Opinion ID: 3039552
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Challenged Government Conduct

Text: Before we can make the two-part Gaubert inquiry to determine whether the discretionary function exception immunizes the Government from a suit based on its conduct, we must identify the conduct at issue. Cestonaro, 211 F.3d at 753. Mr. Merando contends that the conduct for purposes of the discretionary function exception analysis is twofold: first, that the Park Service’s Roads and Maintenance crews negligently “topped” the tree without removing it; and second, that the crews negligently failed to find and remove the “topped” tree. He contends that the discretionary function exception does not apply here because the Park Service’s unwritten hazardous tree management plan mandated the crews never to “top” trees but rather to identify and remove hazardous trees as they drove the roads of the Park. 7 On the other hand the Government contends that the conduct at issue is the Park Service’s decisions that comprise its hazardous tree management plan and its execution of that plan. To aid us in our analysis, we review Autery v. United States, a case that is remarkably similar to this case. 992 F.2d 1523 (11th Cir. 1993); see also Rosebush v. United States, 119 F.3d 438, 441-42 (6th Cir. 1997) (relying on Autery in determining what conduct was at issue when plaintiffs sued the Government for negligently failing to maintain fire pit at campground). In Autery, a black locust tree fell on a passing car in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, killing one passenger and injuring another. 992 F.2d at 1524. At the time of the accident, the Park Service had an unwritten policy “to make every reasonable effort within the constraints of budget, manpower, and equipment available to detect, document, remove, and prevent tree hazards.” Id. at 1525. To implement this policy, Park Service personnel “initially conducted visual inspections from trucks driven along the road. Any tree that appeared hazardous was then inspected more closely.” Id. In the Autery situation Park Service personnel received information regarding the risks posed by black locust trees in the park. After a bench trial, the district court found that the Government “had negligently failed to (1) devise, implement and follow an appropriate tree hazard management plan; (2) properly maintain the National Park area; (3) properly inspect the trees in the National Park in the area where the accident occurred; and (4) identify and remove the hazardous trees which fell and struck [the victims].” Id. at 1524. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit confronted the question of identifying the conduct at issue for purposes of a discretionary function exception analysis. The Government argued that the conduct was the Government’s “decision to establish and implement a tree inspection program,” while the plaintiffs contended that the conduct was “the park’s failure to carry out the mandates of its then existing policy of identifying and eliminating known hazardous trees.” Id. at 1527 (quotation marks omitted). The district court had held that “the inquiry . . . is whether the Park Service officials had discretion 8 under their Tree Hazard Management Plan to remove ‘hazardous’ trees.” Id. The court of appeals, however, stated: The government’s focus on the decision to establish a tree inspection plan is too broad; as plaintiffs concede, the government had the discretion to adopt or not adopt a plan at all. The more important question is whether any statute, regulation or agency guideline specifically provided that if a tree inspection plan were developed, it would have to include particular inspection procedures. Id. (footnote omitted). The court continued: Plaintiffs’ and the district court’s focus, on the other hand, is too narrow. The particular inquiries posed by plaintiffs and the district court are based on misinterpretations of the law. Plaintiffs’ support their contention that the discretionary function exception does not apply to the manner in which park personnel administered the inspection plan by relying on Fifth Circuit cases that had held that the government was not protected when it was performing an operational function. The Supreme Court squarely rejected this proposed distinction in Gaubert, ruling that the Fifth Circuit ‘erred in holding that the [discretionary function] exception does not reach decisions made at the operational or management level.’ Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325, 111 S.Ct. at 1275. ‘Discretionary conduct is not confined to the policy or planning level.’ Id.; see also Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 813, 104 S.Ct. at 2764 (‘[I]t is the nature of the conduct, rather than the status of the actor, that governs whether the discretionary function exception applies in a given case.’). 9 Id. at 1527-28 (internal citations, quotation marks and footnote partially omitted). The court added: The district court’s inquiry, on the other hand, by asking whether the park officials had discretion to remove ‘hazardous’ trees, begs the question. The tree inspection program was designed to identify which trees were hazardous. Whether park personnel had discretion in executing that plan is the relevant issue. The district court’s analysis appears to collapse the question of whether the Park Service was negligent into the discretionary function inquiry. That is, after finding that the Park Service had knowledge of the danger of black locust trees, the district court imposed a ‘reasonableness’ requirement on the government’s conduct. Id. at 1528. The court concluded: It is the governing administrative policy, not the Park Service’s knowledge of danger, however, that determines whether certain conduct is mandatory for purposes of the discretionary function exception. The FTCA expressly provides that the exception applies to policy judgments, even to those constituting abuse of discretion. Therefore, the relevant inquiry here is whether controlling statutes, regulations and administrative policies mandated that the Park Service inspect for hazardous trees in a specific manner. If not, then the Park officials’ decision to employ a particular inspection procedure – and its execution of that plan – is protected by the discretionary function exception. Id. