Court Opinion

ID: 9400328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-07 21:00:38.437241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:43.523322
License: Public Domain

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                                                  PUBLISHED

                                   UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                       FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                                   No. 20-7540

        JOSEPH RANDOLPH MAYS,

                       Plaintiff – Appellant,

        v.

        T. B. SMITH, Warden, FCI Butner 1; S. MA’AT, Assoc. Warden, FCI Butner 1; JAMIE
        HOSKINS, Unicor Factory Manager; V. WILLIS, Unit Manager; J. HALFAST, Case
        Manager; R. MARTIN, Counselor; LT. CHRISTOPHER; K. HENDRY; OFFICER V.
        WILKINS; OFFICER GLASS; OFFICER SLAYDON; OFFICER LASSITAR; J.
        CARAWAY, Regional Director; JOHN/JANE DOES,

                       Defendants – Appellees,

        and

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                       Party-in-Interest.

        ------------------------------

        RIGHTS BEHIND BARS; RODERICK & SOLANGE MACARTHUR JUSTICE
        CENTER,

                       Amici Supporting Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
        Raleigh. Louise W. Flanagan, District Judge. (5:18-ct-03186-FL)

        Argued: May 3, 2023                                                   Decided: June 6, 2023
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        Before WYNN and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wynn wrote the opinion, in which Judge
        Richardson and Senior Judge Traxler joined.

        ARGUED: Devin L. Redding, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW,
        Morgantown, West Virginia, for Appellant. Marie Cepeda Mekosh, DUKE UNIVERSITY
        SCHOOL OF LAW, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Lawrence D.
        Rosenberg, JONES DAY, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michael F. Easley, Jr., United
        States Attorney, Sharon C. Wilson, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE
        UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. Samuel Weiss,
        RIGHTS BEHIND BARS, Washington, D.C.; Easha Anand, RODERICK & SOLANGE
        MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER, San Francisco, California, for Amici Curiae.

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        WYNN, Circuit Judge:

                Joseph Mays, a federal inmate, brings claims under the Fifth Amendment for money

        damages against federal prison officials for alleged violations of procedural due process

        and equal protection. Mays contends his claims are authorized by Bivens v. Six Unknown

        Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), and its progeny. But

        “the Supreme Court [has] all but closed the door on Bivens remedies” that do not fit within

        the precise confines of its prior Bivens cases. Dyer v. Smith, 56 F.4th 271, 277 (4th Cir.

        2022). Such is the case here. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the

        case.

                                                     I.

                On review, we must accept as true the facts as alleged in the complaint. Langford v.

        Joyner, 62 F.4th 122, 123 (4th Cir. 2023).

                In June 2016, Mays was housed at FCI Butner in North Carolina, where he was

        employed as a lead mechanic in the optics factory through the Bureau of Prisons’ (“BOP”)

        UNICOR employment program. On June 20, Mays submitted a grievance directly to the

        BOP’s regional director complaining that his UNICOR manager, Defendant Jamie

        Hoskins, engaged in racial discrimination and gave preferential treatment to other inmates

        who worked in the optics factory. Five days later, Mays submitted a second grievance to

        the regional director complaining that two prison officials retaliated against him by falsely

        claiming he was malingering and using abusive language at his job. The regional director

        instructed Mays to resubmit both complaints directly to his institution, which he did. On

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        July 29, several Defendants met with Mays and attempted to informally resolve his

        complaints.

                On August 10, Defendant S. Ma’at, the associate warden at FCI Butner, confronted

        Mays and accused him of “giving his secretary . . . a hard time,” which Mays denied. J.A.

