Opinion ID: 782233
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: foreign activities exception

Text: 136 The foreign activities exception bars recovery for [a]ny claim arising in a foreign country. 28 U.S.C. § 2680(k). Its purpose is to ensure that the United States is not exposed to excessive liability under the laws of a foreign country over which it has no control. Nurse v. United States, 226 F.3d 996, 1003 (9th Cir.2000). The district court held that many of Alvarez's claims, such as assault and the resulting infliction of emotional distress, derived from acts that took place entirely in Mexico and so were excluded under the ATCA. Alvarez does not appeal that decision. 137 But the district court permitted other claims — false arrest, false imprisonment, and the resulting infliction of emotional distress — to go forward under the headquarters doctrine. Because [t]he entire scheme of the FTCA focuses on the place where the negligent or wrongful act or omission of the government employee occurred, Sami v. United States, 617 F.2d 755, 761 (D.C.Cir.1979), a claim can still proceed under the headquarters doctrine if harm occurring in a foreign country was proximately caused by acts in the United States. See Nurse, 226 F.3d at 1003; see also Cominotto v. United States, 802 F.2d 1127, 1130 (9th Cir.1986) (holding that an FTCA claim arises where an act or omission occurs and not necessarily at the site of the injury or the place where the negligence has its operative effect (internal quotation marks omitted)). 138 The quintessential headquarters claim involves federal employees working from offices in the United States to guide and supervise actions in other countries. See Nurse, 226 F.3d at 1003 (applying the doctrine to FTCA claims made by a Canadian detained in Vancouver, British Columbia, against the U.S.-based Customs officials who trained the Vancouver agents); Couzado v. United States, 105 F.3d 1389, 1395-96 (11th Cir.1997) (applying the doctrine to claims against DEA agents in the United States who coordinated an arrest in Honduras); Sami, 617 F.2d at 761-63 (applying the doctrine to claims against the Chief of the United States National Central Bureau in Washington, D.C., who sent messages causing an improper arrest in Germany). In evaluating whether the headquarters doctrine applies, we look to the law of the state where the alleged act occurred — in this case, California. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1); Couzado, 105 F.3d at 1395 (applying Florida law to determine whether the doctrine applies to alleged negligence by DEA officials who were based in Florida and caused harm in Honduras). 139 Alvarez's abduction fits the headquarters doctrine like a glove. Working out of DEA offices in Los Angeles, Berellez and his superiors made the decision to kidnap Alvarez and, through Garate, gave Barragan precise instructions on whom to recruit, how to seize Alvarez, and how he should be treated during the trip to the United States. DEA officials in Washington, D.C., approved the details of the operation. After Alvarez was abducted according to plan, DEA agents supervised his transportation into the United States, telling the arrest team where to land the plane and obtaining clearance in El Paso for landing. The United States, and California in particular, served as command central for the operation carried out in Mexico. 140 By contrast, we see little resemblance to the facts of Cominotto, in which we rejected the DEA informant's headquarters claim because he had disobeyed Secret Service orders by jumping into the suspects' car late one night in Bangkok. 802 F.2d at 1130. Alvarez did little but serve as an unsuspecting target of an operation planned in the United States. Under California law, negligent or criminal acts carried out by Alvarez's abductors in furtherance of the objectives given to them by American DEA agents do not break the causal link between the conduct of the DEA agents and Alvarez's injuries. Vickers v. United States, 228 F.3d 944, 956 (9th Cir.2000). The arrest team's seizure of Alvarez was not the interruption, but the fulfillment, of the DEA agents' tortious acts. The events for which Alvarez seeks relief occurred precisely as the DEA intended. 141 The United States offers little to support its alternative argument that, even if applicable, the headquarters doctrine does not apply to intentional torts. We see no valid reason to distinguish between negligence and intentional torts when the purpose of the doctrine is to hold the federal government responsible where the plaintiff's injuries are proximately caused by conduct in the United States. Sami, 617 F.2d at 762 (noting that examination of the legislative history shows that the foreign activities exception does not apply if the wrongful acts or omissions complained of occur in the United States (emphasis added)). We hold that the headquarters doctrine applies to both negligence and intentional torts. Alvarez's kidnapping claim therefore does not fall within the foreign activities exception.