Opinion ID: 3042756
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Libel and Slander Claims

Text: On appeal, Glover first challenges the district court’s substitution of the United States as a party in place of the individually-named defendants to Glover’s libel and slander claims (Counts Six and Seven). Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the United States shall be substituted as the defendant in civil actions against federal employees “[u]pon certification by the Attorney General that the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.” 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1). If a plaintiff objects, the district court reviews de novo the United States Attorney’s scope of employment certification. S.J. & W. Ranch, Inc. v. Lehtinen, 913 F.2d 1538, 1543 (11th Cir. 1990). The plaintiff, however, bears “the burden of altering the status quo by proving that the employee acted outside the scope of employment.” Id. The question of whether an employee acted within the scope of his employment for purposes of section 2679(d)(1) “is an issue governed by the law of the state where the incident occurred.” Id. at 1542. Under Alabama law, “[a]n act is within an employee’s scope of employment if the act is done as part of the duties the employee was hired to perform or if the act confers a benefit on his employer.” Hulbert v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 723 So.2d 22, 23 (Ala. 1998). The 4 Case: 14-15427 Date Filed: 09/16/2015 Page: 5 of 10 dispositive question is whether, at the time of the alleged wrongdoing, “the employee was engaged in an act that he was hired to perform or in conduct that conferred a benefit on his employer.” Id. at 24. Here, the district court reviewed expressly the United States Attorney’s certification under the proper de novo standard of review. Accepting the allegations in Glover’s amended complaint as true -- and applying Alabama law -- the district court determined that Glover failed to satisfy his burden of proving that Defendants acted outside the scope of their employment. According to Glover’s complaint, Defendants’ alleged wrongful statements were made during the course of an official USPS investigation of a customer complaint against Glover: a duty that Defendants were hired to perform and that benefitted the USPS. Moreover, nothing mandates that a district court allow discovery and hold an evidentiary hearing before ruling on a section 2679 certification. Discovery and an evidentiary hearing are particularly unnecessary in this case, where Glover alleged no facts to support his contention that Defendants were acting outside the scope of their employment at the time of the alleged wrongdoing. The district court substituted properly the United States as a defendant to Glover’s state-law libel and slander claims. As a result, Glover’s state-law claims 5 Case: 14-15427 Date Filed: 09/16/2015 Page: 6 of 10 were subject to dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 1 See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h) (providing an exception to the United States’ waiver of sovereign immunity under the Federal Tort Claims Act for claims involving libel or slander); JBP Acquisitions, L.P. v. United States ex rel. FDIC, 224 F.3d 1260, 1263-64 (11th Cir. 2000) (courts lack subject matter jurisdiction to consider claims against the United States when the alleged conduct falls into one of the statutory exceptions to the Federal Tort Claims Act).