Opinion ID: 508926
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Tort Claims Act and the Discretionary Function Exception

Text: 18
19 The Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C., Chapter 171, Secs. 2674-2680 provides: 20 The United States shall be liable, respecting the provisions of this title relating to tort claims, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances ... [but the] provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) [the jurisdictional statute] ... shall not apply to-- 21 Any claim ... based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused. 22 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2674, 2680(a) (emphasis added). The effect of this provision of the Act is to waive the government's sovereign immunity for certain kinds of tort liability, but then create an exception to this waiver by excluding the government from any liability where the claim is based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty ... Id. 23 In the leading case interpreting this provision of the Act, the Supreme Court explained: [I]t was not contemplated that the Government should be subject to liability arising from acts of a governmental nature or function.... Uppermost in the collective mind of Congress [in waiving immunity] were the ordinary commonlaw torts. Of these, the example which is reiterated in the course of the repeated proposals for submitting the United States to tort liability is 'negligence in the operation of vehicles.'  Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 28, 73 S.Ct. 956, 964, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953), quoting numerous references in legislative history. Dalehite involved large damage claims against the United States arising out of a disastrous explosion of a ship carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, that had been produced and distributed under the direction of the United States. The Court concluded that the action was barred by Sec. 2680(a), supra, because the allegedly negligent act involved governmental discretion to act according to one's judgment of the best course to follow with respect to the program generally and the handling of its product. Dalehite, 346 U.S. at 34, 73 S.Ct. at 967. The Court commented that 24 the discretionary function or duty that cannot form a basis for suit under the Tort Claims Act includes more than the initiation of programs and activities. It also includes determinations made by executives or administrators in establishing plans, specifications or schedules of operations. Where there is room for policy judgment and decision there is discretion. 25 346 U.S. at 35-36, 73 S.Ct. at 968. Dalehite also incorporated an extract from the House Report on the bill which stated: 26 [The exemption was] also designed to preclude application of the bill [Act] to a claim against a regulatory agency ... based upon an alleged abuse of discretionary authority by an officer or employee, whether or not negligence is alleged to have been involved. 27 346 U.S. at 29, n. 21, 73 S.Ct. at 964, n. 21. 28 More recently the Supreme Court in United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense (Varig Airlines ), 467 U.S. 797, 104 S.Ct. 2755, 81 L.Ed.2d 660 (1984), pointed to the intent of Congress in enacting the statute and its legislative history. Varig Airlines involved tort actions by an airline and victims of an airplane accident who alleged that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was negligent in certifying the airline because its trash receptacles did not satisfy safety regulations. The Varig Airlines Court unanimously held that the FAA's certification process was immune under the discretionary function or duty exception, concluding that it is the nature of the conduct, rather than the status of the actor, that governs whether the discretionary function exception applies in a given case. Id. at 813, 104 S.Ct. at 2764. With respect to congressional intent the Court stated that the exception plainly was intended to encompass the discretionary acts of the Government acting in its role as a regulator of the conduct of private individuals, id. at 813-14, 104 S.Ct. at 2764 3 and concluded that Congress' emphasis on protecting regulatory activities suggests an underlying basis for the exception, i.e.: Congress wished to prevent judicial 'second-guessing' of legislative and administrative decisions grounded in social, economic, and political policy through the medium of an action in tort. Id. at 814, 104 S.Ct. at 2765 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court in Berkovitz also reaffirmed its interpretation that Congress' purpose in enacting the exception was to prevent '[j]udicial intervention in ... the political, social, and economic judgments' of governmental--including regulatory--agencies. Berkovitz v. United States, --- U.S. ----, ----, 108 S.Ct. 1954, 1960, 100 L.Ed.2d 531 (1988), quoting Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 814, 104 S.Ct. at 2765. 29 Other subsequent decisions have echoed Varig Airlines' concern about judicial second guessing of agency decision making. In Cisco v. United States, 768 F.2d 788, 789 (7th Cir.1985), the Seventh Circuit ruled that Congress has left to the EPA to decide the manner in which, and the extent to which, it will protect individuals and their property from exposure to hazardous wastes. The facts in Cisco are almost parallel to those here. Members of several households in Cisco sued the EPA claiming that it was negligent in failing to warn [them] ... that dirt contaminated by [hazardous dioxin] ... had been used as residential landfill, negligent in failing to require that the contaminated dirt be removed, and negligent in failing to protect the households from exposure to the toxin. Id. The court relying primarily upon Varig Airlines, dismissed the action on the ground that the discretionary exception of the statute applied, and held: 30 When an agency makes decisions regarding the supervision of private individuals, 31 it is exercising discretionary regulatory authority of the most basic kind. Decisions as to the manner of enforcing regulations directly affect the feasibility and practicality of the Government's regulatory program; such decisions require the agency to establish priorities for the accomplishment of its policy objectives by balancing the objectives sought to be obtained against such practical considerations as staffing and funding.... Judicial intervention in such decisionmaking through private tort suits would require the courts to second-guess the political, social, and economic judgments of an agency exercising its regulatory function. It was precisely this sort of judicial intervention in policymaking that the discretionary function exception was designed to prevent. 