Opinion ID: 61659
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of the Baker Formulations

Text: The district court concluded that the Plaintiffs' cases met not one, but three of the formulations described in Baker v. Carr. Fisher, 454 F.Supp.2d at 644. As we discuss the Baker factors, we are mindful that the purpose of the political question doctrine is to bar claims that have the potential to undermine the separation-of-powers design of our federal government. Although the Baker formulations provide useful analytical guideposts in our analysis, [w]hether an issue presents a nonjusticiable political question cannot be determined by a precise formula. Saldano v. O'Connell, 322 F.3d 365, 368 (5th Cir.2003). We are asked to declare that the very design of our federal government compels the Plaintiffs to seek redress from the political branches for KBR's alleged fraudulent and negligent acts. This requires a delicate exercise in constitutional interpretation, an exercise that is not satisfied by simplistically plugging facts into factors. See Baker, 369 U.S. at 211, 82 S.Ct. 691.
The district court first found that the issues raised by the Plaintiffs' claims implicated a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment to the Executive Branch, namely, that war and foreign policy decisions are for the Executive. Fisher, 454 F.Supp.2d at 640-41. Of course, the Constitution commits to Congress the power to raise and support an army and navy, and to the Executive the responsibilities of commanding those armed forces. U.S. Const. art. I, § 1, cls. 12-14; art. II, § 2. The decisions whether and under what circumstances to employ military force are constitutionally reserved for [these two] branches. Tiffany v. United States, 931 F.2d 271, 277 (4th Cir.1991). The strategy and tactics employed on the battlefield are clearly not subject to judicial review. Id. We disagree with the district court's textual commitment analysis because at this stage we cannot find that all plausible sets of facts that could be proven would implicate particular authority committed by the Constitution to Congress or the Executive. Examples of cases that implicate a textual commitment of constitutional authority to the Executive Branch include a challenge to the President's decision to deploy troops in a foreign land, Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 789, 70 S.Ct. 936, or mine the harbors of another country in the course of a war against that country, DaCosta v. Laird, 471 F.2d 1146, 1153-57 (2d Cir.1973); so too has such a textual commitment been involved when a suit seeks judicial oversight of training procedures employed by the National Guard, Gilligan, 413 U.S. at 5-10, 93 S.Ct. 2440, requests an injunction of all nuclear testing, Pauling v. McNamara, 331 F.2d 796 (D.C.Cir. 1963), or requires the resolution of a territorial dispute between foreign sovereigns, Occidental, 577 F.2d at 1202-03. These are matters that the President is constitutionally privileged to address. In addition, as these cases suggest, the first Baker formulation is primarily concerned with direct challenges to actions taken by a coordinate branch of the federal government. See McMahon v. Presidential Airways, Inc., 502 F.3d 1331, 1359 (11th Cir.2007). KBR is not part of a coordinate branch of the federal government. Therefore, to invoke the textual commitment factor, KBR faces a double burden. Id. First, [KBR] must demonstrate that the claims against it will require reexamination of a decision by the military. Then, it must demonstrate that the military decision at issue is ... insulated from judicial review. Id. at 1359-60 (emphasis in original; citation omitted). Contrary to the situations regarding matters of war, there is no textual commitment to the coordinate branches of the authority to adjudicate the merits of the Plaintiffs' claims against KBR for breach of its duties. In fact, when faced with an ordinary tort suit, the textual commitment factor actually weighs in favor of resolution by the judiciary. See Klinghoffer v. S.N.C. Achille Lauro, 937 F.2d 44, 49-50 (2d Cir.1991). It is an extraordinary occasion, indeed, when the political branches delve into matters of tort-based compensation. See, e.g., September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, Pub.L. No. 107-42, §§ 401-409, 115 Stat. 230, 237-41 (2001). Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to the Plaintiffs, their claims challenge actions taken and omissions made only by KBR. That company's conduct can be examined by a federal court without violating the Constitution's separation of powers.