        29. 1

                On August 11, Hoskins and Ma’at met with Mays in the Butner dining hall to

        address Mays’s concerns about his UNICOR job. During this meeting, Hoskins falsely

        accused Mays of trying to disrupt the optics factory, and Ma’at threatened to fire Mays

        from UNICOR. Later that day, Mays was in fact fired from his job. According to the

        termination notice, Mays was fired for “making threatening comments” and threatening to

        cause a work stoppage. J.A. 84. That same day, Mays was also placed in administrative

        detention. The detention order did not specify a reason for that placement, but Defendant

        Officer Glass told Mays “off the record” that it was because “someone ‘got in their

        feelings’ because you filed a grievance” and that Ma’at and Hoskins did not want Mays to

        remain at FCI Butner. J.A. 33.

                Mays remained in detention from August 11 through October 21, despite officials

        at FCI Butner opting, after an investigation, not to charge him with any disciplinary

        offense. Ultimately, on October 21, Mays was transferred from FCI Butner to another BOP

        institution. The transfer form stated that Mays had “maintained poor institutional

        adjustment” to Butner, including allegations that he had threatened staff and threatened a

                1
                    Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.

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        work stoppage at UNICOR—all of which Mays disputed. J.A. 74. Mays filed two more

        grievances—in September 2016 and June 2017—complaining that he was denied due

        process via his detention, firing from UNICOR, and transfer.

               Mays, proceeding pro se, filed a federal complaint in July 2018. The district court

        conducted a frivolity review and dismissed several claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)

        (district court shall dismiss any action filed by an inmate that is “frivolous” or fails to state

        a claim). The court permitted Mays to file an amended complaint asserting three Bivens-

        based claims for 1) First Amendment retaliation; 2) Fifth Amendment due process, alleging

        Defendants placed him in administrative detention, terminated him from his UNICOR

        position, and transferred him to another institution without providing notice or an

        opportunity to rebut the allegations; and 3) Fifth Amendment equal protection, alleging

        racial discrimination. Defendants moved to dismiss, and the district court granted their

        motion after finding that Mays failed to state cognizable Bivens claims. 2 Mays timely

        appealed, and we appointed counsel to represent him on appeal. 3

               2
                  The district court also analyzed whether Mays exhausted his administrative
        remedies with the BOP as required before filing his complaint, see 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)
        (stating exhaustion requirement), ultimately holding that there was at least a genuine
        dispute on the issue, before disposing of Mays’s case on the merits. Defendants do not
        address the issue on appeal. Because administrative exhaustion in this context is not a
        jurisdictional requirement, we can proceed directly to the merits of Mays’s Bivens claims.
        Custis v. Davis, 851 F.3d 358, 361 (4th Cir. 2017); Anderson v. XYZ Corr. Health Servs.,
        Inc., 407 F.3d 674, 677–78 (4th Cir. 2005).
               3
                 Counsel—Lawrence Rosenberg and students from the West Virginia University
        College of Law U.S. Supreme Court Litigation Clinic—have ably represented Mays on
        appeal, and we are grateful for their important service to Mays and this Court.

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                                                     II.

               Counsel for Mays has elected not to pursue the First Amendment-based Bivens

        claim. This was the correct decision, as both the Supreme Court and this Court have held

        in the interim between when Mays originally appealed pro se and when he was appointed

        counsel “that there is no Bivens action for First Amendment retaliation.” Egbert v. Boule,

        142 S. Ct. 1793, 1807 (2022); see Earle v. Shreves, 990 F.3d 774, 776 (4th Cir.) (declining

        to extend Bivens to include a “federal inmate’s claim that prison officials violated his First

        Amendment rights by retaliating against him for filing grievances”), cert. denied, 142 S.

        Ct. 358 (2021). Accordingly, the only remaining Bivens claims before us are for the denial

        of procedural due process and equal protection, both brought under the Fifth Amendment.

        We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of these claims. Annappareddy v. Pascale,

        996 F.3d 120, 132 (4th Cir. 2021).

                                                     III.

                                                     A.

               The Bivens story is by now a familiar one. Although § 1983 gives plaintiffs the

        statutory authority to sue state officials for money damages for constitutional violations,

        see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, there is no statutory counterpart to sue federal officials.