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Ultimately, the court of appeals held that the discretionary function exception immunized the Government from a lawsuit based on the decisions Park Service personnel made in designing and implementing the park’s unwritten tree inspection program, and 10 thus the court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Mr. Merando presents an argument that is very similar to the plaintiffs’ argument and the district court’s decision in Autery. He contends that the conduct at issue is the Government’s alleged failure properly to prune, find, and remove the hazardous tree. Mr. Merando’s allegation that the Government negligently pruned the tree causing it to decay and collapse implies that it was the Government that topped the tree. But this allegation is unsupportable because Mr. Merando has not shown that the Government in any way was involved in the topping of the tree either by consenting to its topping or actually topping it itself. In reaching this conclusion, we recognize, of course, that the Government took title to the site of the tree in 1969. Moreover, we realize that Mr. Merando contends in his brief that “according to the evidence” the tree was topped “during the 30+ years after the [National Parks Service] took title to it in 1969,” therefore suggesting that it controlled the tree when the unknown person topped it. Appellant’s Br. at 14. We cannot, however, draw any inference from this chronology of events as it cannot be inferred that, against Government policy not to top trees, it was the Government that topped the tree or that it consented to its topping merely because it may have owned the land on which the tree was situated when the unknown person topped it. After all, in Mr. Merando’s answers to interrogatories he tells us that “[i]t is understood from documents which have been produced in discovery . . . that the County of Sussex retained responsibility for tree trimming and clearance even after jurisdiction for the County Road was transferred to the United States of America” in 1996, app. at 281, thus suggesting that Sussex County topped the tree. On the other hand, in an uncontested motion for summary judgment Sussex County asserted that “[t]he identity of the company or individuals who topped the tree is unknown” but that the “tree was topped presumably by a power company.” Furthermore, there would be no basis to infer that the Government consented to the topping of the tree or actually topped it merely because the 11 tree was situated in a 63,000 acre park at a location that it may have owned when the unknown person topped the tree. Clearly, too many different entities had access to the tree to permit a trier of the fact to draw that inference. In sum, there is simply neither direct evidence nor evidence from which an inference can be drawn that the Government topped the tree and this absence of evidence as a factual matter eliminates from this case Mr. Merando’s claim that Park Service personnel violated a mandatory policy not to “top” trees.1 Accordingly, we only will analyze the other aspect of Mr. Merando’s claim: his challenge to the Government’s alleged negligent failure to find and remove the tree. Mr. Merando argues that the Park Service’s crews did not have discretion not to find and remove the hazardous tree. Like the district court’s decision in Autery, however, Mr. Merando’s argument begs the question. The Park Service designed its hazardous tree management plan, which we detail below, to identify which trees were hazardous. The relevant issue here is whether the Park Service had discretion in formulating and executing that plan. Mr. Merando’s claims regarding the Government’s alleged negligent failure to find and remove the tree essentially are a challenge to the Park Service’s plan for finding and managing hazardous trees. The Park Service’s plan and its execution of that plan constitutes the conduct at issue for purposes of the discretionary function exception analysis. Like the plaintiffs’ argument in Autery, Mr. Merando’s focus on the actions of the Park Service crews simply is too narrow. The relevant inquiry is whether the controlling statutes, regulations, and administrative policies mandate that the Park Service locate and manage hazardous trees in any specific manner. If not, the 1 Clearly we can examine the facts with respect to the identity of the person who topped the tree on this appeal from a dismissal predicated on the want of subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). See Cestonaro, 211 F.3d at 752. 12 Park Service’s decisions as to the precise manner in which to do so, and its execution of those decisions, clearly fall within the discretionary function exception to the government’s tort liability. See also Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 819-20, 104 S.Ct. at 2767-68 (discretionary function exception protects both Government’s decision to “spot-check” airplanes for compliance with safety regulations and execution of those “spot-checks” by Government personnel).