Opinion ID: 616409
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Commonwealth Law

Text: Appellants may not invoke Puerto Rico law as a basis for determining whether the government's failure to adopt and enforce lawn-mowing safety procedures was protected discretionary conduct. State law cannot override the FTCA's grant of immunity for discretionary conduct: [A]lthough the threshold inquiry into governmental liability as defined by the FTCA requires an examination of state law to define tortious conduct, the question of whether a state law tort can be applied against the United States is exclusively one of federal law. Claimants obtain their right to sue [the federal government] from Congress [and they] necessarily must take it subject to such restrictions as have been imposed. Berkman v. United States, 957 F.2d 108, 111-13 (4th Cir.1992) (alterations in original) (quoting Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 31, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953) (quoting Fed. Hous. Admin. v. Burr, 309 U.S. 242, 251, 60 S.Ct. 488, 84 L.Ed. 724 (1940))); see also, e.g., Sydnes v. United States, 523 F.3d 1179, 1184 (10th Cir.2008) (Considering state tort law as a limit on the federal government's discretion at the jurisdictional stage impermissibly conflates the merits of plaintiffs' claims with the question whether the United States has conferred jurisdiction on the courts to hear those claims in the first place.); Abreu, 468 F.3d at 23 (Even where the government conduct would create state tort liability in a suit against a private party, the FTCA provides that sovereign immunity is not waived if the challenged governmental action involved the exercise of discretion.). [18] But see Dickerson, Inc. v. United States, 875 F.2d 1577, 1583 (11th Cir.1989) (holding that the independent contractor exception in the FTCA would not insulate the Government from the contractor's negligence if the duty was non-delegable under Florida law). Thus, whether the government may be held liable under the FTCA for the failure to implement and enforce safety measures turns on whether federal law left it to the discretion of the applicable GSA officials to adoptor notsuch measures. Cf. Logue, 412 U.S. at 528, 93 S.Ct. 2215 (Congress... could have left the determination as to whose negligence the Government should be liable for under the Federal Tort Claims Act to the law of the State involved, as it did with other aspects of liability under the Act. But it chose not to do this....). As noted, appellants have identified no pertinent federal law obliging GSA to assume the day-to-day responsibility for safety.