               In Bivens, the Supreme Court held for the first time that there existed an implied

        cause of action under the Fourth Amendment to sue federal officials for money damages

        arising from an unreasonable search and seizure. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 389. In the ensuing

        decade, the Supreme Court found two more such implied causes of action for money

        damages for constitutional violations by federal officials—one for gender discrimination

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        in violation of the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s due process

        clause, Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 230 (1979), and a second for deliberate

        indifference to an inmate’s serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment,

        Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 18 (1980).

               In the more than four decades since, however, “the [Supreme] Court has

        ‘consistently rebuffed’ every request—12 of them now—to find implied causes of action

        against federal officials for money damages under the Constitution.” Tate v. Harmon, 54

        F.4th 839, 843 (4th Cir. 2022) (quoting Hernandez v. Mesa, 140 S. Ct. 735, 743 (2020)).

        And in the past six years in particular, the Supreme Court has “handed down a trilogy of

        opinions not only expressing regret over its Bivens cases but also demonstrating hostility

        to any expansion of them.” Id. While not opting to overrule its three Bivens cases, the Court

        has noted that the outcomes “might have been different if [those cases] were decided

        today.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 134 (2017). The Court has made clear that

        expanding the Bivens remedy to a new context is an “extraordinary act,” Egbert, 142 S. Ct.

        at 1806 n.3 (citation omitted), that will be unavailable “in most every case,” id. at 1803.

        And it has imposed a “highly restrictive” analysis for future Bivens cases. Tate, 54 F.4th at

        844.

               To that end, a court must engage in a “two-step inquiry” when analyzing would-be

        Bivens claims. Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at 743. First, the court must determine whether a

        claim falls within the causes of action already authorized under the Supreme Court’s three

        prior Bivens cases or whether it “arises in a new context or involves a new category of

        defendants.” Tate, 54 F.4th at 844 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Hernandez,

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        140 S. Ct. at 743). The Court’s understanding of a “new context” is “broad,” which means

        that the scope of the existing Bivens actions must be narrowly construed. Id.

                 Second, if a claim does arise in a new context, the court must ask “whether there are

        any special factors that counsel hesitation about granting the extension” of the Bivens

        remedy. Id. The “special factors” inquiry must focus on “separation-of-powers principles”

        and “requires courts to ask whether judicial intrusion into a given field is appropriate.”

        Bulger v. Hurwitz, 62 F.4th 127, 137 (4th Cir. 2023) (quoting Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at

        743). If “there is any reason to think that Congress might be better equipped to create a

        damages remedy,” then the court must decline to extend Bivens to a new context. Egbert,

        142 S. Ct. at 1803 (emphasis added).

                 Given this legal backdrop, “courts are clearly warned to act with utmost hesitation

        when faced with actions that do not fall precisely under” the three existing Bivens cases.

        Tate, 54 F.4th at 845. And this Court has “repeatedly heeded” that warning, expressly

        declining to extend Bivens on numerous occasions over just the last few years. Bulger, 62

        F.4th at 137–38 (collecting cases).

                 With this background in mind, we turn to Mays’s two remaining Bivens claims. We

        conclude that under the Supreme Court’s current framework, neither presents a cognizable

        claim.

                                                      B.

                 First, Mays’s two remaining claims arise in a new context. This is a low bar because

        even “quite minor” differences between a proposed claim and the claims in the three

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        existing Bivens cases can amount to a new context. Tun-Cos v. Perrotte, 922 F.3d 514, 523

        (4th Cir. 2019).

