Opinion ID: 4301602
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hernandez Is Instructive.

Text: Our sister circuit’s recent en banc decision in Hernandez v. Mesa illustrates the proper application of these principles. The facts of Hernandez are nearly identical to the ones in this case. Agent Mesa, standing on United States soil, fatally shot Sergio Hernandez, a fifteen-year-old Mexican citizen, on Mexican soil. 885 F.3d 811, 814 (5th Cir. 2018) (en banc). Hernandez’s parents sued Agent Mesa for damages under Bivens, alleging that Agent Mesa violated Hernandez’s rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Hernandez, 137 S. Ct. at 2005. 2 The Supreme Court has further articulated these limiting principles. We must exercise “‘caution’ before ‘extending Bivens remedies into any new context,’” and abide by the rule that “a Bivens remedy will not be available” in the presence of special factors. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. at 1857 (quoting Malesko, 534 U.S. at 74). In conducting our analysis, we must be mindful of the Supreme Court’s “general reluctance to extend judicially created private rights of action.” Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 138 S. Ct. 1386, 1402 (2018). The Court has “recently and repeatedly said that a decision to create a private right of action is one better left to legislative judgment in the great majority of cases.” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 727 (2004) (first citing Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68; then citing Alexander, 532 U.S. at 286–87). “The Court’s recent precedents cast doubt on the authority of courts to extend or create private causes of action even in the realm of domestic law,” Jesner, 138 S. Ct. at 1402, to say no less of extending a judicially created private right of action extraterritorially. Put simply, decisions to expand or create causes of action are best tasked to “those who write the laws,” not “those who interpret them.” Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. at 1857 (quoting Bush, 462 U.S. at 380). RODRIGUEZ V. SWARTZ 57 The district court granted Agent Mesa’s motion to dismiss. Id. A panel of the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, finding that Hernandez lacked Fourth Amendment rights, but that the shooting, as alleged, had violated Hernandez’s Fifth Amendment rights. Id. (citing Hernandez v. United States, 757 F.3d 249, 267, 272 (5th Cir. 2014), aff’d in part, 785 F.3d 117 (5th Cir. 2015) (en banc) (per curiam), vacated and remanded sub nom. Hernandez v. Mesa, 137 S. Ct. 2003 (2017)). The panel concluded that there was “no reason to hesitate in extending Bivens to this new context,” and that Agent Mesa was not entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 2005–06 (citing Hernandez, 757 F.3d at 275, 279). The Fifth Circuit reheard the case en banc. The en banc court unanimously affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at 2006. The en banc court held that the Fourth Amendment did not apply extraterritorially to Hernandez, and that Agent Mesa was entitled to qualified immunity on the Fifth Amendment claim. Id. (citing Hernandez, 785 F.3d at 119–20). Having resolved the claims on these grounds, the en banc court “did not consider whether, even if a constitutional claim had been stated, a tort remedy should be crafted under Bivens.” Id. (quoting Hernandez, 757 F.3d at 121 n.1 (Jones, J., concurring)). The Supreme Court granted certiorari. Id. Prior to deciding Hernandez, the Court decided Abbasi. Id. Although the availability of a Bivens remedy was not a question on appeal in Hernandez, the Supreme Court ordered supplemental briefing on that question. See Hernandez v. Mesa, 137 S. Ct. 291 (2016). 58 RODRIGUEZ V. SWARTZ The Court subsequently vacated the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and instructed the court to consider, on remand, the availability of a Bivens remedy for the plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims, in light of “the intervening guidance provided in Abbasi.” Hernandez, 137 S. Ct. at 2006–07. The Court observed that the Bivens question, which was “antecedent” to the other questions in the case, might prove to be dispositive, and render unnecessary the resolution of the difficult Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues presented in the case. Id. at 2006–07 (quoting Wood, 134 S. Ct. at 2066). On remand, the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that “[t]he transnational aspect of the facts present[ed] a ‘new context’ under Bivens, and numerous ‘special factors’ counsel[ed] against federal courts’ interference with the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government.” Hernandez, 885 F.3d at 814. The en banc court concluded that “extending Bivens would interfere with the political branches’ oversight of national security and foreign affairs”; “would flout Congress’s consistent and explicit refusals to provide damage remedies for aliens injured abroad”; and “would create a remedy with uncertain limits.” Id. at 823. Mindful that “[i]n its remand of Hernandez, the Supreme Court [had] chastened [the Fifth Circuit] for ruling on the extraterritorial application of the Fourth Amendment”—a “sensitive” issue with the potential to spawn “consequences that are far reaching”—the en banc court concluded that “[s]imilar ‘consequences’ [were] dispositive of the ‘special factors’ inquiry,” and that “[t]he myriad implications of an extraterritorial Bivens remedy require[d] th[e] court to deny it.” Id. (quoting Hernandez, 137 S. Ct. at 2007). RODRIGUEZ V. SWARTZ 59 Hernandez’s lengthy path through the federal court system underscores several points. First, the availability of a Bivens remedy is a critical threshold question. Second, Abbasi did not merely recapitulate the Supreme Court’s past law on Bivens—the Court characterized Abbasi as “intervening guidance.” Hernandez, 137 S. Ct. at 2007. Third, a principled application of Abbasi to the facts of this case can yield only one answer: We lack the authority to extend a Bivens remedy to the cross-border shooting context. Unlike the Fifth Circuit, which faithfully followed the Supreme Court’s guidance, the majority fails to acknowledge the underlying principles of Abbasi, choosing instead to distinguish Abbasi on narrow factual grounds. The majority authorizes an impermissible extension of Bivens to a new context despite the presence of numerous special factors counselling judicial hesitation. In doing so, the majority creates a circuit split and tees up our court for a new “chastening” by the Supreme Court.