ask that question is to answer it. The judgment to hire independent contractors presumably was based on an assessment of cost and efficiency concerns relating to the use of government-employee time. See, e.g., Williams, 50 F.3d at 310 (noting that, in choosing whether to hire an independent contractor, the United States must weigh concerns of expense, administration, payment, access to the Premises, and a veritable plethora of factors). As we have noted, the product of such a weighing of factors is unquestionably a policy judgment. See supra note 16. The decision to staff a job with independent contractors necessarily also embraces judgments about which delegated tasks require detailed instructions to ensure proper performance and which are more efficiently presented to the contractor as general obligations. Indeed, the benefits of engaging independent contractors would be lost if the government needed to take the time to make judgments about, and provide guidance on, every aspect of every task to be performed. In this instance, the government concluded, in effect, that the tasks of developing and enforcing a safe, compatible schedule for playtime and lawn mowing were appropriately left to the two entities directly responsible for managing the potentially conflicting activities. As the government's judgment implicates the same policy concerns that underlie the choice to hire independent contractors in the first place, it also is protected by the discretionary function exception. [21] The presence and scope of the independent contractor agreements here distinguish this case from others, cited by appellants, in which plaintiffs have successfully argued that the government's inaction on safety matters was not protected by either the discretionary function exception or the independent contractor defense. For example, in Whisnant, despite an independent contractor's responsibility for maintenance at the commissary on a naval base, the court rejected applicability of the discretionary function exception for a claim that the government negligently allowed [toxic mold] to colonize the commissary's meat department over a period of three years. 400 F.3d at 1179. The court noted that the government had retained responsibility for safety, id., and it held that the government's alleged failure to control an obvious health hazard is a matter of safety and not policy, id. at 1183. Here, by contrast, the United States assigned the responsibility for safety to Genett and Rainforest Kids, and, as we have explained, the government's inaction was shielded by that discretionary delegation of responsibility. In Bolt v. United States, 509 F.3d 1028 (9th Cir.2007), the court concluded that the discretionary function exception did not protect the United States from liability for a slip-and-fall accident allegedly resulting from the government's failure to remove snow and ice from a parking area at an Army apartment complex. Id. at 1030. In rejecting application of the exception, the court not only identified an express requirement for timely snow and ice removal in the Army's Housing Handbook but also observed that any discretion to vary the timing is [not] the type of decision-making that the discretionary function was designed to protect. Id. at 1033 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Bolt also offers no support for appellants' position: the government in that instance had not bestowed the safety responsibility on an independent contractor, and its own guidelines explicitly denied the discretion to delay clearing the area. Id.; see also, e.g., Coulthurst v. United States, 214 F.3d 106, 109-10 (2d Cir.2000) (concluding that the discretionary function exception might not apply to allegedly deficient inspection of prison gym equipment, where government had responsibility for safety and inspector may have failed to perform a diligent inspection out of laziness or was carelessly inattentive).