Opinion ID: 3039552
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether the Discretionary Function Exception

Text: Immunizes the Government from a Lawsuit Based on its Conduct Now that we have identified the Government’s conduct at issue in this case, we determine whether the discretionary function exception immunizes it from a lawsuit based on that conduct. In this inquiry we first must decide whether a statute, regulation, or policy required the Park Service to locate and manage hazardous trees in any specific manner, or whether the Government’s actions were discretionary because they involved an “element of judgment or choice.” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 322, 111 S.Ct. at 1273. The National Park Service was established to promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations . . . by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. 16 U.S.C. § 1. The Park Service’s specific mission for the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is to maintain the property “for public outdoor recreation use and enjoyment . . . by the people of the United States and for preservation of the scenic, scientific, and historic features contributing to public enjoyment of such lands and waters . . . .” 16 U.S.C. § 460o. 13 In the administration of the Park, “the Secretary of the Interior may utilize such statutory authorities relating to areas of the national park system and such statutory authorities otherwise available to him for the conservation, management, or disposal of vegetative, mineral, or fish or wildlife resources as he deems appropriate . . . .” 16 U.S.C. § 460o-3. Moreover, the Secretary shall adopt and implement . . . a land and water use management plan, which shall include specific provision for, in order of priority – (1) public outdoor recreation benefits; (2) preservation of scenic, scientific, and historic features contributing to public enjoyment; (3) such utilization of natural resources as in the judgment of the Secretary of the Interior is consistent with, and does not significantly impair, public recreation and protection of scenic, scientific, and historic features contributing to public enjoyment. 16 U.S.C. § 460o-4. The Park Service’s “Management Policies 2001” manual sets out its visitor safety policy: The saving of human life will take precedence over all other management actions as the Park Service strives to protect human life and provide for injury-free visits. The Service will do this within the constraints of the 1916 Organic Act. The primary – and very substantial – constraint imposed by the Organic Act is that discretionary management activities may be undertaken only to the extent that they will not impair park resources and values. . . . When practicable, and consistent with congressionally designated purposes and mandates, the Service will reduce or remove known hazards and apply other appropriate measures, including closures, guarding, signing, or other forms of education. In doing so, the Service’s preferred actions will be those that have the least impact on park resources and values . . . . 14 These management policies do not impose park- specific visitor safety prescriptions. The means by which public safety concerns are to be addressed is left to the discretion of superintendents and other decision-makers at the park level, who must work within the limits of funding and staffing. App. at 368. Significantly, nothing in the above-quoted statutes or policies mandates how the Government should locate or deal with hazardous trees. In addition to these statutes and policies, the Park Service issued a 1991 document entitled “Natural Resources Management Guidelines,” containing a “Hazardous Tree” section that “provides the foundation for each park to implement its own hazardous tree management plan . . . , and also to provide a general scheme for such plans.” App. at 177. This section states in pertinent part: The following guidance may be used in developing a park plan. Each plan must be tailored to a park’s particular requirements according to vegetation type(s), type of visitor use areas, frequency of visitation, and other factors. .... Periodically, any trees which stand within falling distance of public use areas and which might pose a hazard to the public or significant property should be systematically inspected for flaws. The form and frequency of routine inspection or surveillance will depend on the type of visitor use areas (which will be defined later). The constraints of manpower available to a park may not permit periodic inspection of all pertinent areas. . . . Frequency of inspection as called for in the [hazardous tree management plan] becomes a local issue keyed to the nature of the park and visitor use. 15 .... Any tree denoted as hazardous should be promptly cared for, using the best arboricultural techniques, to eliminate the hazardous status of the tree. If it cannot be made safe, or if the effort to make it safe would be too costly in terms of manpower or dollars, then the tree may be removed. .... Deliberate visual inspections of transportation corridors should include all trees that could affect the roadway. Areas that may be screened or otherwise difficult to view from the road should be given a walk-through inspection. Drive-by inspections may not catch all flaws in the trees along roadways. However, it is generally recognized that it may