A political question looms menacingly when a claim suffers from a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it. Baker, 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. 691. One of the most obvious limitations imposed by [Article III, § 1, of the Constitution] is that judicial action must be governed by standard, by rule.  Vieth, 541 U.S. at 278, 124 S.Ct. 1769 (plurality opinion). This is arguably the most critical factor in the political question analysis in the present litigation because at least some of the allegations would draw a court into a consideration of what constituted adequate force protection for the convoys. [4] This factor relates most directly to our later analysis of the elements that the Plaintiffs must prove in order to prevail on their state tort claims. Consequently, our analysis under Baker is incomplete, as it is not until the final section of the opinion  where we review in some depth what the Plaintiffs must prove to prevail  that all considerations will be reviewed. What is the cart, and which is the horse, may be disputed, but we seek to get the proper analytical alignment before we are finished. The district court found that the actions of KBR and the Army regarding the decision-making and control of the Plaintiffs' convoys were so intertwined that to question KBR's decisions is necessarily to question the Army's decisions. Fisher, 454 F.Supp.2d at 642. In the district court's view, in order for the Plaintiffs to prevail, the court would have to determine whether the Army gave sufficient information to KBR about the route the convoys were to take, whether the force protection provisions were sufficient, and whether the military personnel assigned to protect the convoys performed properly. KBR argues that the judiciary will find no manageable standards for assessing the reasonableness of the Army's professional military judgments. The Plaintiffs stress that Army judgments are not the issue. Instead, it is argued that the fraud and negligence claims, leveled only against KBR, are uniquely suited for judicial resolution. American courts have resolved such matters between private litigants since before the adoption of the Constitution. See THE FEDERALIST NO. 80 (Alexander Hamilton). KBR does not deny that the judiciary possesses the expertise and has available the required standards to resolve ordinary fraud and negligence claims, but suggests that the unique factual setting of Plaintiffs' injuries renders these claims extraordinary. KBR's argument and the district court's opinion rely on the fact that the relevant LOGCAP contracts and implementing Task Orders place the responsibility for force protection squarely on the Army. Warding off attacks capable of inflicting injury on these civilian truck drivers was a military duty, not a duty owed by KBR to its employees. KBR's argument in effect is that no matter how unsafe the roads of Iraq might be, KBR's assurances to potential employees could be made under the assumption that the military would provide sufficient force protection for any convoy mission. [5] A court, KBR posits, can neither ignore the Army's role in these cases nor judge whether the Army adequately performed that role. Evaluating this assertion by KBR requires us to understand just what the Plaintiffs must prove to prevail. We defer a detailed discussion of that until later when we review the elements of Texas tort law. The central issue will be causation. If we must examine the Army's contribution to causation, political question will loom large. However, the Plaintiffs have presented a plausible set of facts as to the fraud and misrepresentation claims that might allow causation to be proven under one tort doctrine without questioning the Army's role. That would occur if KBR made assurances to prospective employees that were premised on others, such as the Army, performing in a way that was unrealistic to expect or even impossible. As this court noted long ago, [i]f the misconduct is of a character which, according to the usual experience of mankind, is calculated to afford an opportunity for the intervention of some subsequent cause, the subsequent mischief may be held to be a result of such misconduct. The Mariner, 17 F.2d 253, 254 (5th Cir.1927). The Plaintiffs allege that they accepted employment in a war zone because KBR guaranteed that they would not be dispatched to perform work if conditions were unsafe. If KBR tortiously guaranteed safety when it knew there was no such safety, it may be liable for resulting injuries despite that the immediate causes were determined attackers that could not be thwarted by the best efforts of American defenders. These are the risks to which KBR allegedly promised not to expose the Plaintiffs. We will later discuss the tort standards for judging causation in such cases. We now review how such claims as we just defined them might violate the second Baker factor. The factor is a recognition that courts are fundamentally underequipped to