Opinion ID: 4561508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Officers

Text: To qualify as an investigative or law enforcement officer under the proviso, a TSO must be “any officer of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h) (emphasis added). The parties disagree about the definition of officer. Because the term is not statutorily defined, we consider its ordinary dictionary definition. See Thompson Truck & Trailer, 901 F.3d at 953. Congress enacted the proviso in 1974. One dictionary from the time defines officer as “one charged with a duty” and “one who is appointed or elected to serve in a position of trust, authority, or command esp. as specif. provided for by law.” Officer, Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary (1971). Another defines officer as “[o]ne who is charged by a superior power (and particularly by government) with the 1 When it considered this question, the district court relied on the earlier panel decision, which the Third Circuit reversed en banc. See Pellegrino v. U.S. Transp. Sec. Admin., 896 F.3d 207 (3d Cir. 2018), vacated, 904 F.3d 329 (3d Cir.). -5- power and duty of exercising certain functions” or “[o]ne who is invested with some portion of the functions of the government to be exercised for the public benefit.” Officer, Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed., rev. 1968). Applying those definitions, the Pellegrino majority found that TSOs are officers. See 937 F.3d at 170–72. These individuals are tasked with government functions, specifically, carrying out safety screenings at airports. Id. at 170. And, they perform those functions for the public’s benefit. Id. It also noted that the TSA itself calls TSOs officers, and that “TSOs wear uniforms with badges that prominently display the title.” Id. We also conclude that TSOs are officers. They are “charged with a duty,” Officer, Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary (1971), and “charged by a superior power . . . with the power and duty of exercising certain functions.” Officer, Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed., rev. 1968). Congress, by statute, charged TSOs with the power to conduct airport screenings. See 49 U.S.C. § 44901. Those screenings are a “ function[] of the government . . . exercised for the public benefit.” Officer, Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed., rev. 1968). Specifically, the screenings ensure that no passenger enters a plane with a prohibited item, including “weapons, explosives, and incendiaries.” 49 C.F.R. § 1540.5 (defining “Screening function”). This function protects passenger safety and national security. Further, TSOs “serve in a position of . . . authority.” Officer, Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary (1971). The TSA holds them out to the public as officers through their title and uniforms. It does so to ensure the public respects them.2 2 TSA stated that it altered TSOs’ uniforms, including adding badges, to “address[] officers’ concerns of utility, respect, and confidence, and will stand as a readily identifiable symbol of TSA’s security mission and officers’ role of keeping -6- Agreeing with the Pellegrino dissent, see 937 F.3d at 189–94 (Krause, J., dissenting), the government argues that more specific definitions should apply. For example, the government argues that we should adopt a recent dictionary definition of United States Officer, which is defined as “an officer appointed under the authority of the federal government.” Appellee’s Br. at 12 (quoting United States officer, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014)). Even applying that definition, the analysis would be unchanged. Additionally, Iverson’s definitions better reflect the ordinary meaning of officers in the proviso. First, the use of the term any before officers does not favor a narrow definition to those who are classified as appointed. See United States v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 5 (1997) (“Read naturally, the word ‘any’ has an expansive meaning, that is, ‘one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind.’” (quoting Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 97 (1976)). Second, Iverson’s definition comes from dictionaries that are contemporaries of the proviso, while the government favors newer dictionaries. Our task is to find the word’s “ordinary meaning at the time Congress enacted the statute.” Wis. Cent. Ltd. v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2067, 2070 (2018) (cleaned up). Webster’s Third New International and Black’s Revised Fourth Edition are the more helpful references. the traveling public safe.” Press Release, Transportation Security Officers Have Renewed Focus and New Look on Seventh Anniversary of 9/11, Transp. Sec. Admin. (Sept. 11, 2008), https://www.tsa.gov/news/releases/2008/09/11/transportation-security-officers-ha ve-renewed-focus-and-new-look-seventh. “The attire aims to convey an image of authority to passengers, who have harassed, pushed and in a few instances punched screeners. ‘Some of our officers aren’t respected,’ TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said.” Thomas Frank, TSA’s New Policelike Badges a Sore Point with Real Cops, ABC News (June 23, 2008), https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=5173231&page=1. -7- As a consequence, we find that TSOs fall within the ordinary meaning of the proviso. But the government also argues that statutory contexts, both within and outside of the FTCA, counsel that we should depart from the plain meaning. We address those arguments, aware of the Court’s directive that “[t]he case must be a strong one indeed, which would justify a Court in departing from the plain meaning of words . . . in search of an intention which the words themselves did not suggest.” Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 362–63 (1964) (quoting United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. 76, 96 (1820) (Marshall, C.J.)). The government first argues that TSOs are not officers under the FTCA because Congress identified them in a different Act as employees. The Airport Transportation Security Act (ATSA) directs that “screening . . . shall be carried out by a Federal Government employee.” 49 U.S.C. § 44901(a) (emphasis added). The ATSA indicates, via cross reference, that an employee is “an officer and an individual.” 5 U.S.C. § 2105(a). Put another way, the government argues that Congress would have described TSOs as officers in the ATSA if it wanted courts to consider TSOs officers in the FTCA. We decline the invitation to disregard the FTCA’s ordinary meaning and instead import Congress’s classification of TSOs as employees from the ATSA. To be sure, Congress described TSOs as employees in the ATSA, but it also defined employees in ATSA to include officers. See 49 U.S.C. § 44901(a) (cross-referencing 5 U.S.C. § 2105 (defining employee as “an officer and an individual”)). Consequently, it appears that Congress did not intend to exclude officers when using the term employee to describe screening personnel. Its choice to not cross-reference Title V’s definition of officer does not alter that analysis; Congress simply chose a more inclusive term. -8- Second, the government’s argument has an unacceptable statutory effect: It uses a later enactment—the ATSA—to limit the scope of an earlier enactment—the FTCA proviso. As it stands, the proviso, passed in 1974, covers TSOs because they satisfy the ordinary meaning of officers. If we were to import Congress’s classification of TSOs from the ATSA, which was passed in 2001, with the interpretation the government prefers, TSOs would not be officers but mere employees. That would limit the earlier enactment’s scope and alter its definition of officers. In short, this would require us to hold that Congress silently altered a term’s meaning in one statute by passing an unrelated statute almost 30 years later. Such a holding would be contrary to principles of statutory interpretation. See Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 607 (2010) (“Section 273’s definition of ‘method,’ to be sure, cannot change the meaning of a prior-enacted statute.”); Patel v. Napolitano, 706 F.3d 370, 376 (4th Cir. 2013) (“[T]he meaning of words in a statute cannot change with the statute’s application.” (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507, 522 (2008)); In re Roser, 613 F.3d 1240, 1247 (10th Cir. 2010) (“[A] later legislature cannot change the meaning of a statute; it can only amend the statute.”). Admittedly, courts “do[] not lightly assume that Congress silently attaches different meanings to the same term in the same or related statutes.” Azar v. Allina Health Servs., 139 S. Ct. 1804, 1812 (2019) (emphasis added). Relying on this language, the dissent in Pellegrino argued that the ATSA “mapped” itself into the FTCA. 937 F.3d at 191–92 (Krause, J., dissenting). But that analysis skipped a key part of the inquiry: Whether the statutes are “the same or related.” Azar, 139 S. Ct. at 1812. The FTCA and ATSA are certainly not the same statute. Nor does the government argue that they are materially related. Indeed, a relevant statutory canon requires that the statutes be in pari materia (“on the same subject”) before courts can -9- construe them “as if they were one law.” Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt, 546 U.S. 303, 316 (2006) (internal quotation omitted); see also United States v. Stewart, 311 U.S. 60, 64 (1940) (“That these two acts are in pari materia is plain. Both deal with precisely the same subject matter, viz., the scope of the tax exemption afforded farm loan bonds. The later act can therefore be regarded as a legislative interpretation of the earlier act . . . .”). The FTCA and ATSA are not on the same subject. The former deals with federal sovereign immunity while the latter deals with traveler safety. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that Congress attached the same meanings to employee and officer in each. Nor is there reason to believe that Congress was attempting to avoid waiving sovereign immunity when it classified TSOs as employees. In sum, there is little to be gained from ATSA’s use of employee when analyzing the FTCA’s definition of officers; TSO’s status as an employee under the ATSA does not prevent them from being an officer. The government argues that interpreting officers to cover TSOs renders the FTCA’s use of employee redundant. Even if TSOs satisfied the definition of employee and officer in the FTCA, it does not mean that the terms are redundant. Similar to the ATSA, the FTCA’s definition of employee includes officers. 28 U.S.C. § 2671. Thus the statute itself contemplates that an officer might also be an employee. In that instance, “[w]e are hesitant to put too much stock into a distinction between two terms that are not themselves mutually exclusive.” Pellegrino, 937 F.3d at 171. In summary, the phrase “any officer of the United States,” as written in 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h), includes TSOs.