               The only Fifth Amendment-based Bivens claim that the Supreme Court has

        recognized was the one in Davis, which “concerned alleged sex discrimination on Capitol

        Hill.” Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at 744; see Davis, 442 U.S. at 230. Here, Mays seeks to bring

        two different Fifth Amendment claims, for procedural due process and for discrimination

        based on race. The Supreme Court has never authorized a Bivens claim for procedural due

        process or race-based discrimination. See Annappareddy, 996 F.3d at 134 (“Bivens has

        never been extended to a Fifth Amendment due process claim.” (internal quotation marks

        omitted)); Doe v. Meron, 929 F.3d 153, 169 (4th Cir. 2019) (holding that multiple Fifth

        Amendment-based claims—“including violations of [the] right to parentage, to familial

        relations and to equal protection of the laws”—present new Bivens contexts); see also

        Cantu v. Moody, 933 F.3d 414, 422 (5th Cir. 2019) (“No one thinks Davis . . . means the

        entirety of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is fair game in a Bivens action.”).

               Further, Mays’s claims are brought against a “new category of defendants”—prison

        officials, as opposed to a former Congressman in Davis—operating in a different legal and

        factual context (prisoner litigation). Tate, 54 F.4th at 846. Expanding Bivens to these types

        of claims would likely have “systemwide consequences” for the BOP in the form of

        increased litigation, and Congress has so far declined to create a damages remedy for these

        types of actions against federal prison officials. See id. (identifying these factors as relevant

        to the new-context inquiry).

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               We do not find Mays’s reliance on Bistrian v. Levi, 912 F.3d 79 (3d Cir. 2018), to

        be compelling. In that case, the Third Circuit recognized an inmate’s Fifth Amendment-

        based Bivens claim against federal prison officials for their alleged failure to protect him

        from inmate violence. Id. at 90–94. In doing so, the Bistrian court put near-dispositive

        weight on the Supreme Court’s decision in Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), which

        involved a Bivens action under the Eighth Amendment against prison officials for their

        failure to protect an inmate from a violent assault. Id. at 830–31.

               But “while the [Supreme] Court allowed the action to proceed, it never addressed

        whether the claim was properly a Bivens claim.” Tate, 54 F.4th at 847. Also, since Bistrian

        was decided, the Supreme Court “has made clear that the universe of recognized Bivens

        claims consists of only three cases”—which do not include Farmer—and “lower courts

        should not interpret these cases to apply outside the precise contexts at issue.” Bulger, 62

        F.4th at 139. As we recently stated, and reiterate here, Bistrian may very well have come

        out differently if the Third Circuit had the benefit of the Supreme Court’s more recent

        Bivens guidance in Hernandez and Egbert. See id. In any event, Bistrian does not aid Mays

        here given the multiple differences between his claims and the claims recognized in the

        three existing Bivens cases. And even if Farmer was an appropriate Bivens action, it still

        would not help Mays given the significant differences between that case—which involved

        an Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim—and his claims here.

               Mays also argues that his claims do not present a new context because both “arise

        under the Fifth Amendment” just like the claim approved of in Davis. Opening Br. at 43.

        But citation to the constitutional provision alone is insufficiently granular for the new-

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        context inquiry. See Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at 743 (“A claim may arise in a new context

        even if it is based on the same constitutional provision as a claim in a case in which a

        damages remedy was previously recognized.”); Cantu, 933 F.3d at 422 (“Courts do not

        define a Bivens cause of action at the level of ‘the Fourth Amendment’ or even at the level

        of ‘the unreasonable-searches-and-seizures clause.’” (citation omitted)). We know this to

        be so, because even where a case involves “similar allegations” or “almost parallel

        circumstances,” such “superficial” similarities “are not enough to support the judicial

        creation of a cause of action.” Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1805 (citation omitted). After all, “even

        a modest extension [of Bivens] is still an extension.” Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 147.

               The Supreme Court’s own treatment of its prior Bivens cases is telling. For example,

        Bivens permitted a damages claim under the Fourth Amendment against a federal narcotics

        officer for excessive force while Egbert rejected a virtually identical claim against a Border

        Patrol agent. Compare Bivens, 403 U.S. at 389 (complaint alleged officer used

        “unreasonable force” in making an arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment), with

        Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1802 (complaint alleged a “Fourth Amendment violation for excessive

        use of force”); see also Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1810 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“The plaintiff

        [in Egbert] is an American citizen who argues that a federal law enforcement officer

        violated the Fourth Amendment . . . . Candidly, I struggle to see how this set of facts differs

        meaningfully from those in Bivens itself.”).

