Opinion ID: 2743609
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: FTCA waives the government’s immunity from suits arising out of certain negligent acts of federal employees. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1).1 The government’s immunity is restored, however, under what is known as the “discretionary function exception,” with respect to claims arising out of certain discretionary duties of federal agencies and employees. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The exception excludes from the FTCA’s waiver of immunity [a]ny 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. Id. To determine whether a particular claim is barred by the FTCA’s discretionary function exception, we must conduct 1 Specifically, the FTCA waives the government’s immunity with respect to claims for money damages for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). 10 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES a two-step inquiry. See Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536–37. At the first step, we must consider whether the agency’s allegedly negligent conduct is discretionary—that is, “whether the action is a matter of choice for the acting employee.” Id. at 536. Conduct is not discretionary unless it “involves an element of judgment or choice.” Id. Thus, the exception will not apply “when a federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow” but the employee fails to follow it. Id. At the second step, we must determine whether the particular exercise of discretion was “of the kind that the discretionary function exception was designed to shield.” Id. The decision must be one that is “grounded in social, economic, and political policy.” Id. “Whether a challenged action falls within the discretionary function exception requires a particularized analysis of the specific agency action challenged.” GATX/Airlog Co. v. United States, 286 F.3d 1168, 1174 (9th Cir. 2002). Thus, before turning to Berkovitz’s two-step inquiry, we must first identify Plaintiffs’ “specific allegations of agency wrongdoing.” 486 U.S. at 540. To identify the particular agency conduct with which Plaintiffs take issue, we look to the allegations of Plaintiffs’ complaint. See Whisnant v. United States, 400 F.3d 1177, 1184–85 (9th Cir. 2005). In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that the Park Service employees were negligent “when they failed to protect Donna Young from falling into the sinkhole caused by the transformer, failed to warn Donna Young of the presence of the latent, dangerous sinkhole, and failed to make the area safe for visitors.” Plaintiffs further alleged that Park Service employees knew or should have known that the transformer would emit heat, that it would thereby create a large cavern YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 11 in the snow, and that park visitors would walk on the snow in the area of the hazard. In other words, Plaintiffs alleged that the Park Service was negligent in failing to warn of a hazard that it both knew of and created. The district court framed Plaintiffs’ allegations more broadly, however. It concluded that “the conduct at issue is the NPS’s maintenance of the Park, decisions to identify and warn visitors from hazards, and the protection of visitors from hazards.” Framed in that way, the district court assessed whether NPS’s decisions about whether to warn the public of “hazards of a general nature within the park, whether known or unknown” and however created, were policy driven. Plaintiffs take issue with that characterization, contending that it fails to account for their allegations that the agency knew of the hazard and created it. We agree. Our cases make clear that when determining whether the discretionary function exception applies in a particular case, “the question of how the government is alleged to have been negligent is critical.” Whisnant, 400 F.3d at 1185. Had Plaintiffs actually alleged, for example, that the NPS was negligent in failing to warn of any danger, whether known or unknown and however created, their claim would likely be barred, just as the district court concluded. See, e.g., Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1137; Blackburn v. United States, 100 F.3d 1426. 1434 (9th Cir. 1996); Valdez v. United States, 56 F.3d 1177, 1178 (9th Cir. 1995); Childers v. United States, 40 F.3d 973, 975 (9th Cir. 1994). But that is not what Plaintiffs alleged. Instead, they alleged that the government was negligent in failing to warn of a particular danger that it knew of and created—allegations that, in our view, are meaningfully different because they encompass conduct that may not be shielded by the Park Service’s broad discretion. The 12 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES distinction is therefore important, and the district court erred in mischaracterizing Plaintiffs’ allegations. Nonetheless, the government urges us to adopt the district court’s broad characterization, lest the analysis “impermissibly collaps[e] the discretionary-function inquiry into a question of whether the government was negligent.” But the government misses the point. We recognize, as we have before, that “the question of whether the government was negligent is irrelevant to the applicability of the discretionary function exception.” Whisnant, 400 F.3d at 1185. By contrast, the question of how the government was negligent remains “critical” to the discretionary function exception inquiry—indeed, determining the precise action the government took or failed to take (that is, how it is alleged to have been negligent) is a necessary predicate to determining whether the government had discretion to take that action. See generally id. In our view, the “specific allegatio[n] of agency wrongdoing” that we must use in determining whether the discretionary function exception applies in this case is Plaintiffs’ allegation that NPS staff failed to warn of a known, latent hazard that the agency itself created. With that allegation of wrongdoing in mind, we turn to the Berkovitz two-step inquiry.