32 Cisco, 768 F.2d at 789, quoting Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 820, 104 S.Ct. at 2767-68 (emphasis added). 33 In Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490 (D.C.Cir.1983), former FBI Acting Director Gray sued the United States claiming that the Justice Department's investigations of him were negligent. This court held that the United States was immune from suit under the discretionary function exception. We noted that the most important modern policy basis for sovereign immunity is that under principles of separation of powers, courts should refrain from reviewing or judging the propriety of the policymaking acts of coordinate branches. Gray, 712 F.2d at 511. See also Sami v. United States, 617 F.2d 755, 766-67 (D.C.Cir.1979) ([T]he policy of the [discretionary] exception was to 'prevent[ ] tort actions from becoming a vehicle for judicial interference with decisionmaking that is properly exercised by other branches of the government' ... quoting Blessing v. United States, 447 F.Supp. 1160, 1170 (E.D.Pa.1978)). 34
35 Plaintiffs argue that Dr. Hernandez's decision was based only upon scientific considerations, and therefore that it does not fall within the discretionary function exception. Brief for Appellants at 14-20; Reply Brief at 13-19. Both sides point to congressional hearings (Hearings) transcripts to support their arguments. 4 On this issue we find that Dr. Hernandez's decision to order further study was based on economic, social and political policy considerations, and not solely on scientific considerations as plaintiffs claim. The discretionary function exception precludes liability in this case because Dr. Hernandez was exercising permissible discretion based on policy considerations in deciding to order further study. In Berkovitz v. United States, supra, it was held that the government was not insulated from suit by the discretionary function exception. The Court explained that since plaintiff's claim alleged that the government violated mandatory directives, the government had no discretion, and therefore the discretionary exception could not apply. The unanimous opinion emphasized that the exception protects only governmental actions and decisions based on considerations of public policy. Berkovitz, --- U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1959. Berkovitz distinguished cases, such as the present one, in which the policies and programs formulated by the [government] allow room for implementing officials to make independent policy judgments.... Id. at ---- - ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1964. In cases which involve policy judgment and discretion, such as this one, the discretionary function exception protects the acts taken by those officials in the exercise of this discretion. Id. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1964. 36 In the agency Hearings here there are two examples of economic considerations that Dr. Hernandez took into account in making his decision. See Hearings at 62 (J.A. 105) (Dr. Hernandez quoted as saying that EPA was proposing approaches to the lead contamination issue that will be within the context of practicality of our budgetary restraints.); Hearings at 320 (J.A. 132) (Frances Phillips, EPA Deputy Regional Administrator, states that Dr. Hernandez told her that he did not think we should spend any money to remove dirt or have any bulldozers start up until we could identify a specific health problem relative to this case.). 37 The following statements in the Hearings support the conclusion that Dr. Hernandez also took social and political factors into account in reaching his decision. See Hearings at 66 (J.A. at 109) (Dr. Hernandez explains: Supposing that we had, the first day that report turned up, said 'Let's go and take that playground and clean that place up, and they do this, and say Done and get a settlement out of it,' and then we would have been charged with a 'sweetheart' deal with somebody, done in the dark of night, before we had done any kind of further study, when in fact, we found that this study showed problems further out.); Hearings at 67 (J.A. 110) (Dr. Hernandez states that moving ahead without some kind of information as to the nature of the source, the mode of travel, the kinds of control techniques that might otherwise be used, would leave us open to the same kinds of criticisms, 'Why did you do that?' ); Hearings at 317 (J.A. 129) (Mrs. Phillips states that Dr. Hernandez was concerned about the precedent that cleaning up at an action level of over a 1,000 parts per million would set, not only in the Dallas area, but relative to all the urban areas and lead smelter areas across the country.); Hearings at 335 (J.A. 147) (Mrs. Phillips and Dr. Hernandez discussed, among other factors, a primary concern for the children and the effect this had on other Federal court cases in the region ... and how this could affect our negotiations.). 5 II. CONCLUSION 38 Even though plaintiffs need only adduce a set of facts, Brief for Appellants at 1, supporting their legal claims in order to survive a motion to dismiss, Gregg v. Barrett, 771 F.2d 539, 547 (D.C.Cir.1985), the government must prevail in this case. Since Dr. Hernandez's decision ordering further study involved social, economic and political policy considerations, Berkovitz, --- U.S. ----, ----, 108 S.Ct. 1954, 1960, quoting Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 814, 104 S.Ct. at 2765, it is protected by the discretionary function exception. Therefore the government is immune from suit. 6 39 We affirm the dismissal of the complaint because even assuming that all of its factual allegations are true, plaintiffs have failed to establish a right to relief. We are therefore without jurisdiction. 40 Judgment accordingly.