Opinion ID: 2605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Availability of a Bivens Action

Text: In Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), the Supreme Court recognized for the first time an implied private right of action for damages against federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen's constitutional rights. Correctional Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 66, 122 S.Ct. 515, 151 L.Ed.2d 456 (2001). [25] The Bivens Court permitted a victim of a Fourth Amendment violation by federal officers [to] bring suit for money damages against the officers in federal court. Id. I have no quarrel with much of what I take to be the majority's view of Bivens jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has indeed been most reluctant to extend use of the  Bivens model. Wilkie v. Robbins, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2588, 2597, 168 L.Ed.2d 389 (2007). Since Bivens, the Court has extended its reach only twiceto recognize[] an implied damages remedy under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), and the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment, Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980). Malesko, 534 U.S. at 67, 122 S.Ct. 515; see also Wilkie, 127 S.Ct. at 2597-98. The majority is also correct in observing that when determining whether to extend Bivens, i.e., whether to devise a new Bivens damages action, Wilkie, 127 S.Ct. at 2597, a court must first determine whether Congress has provided any alternative, existing process for protecting the interest in question, id. at 2598. If no alternative remedial scheme exists, whether to provide a Bivens remedy is a matter of judicial judgment. Id. `[T]he federal courts must make the kind of remedial determination that is appropriate for a common-law tribunal, paying particular heed, however, to any special factors counseling hesitation before authorizing a new kind of federal litigation.' Id. (quoting Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 378, 103 S.Ct. 2404, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983)). But not every attempt to employ Bivens to redress asserted constitutional violations requires a separate and independent judicial inquiry as to whether the remedy is appropriate in that particular case. Only when the court is being asked to devise a new Bivens damages action, id. at 2597 (emphasis added), do we make such an assessment. And a new Bivens damages action is not being sought unless the plaintiff is asking the court to extend Bivens liability to a[] new context or new category of defendants. Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68, 122 S.Ct. 515. In the case before us, Arar seeks to add no new category of defendants. Cf. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 122 S.Ct. 515, 151 L.Ed.2d 456 (refusing to extend Bivens to claims against private prisons); FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 114 S.Ct. 996, 127 L.Ed.2d 308 (1994) (refusing to extend Bivens to claims against federal agencies). Indeed, it was recovery of damages incurred as a result of the violation of constitutional rights by federal agents and officials, such as the defendants here, for which the Bivens remedy was devised. See Malesko, 534 U.S. at 70, 122 S.Ct. 515 (The purpose of Bivens is to deter individual federal officers from committing constitutional violations.). We must ask, then, whether Arar seeks to extend Bivens liability into a new context and, if so, what that new context is. The task is complicated by the fact that the meaning that the Supreme Court ascribes to the term new context is not entirely clear. Compare Malesko, 534 U.S. at 67, 122 S.Ct. 515 (noting that Bivens was extended to a new context in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), when the Court recognized an implied damages remedy under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment  (emphasis added)), with id. at 68, 122 S.Ct. 515 (describing Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412, 108 S.Ct. 2460, 101 L.Ed.2d 370 (1988), in which the plaintiffs sought damages under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment for errors made by federal officials in  in the[] handling [their] of Social Security applications,  as describing a new context to which the Court declined to extend Bivens (emphasis added)). The majority seems to be of the view that new context means a new set of facts, rather than a new legal context. But every case we hear presents a new set of facts to which we are expected to apply established law. Yet, each panel of this Court does not decide for itself, on an ad hoc basis, whether or not it is a good idea to allow a plaintiff, on the particular factual circumstances presented, to avail him or herself of a well-established remedy such as that afforded by Bivens. [26] I therefore think that the word context, as employed for purposes of deciding whether we are devis[ing] a new Bivens damages action, Wilkie, 127 S.Ct. at 2597, is best understood to mean legal contextin this case a substantive due process claim by a federal detaineeand not, as the majority would have it, the fact-specific context of Arar's treatment, from his being taken into custody as a suspected member of al Qaeda to his being sent to Syria to be questioned under torture. As far as I can determine, this Circuit has never explicitly decided whether a Bivens action can lie for alleged violations of substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment. But our cases imply that such a remedy is appropriate. In Iqbal, for example, we considered a Bivens action brought on, inter alia, a Fifth Amendment substantive due process theory. The plaintiff alleged his physical mistreatment and humiliation, as a Muslim prisoner, by federal prison officials, while he was detained at the MDC. After concluding, on interlocutory appeal, that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity, we returned the matter to the district court for further proceedings. We did not so much as hint either that a Bivens remedy was unavailable or that its availability would constitute an unwarranted extension of the Bivens doctrine. [27] Iqbal, 490 F.3d at 177-78. In any event, I see no reason why Bivens should not be available to vindicate Fifth Amendment substantive due process rights. As Judge Posner wrote for the Seventh Circuit with respect to a Bivens action: [I]f ever there were a strong case for substantive due process, it would be a case in which a person who had been arrested but not charged or convicted was brutalized while in custody. If the wanton or malicious infliction of severe pain or suffering upon a person being arrested violates the Fourth Amendmentas no one doubtsand if the wanton or malicious infliction of severe pain or suffering upon a prison inmate violates the Eighth Amendmentas no one doubtsit would be surprising if the wanton or malicious infliction of severe pain or suffering upon a person confined following his arrest but not yet charged or convicted were thought consistent with due process. Wilkins v. May, 872 F.2d 190, 194 (7th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1026, 110 S.Ct. 733, 107 L.Ed.2d 752 (1990); [28] accord Magluta v. Samples, 375 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir.2004) (reversing district court's dismissal of pretrial detainee's Bivens action alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement at federal penitentiary in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment); Cale v. Johnson, 861 F.2d 943, 946-47 (6th Cir.1988) (concluding that federal courts have the jurisdictional authority to entertain a Bivens action brought by a federal prisoner, alleging violations of his right to substantive due process), abrogated on other grounds by Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 387-88 (6th Cir.1999); see also Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166, 193, 123 S.Ct. 2174, 156 L.Ed.2d 197 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing, in dissent, that a [ Bivens ] action... is available to federal pretrial detainees challenging the conditions of their confinement) (citing Lyons v. U.S. Marshals, 840 F.2d 202 (3d Cir.1988)). [29] A federal inmate serving a prison sentence can employ Bivens to seek damages resulting from mistreatment by prison officials. Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980). It would be odd if a federal detainee not charged with or convicted of any offense could not bring an analogous claim. [30]