Opinion ID: 176166
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The second step: the timeliness decision is susceptible to policy analysis.

Text: Only discretionary decisions that are susceptible to public policy analysis confer immunity on the government under the FTCA; [t]he challenged decision need not be actually grounded in policy considerations. Miller, 163 F.3d at 593. So, even though the Corps retained discretion to decide when to replace the missing signs, it could still be liable for a negligent decision unless its decision is susceptible to a public policy analysis. See id. at 595. Public policy has been understood to include decisions grounded in social, economic, or political policy. Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1129 (quotation marks omitted). We have noted that, although an agency's decision to adopt certain safety precautions as opposed to others may be based in policy considerations, generally, the implementation of those precautions is not. Safety measures, once undertaken, cannot be shortchanged in the name of policy. Whisnant v. United States, 400 F.3d 1177, 1182 (9th Cir.2005) (alterations omitted). However, [t]he implementation of a government policy is shielded where the implementation itself implicates policy concerns, such as where government officials must consider competing fire-fighter safety and public safety considerations in deciding how to fight a forest fire. Id. at 1182 n. 3 (citing Miller, 163 F.3d at 595-96). [5] In Miller, we held that the implementation of a government safety program with respect to fighting forest fires did require the agency to balance competing policy interests, and thus, the discretionary function exception applied. We noted that the Forest Service's decision regarding how to attack a fire involved balancing considerations including cost, public safety, firefighter safety, and resource damage. 163 F.3d at 595. We then held that [t]hese considerations reflect the type of economic, social and political concerns that the discretionary function exception is designed to protect. Id. Thus, when a decision requires an agency to balance competing safety considerations, that decision is susceptible to a policy analysis. See id. at 596 (Where the government is forced, as it was here, to balance competing concerns, immunity shields the decision.). As with the Forest Service's decision in Miller, the Corps's decision here regarding when to replace the missing signs on the Yuba River required the Corps to balance competing policy interests. The Corps had to balance the safety of its workers and the risk to its other limited resources, i.e., its equipment, in replacing the signs in dangerous conditions against the competing public safety interest in having the signs replaced sooner. Indeed, the record establishes that Corps [s]taff attempted to assess the situation on May 25, 2005, but could not get to the location where the signs had been placed either on the gravel/sand bar or on the South banks of the river because of the high, fast water and dangerous conditions. So, as in Miller, although the Corps was implementing a safety program when it was deciding when to replace the washed-out signs, in doing so it had to balance competing policy interests: the safety of boaters and the safety of its sign-placing workers and their equipment. Therefore, under the discretionary function exception, the Corps's discretionary decision as to when to replace the signs is susceptible to policy analysis and is immune from suit. Although the dissent correctly contends that safety considerations generally are not policy considerations, it ignores our law that establishes that balancing competing safety considerations is a protected policy judgment. [6] See id. The dissent is correct that in Miller there were other types of policy considerations in addition to safety that went into the Forest Service's discretionary judgment about how to fight the forest fire, but that does not detract from Miller's holding that balancing competing safety considerations is a policy judgment. Moreover, so long as a decision involves even two competing interests, it is susceptible to policy analysis and is thus protected by the discretionary function exception. See Alfrey v. United States, 276 F.3d 557, 565 (9th Cir.2002) (holding that [a] prison official's judgment about how extensively to search a cell involves a balancing of the potential risk [from the reported threat], on the one hand, against the inmate's interest in being free from overly intrusive searches, on the other, and that this balancing was sufficient to immunize the government from plaintiff's claim that the guards negligently searched his cell). Here, the competing interests the Corps had to balance in determining when to replace the missing warning signs were public safety versus Corps worker safety, as well as the safety of its equipment in the fast river. Thus, the Corps's decision regarding when to replace the missing warning signs is susceptible to policy analysis and is immune as a basis of suit. In hindsight it may be easy to say the Corps should have replaced the signs sooner, but that is exactly the judicial second-guessing of government decision-making that the discretionary function exception is designed to prevent. As we stated in Miller, [o]ur task is not to determine whether the Forest Service made the correct decision in its allocation of resources. Where the government is forced, as it was here, to balance competing concerns, immunity shields the decision. 163 F.3d at 596. The Corps had to balance competing policy interests in deciding when to replace the missing signs. Therefore, immunity shields its decision. AFFIRMED