formulate national policies or develop standards for matters not legal in nature. Japan Whaling, 478 U.S. at 230, 106 S.Ct. 2860 (quoting United States ex rel. Joseph v. Cannon, 642 F.2d 1373, 1379 (D.C.Cir.1981)). In Japan Whaling, the Supreme Court faced a challenge to the Secretary of State's refusal to certify that Japan's whaling practices were out of compliance with an international treaty; this certification was allegedly mandated by certain congressional legislation. Id. at 224-28, 106 S.Ct. 2860. The Court acknowledged the premier role which both Congress and the Executive play in [the field of foreign relations], but resolved the challenge nonetheless because a decision in the case call[ed] for applying no more than the traditional rules of statutory construction, and then applying this analysis to the particular set of facts presented below. Id. at 230, 106 S.Ct. 2860. The ready availability of legal standards and the traditional role of the judiciary in interpreting statutes compelled the court to resolve the matter even while it recognized that its decision may have significant political overtones. Id. By contrast, the court in Cannon could find no judicial standards by which to resolve a claim that a Senator's aide was illegally paid his federal salary while engaging in campaign activity. 642 F.2d at 1375-76. Describing the suit as a challenge to the interworkings of a Senator and his staff member, the court noted the utter absence of statutory, administrative or case law  on which courts rely on to resolve legal disputes  covering this particular matter. Id. at 1379-80. In fact, the Senate itself had failed to reach a consensus on the issue confronting the court. Id. at 1380. Under these circumstances, the court refused to resolve the dispute because doing so would require the judiciary to develop rules of behavior for the Legislative Branch. Id. at 1385; see also Tiffany, 931 F.2d at 278-79 (refusing to craft prudent intercept standard for judging whether North American Air Defense Command's order to intercept potentially hostile aircraft was legally sufficient). The cases before us are closer to Japan Whaling than Cannon or Tiffany. They primarily raise legal questions that may be resolved by the application of traditional tort standards that we discuss below. We are not asked to develop a prudent force protection standard and then impose that standard directly on the Army. See Tiffany, 931 F.2d at 278-79. While the resolution of Plaintiffs' claims may require a court to adjust traditional tort standards to account for the less than hospitable environment in which KBR operated, the court will arguably have no need to develop any standards at all. Cf. McMahon, 502 F.3d at 1363-64. The standards for judging at least the assertions of civilian employers that cause injury to their employees are readily available.
The district court also determined that a resolution of the Plaintiffs' claims would necessarily entail a judicial pronouncement as to the wisdom of the military's use of civilian contractors in a war zone. Id. at 644. [6] As such, the court would be compelled to make a policy determination that is reserved to the discretion of the political branches, implicating the third Baker factor. Id. If that is part of the Plaintiffs' claims, then the political question doctrine does prevent resolution. For example, the Eleventh Circuit refused to entertain tort suits by Turkish sailors against the United States Navy for injuries sustained during a multi-national military training exercise because, inter alia, resolution of the suits would require the court to render a policy determination regarding the necessity of simulating actual battle conditions. Aktepe v. United States, 105 F.3d 1400, 1404 (11th Cir.1997). The judiciary cannot announce policy positions on military readiness for which it is neither equipped nor, more importantly, constitutionally empowered to speak. To recover, the Plaintiffs may not need a court to evaluate the Executive's longstanding policy of employing civilian contractors in combat-support roles. KBR's intended defense has not been shown as legitimately implicating this broad, policy-based decision. All parties accept that the Executive acted within his discretionary authority to employ KBR to support the military mission in Iraq. The court will be asked to judge KBR's policies and actions, not those of the military or Executive Branch. In sum, our analysis of the Baker factors convinces us that the district court will not inevitably be drawn into a reconsideration of military decisions or be forced to announce its opposition to an Executive or Congressional policy. Instead, as we discuss below, the application of traditional tort standards may permit the district court to navigate through this politically significant case without confronting a political question. We turn now to the tort elements and attempt a discriminating inquiry into the precise facts and posture of these cases against KBR.