not be realistically possible to walk by all trees along miles of roadways, and under these conditions a documented drive-by inspection should be considered satisfactory. App. at 179-83. The 1991 guidelines – which explicitly state that they “may be used” – do not mandate any particular methods of hazardous tree identification or removal. Instead, they make suggestions that Park officials are free to accept or reject. Thus, according to Park Superintendent John Donahue, although “the Park has used this guideline as a reference point in its attempt to draft a workable hazard tree management plan,” the Park officials have not “been able to institute such a plan.” App. at 291. Although the Park Service has not instituted a written hazardous tree management plan, its Roads and Trails crews follow an unwritten plan for identifying and removing hazardous trees in the Park. In areas of high visitor usage, i.e., where people are known to congregate and buildings are located, the Roads and Trails crews inspect trees on foot, looking at 16 individual trees. In undeveloped, low usage areas, Roads and Trails crews perform “windshield inspections”: while driving they survey the scene for dangerous conditions. If a tree or limb impedes traffic on the road, is leaning into the road, overhangs the road, or otherwise is made known to the crew as defective, the crew gets out and examines the tree more closely. There is no specific route or schedule for windshield inspections. Once a Park Service crew identifies a hazardous tree, it will take steps to manage the problem the same or the next day, depending on the availability of proper equipment. Pursuant to the unwritten policy, Park Service crews will not top trees and leave the trunk standing, because a topped tree quickly will die and become hazardous. In considering whether the discretionary function exception protected the Government in this case, the District Court looked to three cases for guidance. Because we, too, find that these cases are particularly useful for our analysis, we will review them as well. In Varig Airlines the Supreme Court held that the discretionary function exception immunized the Government from suit for its alleged negligence in certifying two separate planes for use in commercial aviation. 467 U.S. at 821, 104 S.Ct. at 2768. The Government had devised a system of compliance review in which it would “spot-check” aircraft manufacturers’ own inspections and tests to establish that an aircraft design conformed to safety regulations. Id. at 816-17, 104 S.Ct. at 2766. The Court stated that the plaintiffs’ “contention that the FAA was negligent in failing to inspect certain elements of aircraft design before certificating the [aircraft] necessarily challenges two aspects of the certification procedure: the FAA’s decision to implement the ‘spot-check’ system of compliance review, and the application of that ‘spotcheck’ system to the particular aircraft involved in these cases.” Id. at 819, 104 S.Ct. at 2767. The Court concluded that the discretionary function exception immunized the Government’s decision to implement the “spot-check” system, and stated: 17 the FAA has determined that a program of ‘spot- checking’ . . . best accommodates the goal of air transportation safety and the reality of finite agency resources. 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. Id. at 819-20, 104 S.Ct. at 2767-68. The Court also determined that “the acts of FAA employees in executing the ‘spot-check’ program in accordance with agency directives are protected by the discretionary function exception as well,” because the employees were specifically empowered to make policy judgments regarding the degree of confidence that might reasonably be placed in a given manufacturer, the need to maximize compliance with FAA regulations, and the efficient allocation of agency resources. Id. at 820, 104 S.Ct. at 2768. In Mitchell v. United States we concluded that the discretionary function exception immunized the Government from a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff whose car collided with a concrete head-wall at the end of a drainage ditch in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. 225 F.3d at 366. We found that the National Park Service’s decision about how and when to reconstruct the road was a discretionary decision that required the Park Service to “balance its mission of preserving the parklands against the severity of design flaws and the different levels of deterioration of the road.” Id. at 364. We stated that “[t]he Service’s choice to focus on a few highly dangerous portions of the road rather than to distribute its finite resources along the whole of Route 209 is a policy choice this court should not second-guess.” Id. 18 The District Court here also considered Autery, which we discussed above when determining what the Government’s conduct was that was at issue in this case. In Autery, as we have noted, a tree fell on a car as it drove through the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, killing one passenger and injuring another. At the time of the accident, the Government had an unwritten policy under which its personnel would conduct visual inspections of trees while driving along the road, and more closely inspect any tree that appeared hazardous. The issue before the court of appeals was “whether controlling statutes, regulations and administrative