               Similarly, while Carlson permitted a damages claim under the Eighth Amendment

        for a federal prison official’s failure to provide medical care, the Court later rejected a

        nearly identical suit against a private prison operator. Compare Carlson, 446 U.S. at 16 &

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        n.1 (complaint alleged violation of Eighth Amendment for failure to provide adequate

        medical care), with Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 63–65, 73 (2001) (same).

        Although the circumstances of the two cases were “almost parallel”—involving the same

        Eighth Amendment right and the same failure to provide adequate medical treatment—the

        Supreme Court nevertheless determined the “contexts” to be different. Ziglar, 582 U.S. at

        139.

               Mays’s claims may “mirror” those in Davis. Opening Br. at 38. But reflection is not

        enough: “a new context may arise if even one distinguishing fact has the potential to

        implicate separation-of-powers considerations.” Tate, 54 F.4th at 846 (citing Egbert, 142

        S. Ct. at 1805). For the reasons given, we conclude that Mays’s procedural due process and

        race-based equal protection claims have distinguishing factors from the Supreme Court’s

        three Bivens cases such that each arises in a “new context.”

                                                    C.

               Special factors also counsel against extending the Bivens remedy to cover Mays’s

        claims. The Supreme Court has distilled this inquiry down to a single question: whether

        “there is even a single reason to pause before applying Bivens in a new context.” Egbert,

        142 S. Ct. at 1803 (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

        Central to this inquiry are “separation-of-powers principles,” which require us to ask

        whether the courts are better suited than Congress to “weigh the costs and benefits of

        allowing a damages action to proceed.” Hernandez, 140 S. Ct. at 743 (citation omitted).

        The answer is almost always no.

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                So, too, here. We recently dealt with a highly analogous situation in Bulger v.

        Hurwitz. In that case, we declined to extend Bivens to cover a federal inmate’s Eighth

        Amendment failure-to-protect claim. Bulger, 62 F.4th at 140. As to the special-factors

        prong, we concluded that “multiple special factors counsel against creating a new Bivens

        remedy.” Id. Consideration of the same factors compels the same result in this case.

               First, Mays’s claims would “require scrutiny of new categories of conduct and a

        new category of defendants—namely, BOP employees involved in transferring inmates

        and managing the agency’s housing system” and BOP employees involved in inmate

        discipline and employment, such as through the UNICOR program. Id.

               Second, and related, Mays’s claims “intersect with the statutory scheme delegating

        authority over prison designation, transfer, and housing decisions to the BOP,” as well as

        those governing prison discipline and inmate employment. Id.; see 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b).

        Indeed, we recently rejected a similar complaint from an inmate placed in administrative

        detention as “rais[ing] serious questions relating to the reasoning, manner, and extent of

        prison discipline,” noting that allowing a Bivens action for such claims “could lead to an

        intolerable level of judicial intrusion into an issue best left to correctional experts.” Earle,

        990 F.3d at 780–81 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

               Third, inmates such as Mays have an “alternative remedial structure” that allows

        them to seek equitable relief for issues related to confinement, discipline, and the like.

        Bulger, 62 F.4th at 140 (quoting Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 137). Specifically, the BOP’s

        Administrative Remedy Program allows all inmates to seek formal review of an issue

        related to “any aspect” of their confinement. Id. (quoting 28 C.F.R. § 542.10(a)). As the

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        Supreme Court has noted, the Administrative Remedy Program provides a “means through

        which allegedly unconstitutional actions and policies can be brought to the attention of the

        BOP and prevented from recurring.” Malesko, 534 U.S. at 74.

               To be sure, the Administrative Remedy Program does not provide a damages

        remedy as a Bivens claim would, but “the relevant question ‘is not what remedy the court

        should provide for a wrong that would otherwise go unredressed’ but instead ‘whether an

        elaborate remedial system should be augmented by the creation of a new judicial remedy.’”

