Opinion ID: 6318057
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Existence of Alternate Remedies

Text: The first “special factor” precluding the extension of a Bivens remedy to Hoffman’s claim is “the existence of alternative remedies.” Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. at 1865. “For if Congress has created ‘any alternative, existing process for protecting the [plaintiff’s] interest,’” then “that alone may limit the power of the Judiciary to infer a new Bivens cause of action.” Id. at 1858 (quoting Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537, 550 (2007)). For starters, as explained above, Congress has provided for injunctive relief in federal court and administrative relief under BOP’s claims process that would have allowed Hoffman to avoid injury by obtaining his transfer beyond Preston’s reach before he was attacked, or by seeking other forms of prospective relief. See id. at 1863 (noting habeas relief “would have provided a faster and more direct route to relief than a suit for money damages” by requiring immediate improvement of the conditions of confinement). That Hoffman failed to utilize these remedies between February 26, 2016 (the onset of his dispute with Preston) and May 16, 2016 (the date of alleged physical violence against Hoffman) does not permit this court to conclude that an implied Bivens remedy is therefore necessarily available. The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that the availability of administrative and injunctive relief precluded the requested extension of a Bivens remedy. See id. at 1865 (concluding injunctive and habeas relief counseled against extending Bivens to a claim of a warden’s acquiescence in detainee abuse by prison guards); Malesko, 534 U.S. at 74 (finding the availability of injunctive and administrative relief, along with state tort claims, eliminated the need to extend Bivens to Eighth Amendment claims for deliberate indifference to medical needs asserted against private prisons as an entity). Moreover, an injunction against Preston could be argued to have a deterrent effect on HOFFMAN V. PRESTON 43 such officials by crimping their future ascendency within the bureaucracy. Next, Congress provided a damages remedy against the Government for prisoners in Hoffman’s position under the Federal Torts Claims Act (“FTCA”), which provides for damages suits for intentional torts committed by individual federal officers. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2674, 2680(h). It is true that the Supreme Court in Carlson treated FTCA suits as an inadequate substitute “[b]ecause the Bivens remedy is recoverable against individuals . . . [and] is a more effective deterrent than the FTCA remedy against the United States.” 446 U.S. at 21. But the Court has since warned that the coexistence of the FTCA with Bivens remedies in established contexts (i.e., Bivens, Davis, and Carlson) “is not a license to create a new Bivens remedy in a context we have never before addressed.” Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at 748 n.9. Because Hoffman’s claim against Preston for intentional harm arises in a “new Bivens context,” we cannot simply write off FTCA suits as inadequate and thereby usurp the authority to craft our own remedy from the text of the Constitution itself. If nothing else, the oft-cited “damages or nothing” rationale from Bivens falls flat, given that Hoffman has a damages remedy available to him under the FTCA, such that extending the Bivens remedy to this case is not the only means by which Hoffman can obtain damages. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring). And moreover, even taking at face value Carlson’s conclusion that the FTCA alone was an inadequate remedy given the specific facts of that case, it must be emphasized that no injunctive relief was possible in Carlson, given that there, the prisoner died, whereas here, Hoffman lives on. Finally, Congress has left open the possibility that claimants like Hoffman may bring state tort claims against 44 HOFFMAN V. PRESTON federal officers like Preston who engage in particularly egregious intentional conduct. The Westfall Act generally bars state tort claims against “any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment.” 28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)(1). 4 Under California law—which controls in this case because the conduct at issue occurred at a federal prison in California—the scope of employment inquiry turns on whether the tort was “foreseeable,” whether the employer’s job requirements “engendered” the conduct, and whether the conduct was “not so unusual or startling” that holding the employer liable would be unfair. Lisa M. v. Henry Mayo Newhall Mem’l Hosp., 907 P.2d 358, 362–63 (Cal. 1995) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Here, Preston allegedly sought to retaliate against Hoffman for reporting Preston and other prison guards for stealing lunches through an indirect use of force that violated BOP regulations. 5 These actions likely amounted to the common law torts of assault and battery. See, e.g., Arpin v. Santa Clara Valley Transp. Agency, 261 F.3d 912, 926 (9th Cir. 2001) (recognizing that California law imposes liability 4 To assert Westfall Act immunity, a federal employee sued in tort must deliver the pleadings to his supervisor and, ultimately, to the Attorney General. 28 U.S.C. § 2679(c). If the Attorney General certifies the employee acted within the scope of his employment at the time of the incident from which the claim arose, the court substitutes the United States as defendant. Id. § 2679(d)(1)–(2). The scope of employment inquiry is governed by the law of the state in which the conduct is alleged to have occurred. See Saleh v. Bush, 848 F.3d 880, 888 (9th Cir. 2017). 5 See 28 C.F.R. §§ 552.20 (prohibiting the use of force except “as a last alternative after all other reasonable efforts to resolve a situation have failed”), 552.22(b) (prohibiting the use of force to “punish an inmate”), 552.22(j) (requiring that all uses of force “be carefully documented”). HOFFMAN V. PRESTON 45 for police officers who “aided, abetted, counseled or encouraged” battery when such force was unreasonable); Fluharty v. Fluharty, 59 Cal. App. 4th 484, 497 (Cal. Ct. App. 1997) (defining battery as “an act which resulted in a harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff's person” (citation omitted)). Hoffman’s allegations would also fit comfortably within the common law action for the intentional infliction of emotional distress even if a fellow inmate had never laid a hand on Hoffman. See, e.g., Potter v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 863 P.2d 795, 819 (Cal. 1993) (defining intentional infliction of emotional distress as intentional or reckless “extreme and outrageous conduct” directed at the plaintiff that proximately causes the plaintiff “severe or extreme emotional distress”). And because Preston is alleged to have falsely labeled Hoffman a “snitch” to damage his reputation among other prisoners and prison guards, Hoffman’s claim may state a cause of action for defamation. See, e.g., Shively v. Bozanich, 80 P.3d 676, 682–83 (Cal. 2003) (defining slander as a “false and unprivileged oral communication attributing to a person . . . certain unfavorable characteristics or qualities”). While the scope of employment is necessarily a fact-bound inquiry, there is authority for the proposition that the conduct alleged here falls outside the line. See, e.g., Lisa M., 907 P.2d at 363–67 (holding that although a hospital technician’s sexual assault of a patient was enabled by his employment, the tort was not foreseeable and did not arise out of emotions engendered by the job). 6 6 When asked for additional briefing on the availability of state tort remedies in this case, the Government explained that the Attorney General would likely certify that Preston acted within the scope of his employment pursuant to the Government’s standard practice of assuming the truth of a federal officer’s denial of the allegations in a 46 HOFFMAN V. PRESTON