policies mandated that the Park Service inspect for hazardous trees in a specific manner. If not, then the Park officials’ decision to employ a particular inspection procedure – and its execution of that plan – is protected by the discretionary function exception.” Id. at 1528. The court found that there was no policy establishing a mandatory requirement so as to deprive Government personnel of discretion, and that “the inspection plan in effect at the time of the accident did not compel park employees to inspect certain trees on certain days or remove a particular number of trees per week.” Id. at 1529. The court also noted that “there was no evidence presented in the district court that park personnel did not fully comply with the tree inspection procedure.” Id. at 1530. The court then determined that the Government’s discretionary conduct was susceptible to policy analysis: To decide on a method of inspecting potentially hazardous trees, and in carrying out the plan, the Park Service likely had to determine and weigh the risk of harm from trees in various locations, the need for other safety programs, the extent to which the natural state of the forest should be preserved, and the limited financial and human resources available. Id. at 1531. Accordingly, the court held that the discretionary function exception deprived it and the district court of jurisdiction over a suit against the Government based on the decisions made by Government personnel in designing and implementing the unwritten tree inspection program in the park. Id. at 1531. 19 We conclude that the controlling statutes, regulations, and policies that led to the creation of the Park Service’s unwritten plan did not mandate any particular methods of hazardous tree management. As the District Court noted, the Park Service “was responsible for choosing the methods by which it maintained the Park and protected its visitors. The [Park Service’s] decisions concerning tree inspections, i.e. using windshield inspections for lower usage areas, involved the type of judgment or choice that the discretionary function exception protects.” Merando, 2006 WL 2865486, at . Like the Government’s hazardous tree management plan in Autery, the unwritten inspection plan in this case “did not compel park employees to inspect certain trees on certain days or remove a particular number of trees per week.” Id. at 1529. In these circumstances, both the Government’s decision to implement “windshield inspections” for low usage areas of the Park and its selection of the method of execution of those inspections by Park Service personnel required the exercise of discretion. Furthermore, both the Park Service’s decision to implement the “windshield inspection” program and the execution of those inspections by Park personnel are susceptible to policy analysis, and thus they satisfy the second prong of the Gaubert inquiry for the Government to have immunity for its conduct. The Government had to consider how best to use its limited financial and human resources in a manner that balanced visitor safety with visitor enjoyment and conservation of the Park. See 16 U.S.C. § 1. Moreover, as in Autery, the Government had to “determine and weigh the risk of harm from trees in various locations [and] the need for other safety programs, the extent to which the natural state of the forest should be preserved, and the limited financial and human resources available.” 992 F.2d at 1531. Mr. Merando attempts to distinguish Autery, contending that “[t]he Eleventh Circuit found that park inspections there (windshield inspections) were not mandated to be conducted in a specific manner, like daily, unlike the inspections here, and consequently held that the exception applied. . . . Here the windshield inspections were required to be conducted on Route 615 as the crews traveled it day-to-day, and Park policy 20 mandated that topped trees be reported for removal.” Appellant’s rep. br. at 7. Mr. Merando is incorrect. While the Park Service’s unwritten plan required personnel to scan for hazardous trees as they drove the Park’s roads, there is no statute, regulation, or policy dictating the specifics of that requirement; i.e., Park Service personnel were not told when or how often to drive Route 615, or when to exit their vehicles to conduct individual tree inspections. This case clearly is on all fours with Autery. Moreover, although Park Service personnel were required to report a hazardous tree if they were aware of it, there is no evidence that they saw the tree that fell on the Merandos. Whether they would have been required to report the tree if they had seen it therefore is irrelevant to our analysis. Indeed, we will assume that it is likely that Park Service personnel would have identified and removed the hazardous tree if they had conducted a close-up, individual inspection of the tree and thus this tragedy would not have happened. But because of the Park Service’s decision to implement “windshield inspections” in low usage areas of the Park, Park Service personnel did not find and remove the tree. The discretionary function exception immunizes the Government from a lawsuit based on these circumstances. We are struck by the similarity of Park Service’s “windshield inspections” to the FAA’s “spot-check” program in Varig Airlines. In both situations, the Government was required 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.” Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 819, 104 S.Ct. at 2767. Like the claims in Varig Airlines, Mr. Merando’s claims in this case necessarily challenge both the Park Service’s decision to implement the “windshield inspection” program and the acts of the Park Service employees in carrying out that program. Their conduct here is indistinguishable in a legal sense from the FAA’s conduct in Varig Airlines which the Supreme Court held to be protected by the discretionary function exception. 21 Mr. Merando argues that the FAA’s implementation of the “spot check” program in Varig Airlines is distinguishable from the Park Service’s decision to implement the “windshield inspection” program here, because “the decision [in Varig Airlines] to use representative sample inspections was a resource-driven, discretionary act, intentionally leaving the vast majority of designs and individual planes uninspected,” while in this case “all of Route 615 was routinely driven, and all of its cognizable trees were to be inspected in that process. No ‘sampling’ ever occurred, nor did the Park’s employees describe a policy to sample by inspecting only certain areas of Route 615 as representative of the rest.” Appellant’s rep. br. at 4-5. Mr. Merando, however, has not sufficiently distinguished these two cases: like the decision in Varig Airlines, the Government’s choice here to use “windshield inspections” in low usage areas of the Park was a discretionary decision, driven by limited resources, not to individually inspect every potentially hazardous tree in the Park, even if that meant that some hazards would remain unidentified. There is no escape from the fact that in forested areas trees always can fall and pose a danger to any person in the area and it is not only entirely appropriate that Government personnel have discretion as to what trees to inspect and how to make the inspections but necessary that they have that discretion. Accordingly, it is clear that the execution of the “spot check” program in Varig Airlines by FAA personnel, where the personnel were “specifically empowered to make policy judgments,” mirrors the execution of the “windshield inspection” program by the Park Service in this case, where the personnel were not given a specific inspection plan mandating the particular trees to inspect or the routes to drive. The Park Service’s determination on how to distribute its finite resources to locate and remove hazardous trees also is similar to the decision the Park Service faced in Mitchell, where the Park Service had to decide how to improve a long stretch of dangerous and deteriorating roadway. Here, knowing that it could not inspect every tree in the Park, the Park Service decided to expend the bulk of its resources on high-visitor use areas of the Park. Like the Government decision in Mitchell, the Park 22 Service’s decision in this case represents “a policy choice this court should not second-guess.” Mitchell, 225 F.3d at 364. Mr. Merando argues that this case differs from Mitchell because in Mitchell “the Park knew . . . that the road culvert in question might be a safety hazard, but allocated its finite resources to other, more pressing road projects,” while in this case “the Park did not concede that it knew any hazardous trees existed on Route 615, claimed it did not know the topped tree on Route 615 which killed the Merandos existed, and was not following any Park improvement, or resource plan which prevented it from knowing or from reporting it for removal.” Appellant’s rep. br. at 5-6. Mr. Merando does not explain why his purported distinction between these two cases is relevant to the question at hand and we think that the difference in the facts does not create a legal distinction between the situations. To start with it would be strange to hold that the Government could be liable for injuries caused by a risk of which it was unaware but not be liable for risk caused by a danger of which it was aware but chose not to remedy. If anything it might be thought that courts would reach the opposite result. In any event, the Park Service knew that every tree in the Park could become hazardous to the safety of its visitors, employees, and property, which is why it decided to implement the inspection program. Moreover, and contrary to Mr. Merando’s claim in his reply brief, the Park Service was following a “resource plan” – namely, its hazardous tree management plan, which took into account the resources available for locating and removing hazardous trees throughout the Park. As in Mitchell, the Park Service made a decision to “allocate[ ] its finite resources to other, more pressing [ ] projects,” Appellant’s rep. br. at 5, when it decided to conduct more thorough inspections in high-use areas of the Park and implement the “windshield inspection” program in the area of the Park where the tree was located. Thus, Mr. Merando’s claimed distinction between this case and Mitchell is incorrect. In these circumstances, the District Court correctly concluded that the discretionary function exception immunized the Government from a lawsuit based on its decisions regarding 23 the maintenance of the Park and the carrying out of that maintenance by the Roads and Trails crew. While we recognize that there was a terrible event with awful consequences here, unfortunately for Mr. Merando the courts simply do not have jurisdiction over his suit.