In this case, the analysis at Berkovitz’s first step—whether the decision at issue “involve[d] an element of judgment or choice”—is relatively straightforward. The parties agree that the Park’s decision not to place warnings signs at or near the transformer was a discretionary decision. Neither party YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 13 identifies any statute, regulation, or policy prescribing any specific course of conduct for warning against hazards the agency created. The conduct was therefore a matter of choice for the Park Service staff and was discretionary under Berkovitz.
The parties’ dispute lies in the analysis at Berkovitz’s second step—whether the decision was policy-driven. See 486 U.S. at 536–37. The discretionary function exception protects against “judicial ‘second-guessing’ of legislative and administrative decisions” only in certain circumstances. Id. (quoting United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 799, 814 (1984)). Such instances generally involve decisions that are “based on considerations of public policy”—specifically, “social, economic, and political policy.” Id. at 537. Our court has acknowledged the “weaving lines of precedent regarding what decisions are susceptible to social, economic, or political policy analysis,” particularly in cases in which the allegation of agency wrongdoing involves a failure to warn. Whisnant, 400 F.3d at 1181. We have noted that “Government actions can be classified along a spectrum, ranging from those ‘totally divorced from the sphere of policy analysis,’ such as driving a car, to those ‘fully grounded in regulatory policy,’ such as the regulation and oversight of a bank.” Id. (quoting O’Toole v. United States, 295 F.3d 1029, 1035 (9th Cir. 2002)). We begin by reviewing the specific policies that the government contends formed the basis of the agency’s decision. The government first points to the Organic Act, 14 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 16 U.S.C. §§ 1–4, the statute through which the National Park Service was created. The Organic Act provides, The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified, . . . 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. We have recognized that the Organic Act “sets forth the broad policy considerations that govern NPS’s management of national parks” and that, under the Organic Act, “[m]uch of the NPS’s work is ‘grounded’ in [a] broad mandate to balance conservation and access.” Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1130. The government also relies on more specific policies, all of which were established pursuant to the NPS’s authority under the Organic Act, to justify its decision not to warn of the hazard created by the transformer. Specifically, it points to the NPS’s 2006 Management Policies and the NPS’s Director’s Order #50C as additional bases for its conduct. The NPS’s 2006 Management Policies apply nationwide and, like the Organic Act, also require the NPS, in providing for visitor safety, to balance its safety measures against considerations of conservation and access: YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 15 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. The policies go on to state that, at the park-specific level, “[t]he means by which public safety concerns are to be addressed is left to the discretion of superintendents and other decision-makers . . . who must work within the limits of funding and staffing.” “Examples include decisions about whether to install warnings signs . . . .” Similarly, under Director’s Order #50C, park superintendents must “use their discretion to determine the level of program resources and the types of programs needed to manage visitor risk within their park.” “Superintendents should strive to minimize the frequency and severity of visitor incidents by developing a range of appropriate prevention strategies . . . includ[ing] . . . where appropriate, feasible, and consistent with the park mission, providing warnings about dangerous conditions (e.g., weather, construction areas) that may cause risk to visitors.” Director’s Order #50C specifies that superintendents should exercise that discretion in light of “NPS policies relating to public safety, health, and the environment.” Against the backdrop of those and other related agency policies, our cases have identified important distinctions 16 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES between protected and unprotected agency actions. The NPS’s decisions with respect to the design and construction of roadways and trails, for example, are discretionary decisions that are “clear[ly] link[ed]” to social and political policies relating to access and resource preservation. ARA Leisure Servs. v. United States, 831 F.2d 193, 195 (9th Cir. 1987); see also Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1137 (holding that the NPS’s decision not to