Opinion ID: 445561
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: venue for the ftca claim

Text: 17 The United States contested Reuber's FTCA action on grounds of improper venue. The applicable venue provision states: 18 Any civil action on a tort claim against the United States under [the FTCA] may be prosecuted only in the judicial district where the plaintiff resides or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred. 19 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1402(b). The district court held that venue was improper since plaintiff's tort claim against the United States occurred in Maryland. It was in Maryland that the letter [of reprimand] was written, given to plaintiff and maintained [in NCI and FCRC files]. Reuber v. United States, Civ. No. 81-1857, slip op. at 6 (D.D.C. Oct. 27, 1982) (Memorandum Opinion) [hereinafter cited as Memorandum Opinion ]. The district court also rejected Reuber's arguments that venue was proper in the FTCA claim as pendent to his continuing Privacy Act claim. See supra note 1. It concluded that the FTCA venue provision, by permitting a tort claim to be brought only in the district where the plaintiff resides or where the act occurred, forecloses application of any discretionary pendent venue doctrine. Id. at 7. Second, it held that Reuber's Privacy Act claim was not sufficiently related to his FTCA claim for invasion of privacy, negligent maintenance of records, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, to support application of the doctrine of pendent venue. Id. 20 Reuber contends on appeal that the acts or omissions giving rise to these torts occurred, at least in part, in this District. Brief for Appellant, No. 83-1536, at 19. He points to the fact that the letter of reprimand was eventually leaked to the Food Chemical News, which is published in the District, and that the letter was additionally posted by unknown persons on bulletin boards at the EPA headquarters also located in the District. But the answer to his claim is that the United States can be held liable under the FTCA only for the tortious acts of its employees, see 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(b), and Reuber can point to no act in the District by any government employee that caused him any tortious injury. 21 Reuber also cites Forest v. United States, 539 F.Supp. 171 (D.Mont.1982), in support of his argument that venue lies in the District. Forest held that when air traffic controllers located in Utah radioed instructions to a pilot flying over Montana, causing that pilot to crash, the act or omission occurred in Montana, since the radio communications did not become tortious until received by the pilot. Id. at 175-76. Forest, however, is distinguishable from the present case. It involved a radio transmission directed specifically to the pilot in Montana, the situs of the act could thus be reasonably perceived as including the place at which it was targeted and where the foreseeable harm would occur. So viewed, Forest stands only for the proposition that, when an individual's conduct occurs in one district but has intended effects elsewhere, the act occurs in the jurisdiction where its effects are directed. In this case, unlike Forest, Reuber pointed to no tortious conduct of any government employee aimed at the District, or even any conduct which foreseeably would produce consequences in the District; in particular, he identified no specific transmission of the letter or any other adverse information into the District by any federal employee. 22 Reuber invites us to extend Forest's rationale, however valid on its own facts, well beyond that factual context so as to make these defendants' limited dissemination of the letter in Maryland occur wherever the letter was ultimately disseminated causing Reuber harm. Unfortunately for Reuber, the Supreme Court has already rejected a reading of the place where the act or omission occurred as including any place where the conduct causes injury, albeit it did so for purposes of determining the appropriate state law to apply in an FTCA claim under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(b). 9 See Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 9-10, 82 S.Ct. 585, 591, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962) (Oklahoma law applies to FTCA suit grounded on a plane crash in Missouri caused by negligent failure to enforce regulations that prohibited the practices used by the airline at its overhaul depot in Oklahoma); cf. Sami v. United States, 617 F.2d 755, 761 (D.C.Cir.1979) (foreign country exception to the FTCA does not apply where tortious act or omission occurs in the United States since [t]he entire scheme of the FTCA focuses on the place where the negligent or wrongful act or omission of the government employee occurred). Although the Richards Court did not decide the proper interpretation of the phrase where the act or omission occurred for purposes of venue, we share its inability to conceive of any more precise language Congress could have used than the words it did employ in the Tort Claims Act. Richards, 369 U.S. at 9, 82 S.Ct. at 591. 10 We thus decline Reuber's invitation to adopt and expand Forest's rationale, and we find that Reuber has not alleged an act in the District which makes venue over his FTCA claim proper. 23 We also reject Reuber's attack on the district court's denial of pendent venue over his FTCA claim. Albeit there is no precedent in this circuit dealing with the general availability of pendent venue, we do not address that issue here, for assuming pendent venue is available as a theory, the district court was justified in refusing to apply it in this case. Pendent venue, like pendent jurisdiction, aims to promote judicial economy as well as convenience and fairness to the parties. See Seamon v. Upham, 563 F.Supp. 396, 398-99 & nn. 2-3 (E.D.Tex.1983); cf. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966) (efficiency, convenience and fairness rationales for pendent jurisdiction). In deciding whether to invoke pendent venue a district court must consider the same factors that bear on economy and convenience as in deciding whether to exercise pendent jurisdiction: whether the pendent and principal claims arise out of a common nucleus of operative facts; whether they present common issues of proof; whether they involve the same witnesses. See Travis v. Anthes Imperial Limited, 473 F.2d 515, 529 (8th Cir.1973) (pendent venue lies for essentially the same reasons as ... pendent subject matter jurisdiction); Seamon, 563 F.Supp. at 399 & n. 3. The judicial efficiency rationale for pendent venue makes it clear that a district court has wide discretion to refuse to hear a pendent claim. United States v. Capeletti Brothers, Inc., 621 F.2d 1309, 1317-18 (5th Cir.1980) (discussing pendent jurisdiction); see also Doe v. Board on Professional Responsibility, 717 F.2d 1424, 1428 (D.C.Cir.1983) (district court decision to assume pendent jurisdiction is entitled to substantial deference on appeal ...). 24 In this case, although Reuber's Privacy Act claim and his FTCA claim arise from overlapping nuclei of operative fact, they present many distinct issues of proof. Reuber's Privacy Act claim will require proof as to the propriety of maintaining a record of Reuber's alleged misconduct in NCI files, see 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(e)(1), the dissemination of the letter and other information in NCI files by federal officials to persons outside of NCI who had no need to know of Reuber's alleged misconduct, see 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(b)(1), and the actual damages, if any, Reuber suffered as a consequence of any Privacy Act violation, see 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(g)(4). Reuber's FTCA invasion of privacy claim, on the other hand, will raise questions about the private versus public nature of the information, its offensiveness to a reasonable person, and its counterbalancing newsworthiness, and may involve inquiries into issues relating to special damages. See Restatement (Second) of Torts, Sec. 652D (1976). In addition to considering the likely requirement of differing proof, the convenience and fairness of allowing the FTCA claim to proceed in federal court here, must be assessed in light of the general rule that, when the United States waives sovereign immunity, it may choose the conditions under which a suit against it is to proceed. 11 Lehman v. Nakshian, 453 U.S. 156, 161, 101 S.Ct. 2698, 2701, 69 L.Ed.2d 548 (1981) (limitations and conditions upon which the Government consents to be sued must be strictly observed and exceptions thereto are not to be implied). Here Congress has specified the district in which the act occurred as the only district, other than that where the plaintiff resides, where a claim may be brought, see 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1402(b), and thereby created a strong negative presumption against courts finding discretionary pendent venue elsewhere. Finally, consideration of judicial economy must keep in mind that Reuber has identical claims to those considered here, including an FTCA action, already pending in federal district court in Maryland, see supra at n. 8. These reasons seem to us amply to support the district court's refusal to exercise pendent venue over Reuber's FTCA claim.