        Tun-Cos, 922 F.3d at 527 (alterations omitted) (quoting Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 388

        (1983)). And as we have observed, “[t]he potential unavailability of a remedy in a particular

        circumstance does not warrant supplementing that scheme.” Bulger, 62 F.4th at 141. This

        also disposes of Mays’s argument that his allegations involve only individual instances of

        constitutional deprivations that are best remedied by damages actions. That may be, but the

        Supreme Court has made abundantly clear that it is for Congress to decide whether to

        “augment[]” any existing remedial scheme with a damages remedy. Tun-Cos, 922 F.3d at

        527. It has not done so.

               Fourth, Congress has frequently legislated in the area of prisoner litigation, most

        notably with the Prison Litigation Reform Act, but has so far declined to create an

        individual-capacity damages remedy for federal inmates. See id. The Prison Litigation

        Reform Act—which was enacted after the Supreme Court’s three Bivens decisions—

        “made comprehensive changes to the way prisoner abuse claims must be brought in federal

        court.” Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 148. Importantly, the Act “does not provide for a standalone

        damages remedy against federal jailers,” id. at 149, a silence that “speaks volumes and

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        counsels strongly against judicial usurpation of the legislative function” to create one,

        Bulger, 62 F.4th at 141 (quoting Tun-Cos, 922 F.3d at 527).

               Fifth, and finally, if we were to authorize this new category of prison litigation,

        claims like Mays’s would almost certainly “impose liability on prison officials on a

        systemic level” and amount to a “substantial burden” on government officials. Id. Mays

        couches his suit as an attempt to redress only “individual instances of discrimination and

        law enforcement overreach.” Opening Br. at 22. But this is the wrong level of specificity.

        The operative question is “whether a court is competent to authorize a damages action not

        just against” the individual officers in the case at hand, but against all similarly situated

        officials “generally.” Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1806.

               “The answer, plainly, is no.” Id. The BOP currently employs more than 34,000

        employees overseeing nearly 160,000 inmates across almost 130 institutions. Fed. Bureau

        of Prisons, About Our Agency, https://www.bop.gov/about/agency/ (last visited June 2,

        2023) (saved as ECF opinion attachment); Fed. Bureau of Prisons, About Our Facilities,

        https://www.bop.gov/about/facilities/federal_prisons.jsp (last visited June 2, 2023) (saved

        as ECF opinion attachment). 4 Were we to expand Bivens to cover Mays’s suit, it could

        open the door for increased litigation over the myriad decisions made every day regarding

               4
                 The Court takes judicial notice of these uncontested facts from Defendants’
        Response Brief, which are publicly available on the BOP’s website. United States v. Doe,
        962 F.3d 139, 147 & n.6 (4th Cir. 2020) (taking judicial notice of governmental reports
        and generally known facts); Nolte v. Cap. One Fin. Corp., 390 F.3d 311, 317 n.* (4th Cir.
        2004) (“[I]ndisputable facts are susceptible to judicial notice.” (citing Fed. R. Evid.
        201(b)).

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        inmate discipline, transfer, and employment across the entire BOP system. But even

        “uncertainty alone” about such “systemwide” consequences “forecloses relief.” Egbert,

        142 S. Ct. at 1803–04. Rather, if there is “any rational reason (even one) to think that

        Congress is better suited to ‘weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to

        proceed,’” we must decline to extend Bivens. Id. at 1805 (quoting Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 136).

        As discussed, such reasons exist here.

               Accordingly, because Mays’s claims would expand Bivens to a “new context” and

        because there are “special factors” counseling against our doing so, his Fifth Amendment-

        based claims are not cognizable.

                                                   IV.

               Because this matter does not fit within the precise confines of the Supreme Court’s

        Bivens cases, we must adhere to the Supreme Court’s direction and affirm the district

        court’s grant of Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

                                                                                      AFFIRMED

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