warn of a rockfall hazard involved a “process of identifying and responding to hazards in the wild” and “implicate[d] the NPS’s broader policy mandates to balance access with conservation and safety”); Childers, 40 F.3d at 975 (concluding that the NPS’s decision not to warn of unmaintained trails was “inextricably linked to central policy questions” relating to access and preservation). Such decisions are therefore protected under the discretionary function exception. NPS decisions not to provide warnings at other natural features within the national parks, even where the NPS has provided access to those features, may likewise be protected. In Valdez v. United States, the plaintiffs sued the United States alleging a failure to erect barriers at the top of certain waterfalls in Kings Canyon National Park and a failure to warn of the dangers the waterfalls posed to the public. 56 F.3d at 1178. Relying on Childers, we held that the NPS’s decision not to warn of natural, obvious risks “clearly implicates a choice between the competing policy considerations of maximizing access to and preservation of natural resources versus the need to minimize potential safety hazards.” Id. at 1180. A year later, we held that the NPS’s decision not to warn of the dangers of diving off Stoneman Bridge at Yosemite National Park was protected by the discretionary function exception because the decision was “based on considerations of visitor enjoyment, preservation YOUNG V. UNITED STATES 17 of the historical features of the bridge, the need to avoid a proliferation of man-made intrusions, and protection of wildlife and the general riparian environment.” Blackburn, 100 F.3d at 1434. Those cases suggest that, when the NPS decides whether to warn of dangers that exist naturally in its national parks, those decisions generally are guided by considerations of policy. The NPS must balance, for example, its purpose to provide visitor access to park resources against its need to protect the public from harm. It must also consider its obligation to preserve the natural environment “for the enjoyment of future generations.” See 16 U.S.C. § 1. And, at times, it must consider how best to protect wildlife and park ecosystems and to preserve historical features of the lands it maintains. But those policies, while crucial to the NPS’s operations, cannot shield every decision the Park Service makes. For that reason, we have declined to “quickly accept that every minute aspect of the NPS’s work is touched by the policy concerns of the Organic Act.” Terbush, 516 F.3d at 1130. Because “[i]t is not sufficient for the government merely to [wave] the flag of policy as a cover for anything and everything it does that is discretionary,” we have demanded “some support in the record” that the particular decision the NPS made was actually susceptible to analysis under the policies the government identified. Id. at 1134. Cases in which the government cannot provide such support delimit the scope of the discretionary function exception’s reach. Summers v. United States was such a case. In Summers, the plaintiffs alleged that the government had failed to warn visitors at Rodeo Beach of the hazards of stepping on hot 18 YOUNG V. UNITED STATES coals at the beach’s fire pits. 905 F.2d 1212, 1214 (9th Cir. 1990). The government, in response, offered “no evidence . . . that NPS’s failure to post warnings of the sort that would have prevented [the plaintiff’s] injury was the result of a decision reflecting the competing considerations of the Service’s sign policy.” Id. at 1215. Finding “nothing in the record to indicate that the failure to provide signs resulted from a decision grounded in economic, social, or political policy,” we concluded that the government’s failure to warn was not protected by the discretionary function exception. Id. at 1215–16. We reached a similar conclusion in Oberson v. United States Department of Agriculture, 514 F.3d at 997–98, noting that the government offered “no evidence to show that its failure to post a warning [at the location of a known hazard] was the result of a policy decision.” Our decision in Sutton v. Earles, 26 F.3d 903, 910 (9th Cir. 1994), also dealt with a circumstance in which the agency’s decision was not susceptible to policy analysis. In Sutton, we held that the Navy’s failure to post speed limit signs after it placed buoys in navigable waterways was not protected by the discretionary function exception. Faced with a circumstance where, as here, the hazard at issue was both known to and created by the agency, we concluded that the agency’s decision not to warn of that hazard was not policybased. Specifically, we held that “[a] decision not to warn of a specific, known hazard for which the acting agency is responsible is not the kind of broader social, economic or political policy decision that the discretionary function exception is intended to protect.” Id.