Reyes-Colon v. United States

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 19-1235
NELISSA REYES-COLÓN; ALEXIS COLÓN-GUEVARA; L.A.C.R.;
ILEANA E. DE JESÚS-COLÓN; PEDRO SÁNCHEZ-REYES; P.J.S.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Pedro A. Delgado-Hernández, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Lipez, and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Pedro R. Vázquez, III, with whom Pedro R. Vázquez, III PSC,
Jorge R. Quintana Lajara, and Quintana & Suárez, P.S.C., were on
brief, for appellants.
Michael D. Weaver, Attorney, Office of the General Counsel,
United States Postal Service, with whom Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-
Vélez, United States Attorney, Fidel A. Sevillano-Del Río,
Assistant United States Attorney, Stephan J. Boardman, Chief
Counsel, United States Postal Service, and Alice L.A. Covington,
Appellate Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, United States
Postal Service, were on brief, for appellee.
September 4, 2020
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.
Preface
A federal district judge dismissed this case for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act
("FTCA") — lack of subject-matter jurisdiction basically means the
court has no "authority to decide the case either way." See The
Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U.S. 22, 25 (1913) (Holmes,
J., for the Court). Seeing no problem with what the judge did, we
affirm.
An FTCA Cheat Sheet
The reader's focus will be sharpened if we begin with
some basic principles.
As a sovereign, the United States is immune from suit
unless it consents to being sued.1 See, e.g., Gordo-González v.
United States, 873 F.3d 32, 35 (1st Cir. 2017). The FTCA provides
1 Some say the justification for limits on the power to sue a
sovereign comes from the old English theory that "[t]he King can
do no wrong." See, e.g., Maysonet-Robles v. Cabrero, 323 F.3d 43,
54 (1st Cir. 2003). But others say "conceptionally it is far
older":
Zeus himself carried an aegis or breastplate, a buckler,
and a thunderbolt which made him, the mythological
sovereign, immune from all that could beset him. And
common law provided its sovereign with the immunity of
Zeus. Yet Zeus saw fit to strip himself of this
protection by giving it to Athena, whereas modern
sovereigns have shown much reluctance to do likewise.
De Bardeleben Marine Corp. v. United States, 451 F.2d 140, 142
(5th Cir. 1971) (Brown, C.J., for the court).
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that consent, making the United States liable for certain injuries
caused by government employees acting within the scope of their
employment. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346. But as with many rules,
exceptions exist. And if one is present, the government's immunity
remains intact — so the district court will lack subject-matter
jurisdiction over the tort claim. See Mahon v. United States, 742
F.3d 11, 12 (1st Cir. 2014).
The exception at issue here is the discretionary-
function exception, which (as its name suggests) preserves
sovereign immunity and shields the government from liability for
"the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform
a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency
or employee of the [g]overnment, whether or not the discretion
involved be abused." See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a) (emphasis added).
This exception, the Supreme Court tells us, represents "the
boundary between Congress' willingness to impose tort liability
upon the United States and its desire to protect certain
governmental activities from exposure to suit by private
individuals." United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio
Grandense (Varig Airlines), 467 U.S. 797, 808 (1984). It protects
the government from liability that "would seriously handicap
efficient government operations." Id. at 814 (quoting United
States v. Muniz, 374 U.S. 150, 163 (1963)). And it preserves the
separation of powers by "prevent[ing] judicial 'second-guessing'
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of legislative and administrative decisions grounded in social,
economic, and political policy through the medium of an action in
tort." Id.
A court analyzes discretionary-function-exception
problems this way. After identifying "the conduct that supposedly
caused the harm," the court asks two possible questions. See
Mahon, 742 F.3d at 14. The first question is whether the conduct
can be called "discretionary." Id. Conduct cannot be called
discretionary if a federal "'statute, regulation, or policy'
actually dictates 'a course of action'" — because in that scenario,
the federal employee "has no choice but to follow the 'directive.'"
Id. (quoting Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988)).
The second question (asked only if the conduct involves an element
of discretion) is whether "'the exercise or non-exercise of the
granted discretion is actually or potentially' affected by"
legitimate "policy-related judgments," id. (quoting Fothergill v.
United States, 566 F.3d 248, 252 (1st Cir. 2009)) — the "or
potentially" jargon means the complained-of "acts or omissions"
need only be "susceptible to a policy-driven analysis," regardless
of whether they actually were, see Evans v. United States, 876
F.3d 375, 383 (1st Cir. 2017) (quoting Shansky v. United States,
164 F.3d 688, 692 (1st Cir. 1992)). Also and importantly, when a
federal statute, regulation, or policy lets a government agent
exercise discretion, a court presumes the agent's acts involve
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policy. See United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 324 (1988);
Bolduc v. United States, 402 F.3d 50, 60 (1st Cir. 2005).
If the answer to each question is yes, the discretionary-
function exception applies and the sovereign-immunity doctrine
precludes suit on the at-issue claims. See Mahon, 742 F.3d at 14.
But if the answer to either question is no, the exception does not
apply and the claims may proceed. See id.
How the Case Came to Us
Now to the facts of this lawsuit. Like the parties agree
we should, we accept the complaint's well-pled allegations as true
(without passing on their truth in fact, of course), see, e.g.,
Muñiz-Rivera v. United States, 326 F.3d 8, 11 (1st Cir. 2003), and
"consider whatever evidence" they "submitted," see Merlonghi v.
United States, 620 F.3d 50, 54 (1st Cir. 2010) (quotation marks
omitted).
Eagle Support, Inc. ("Eagle") contracted with the United
States Postal Service ("Postal Service" or "Service") to provide
mail-transportation services as one of the Service's "highway
contract route" suppliers. Running for four years (after several
renewals), the contract spelled out the work Eagle agreed to do
and the compensation the Postal Service agreed to pay. We will
have more to say about the contract later, but for now it suffices
to note the following. Eagle assumed responsibility for its mail-
transportation operations, including buying or leasing and then
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maintaining the needed vehicles and equipment; making personnel
decisions (hiring, supervising, and paying drivers, for example);
and handling the day-to-day mail-transportation services according
to required schedules. To quote contractual language, Eagle also
promised to "take proper safety and health precautions to protect
the work, the workers, the public, the environment, and the
property of others," including having its drivers inspect their
equipment — e.g., vehicle tires — to ensure the equipment is "in
good working order."
While delivering mail for the Postal Service, an Eagle
employee driving an Eagle truck rear-ended a school bus. The
collision severely injured two minor passengers, referred to in
the complaint by their initials: L.A.C.R. and P.J.S. According
to the complaint, the truck's "poor state of maintenance,
particularly its tires, . . . caused . . . the collision."
After exhausting administrative remedies, plaintiffs (on
their own behalf and on behalf of their injured children) then
sued the Postal Service in federal court under the FTCA (documents
in the joint appendix on appeal show plaintiffs first sued Eagle
and its insurer in federal court but eventually settled with
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them).2 Reduced to its essence, plaintiffs' complaint accused the
Service of negligently failing to inspect Eagle's vehicles for
safety purposes. The Postal Service countered with a motion to
dismiss for (among other reasons) lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction under the discretionary-function exception. The
judge agreed with the Postal Service and dismissed plaintiffs'
complaint, precipitating this appeal.
Our Take
Our review is de novo, see Hajdusek v. United States,
895 F.3d 146, 149 (1st Cir. 2018), which is a legalistic way of
saying we critique the judge's decision without giving any
deference to his views, see United States v. Tsarnaev, No. 16-
6001, 2020 WL 4381578, at *51 (1st Cir. July 31, 2020). As the
party asserting federal jurisdiction, plaintiffs bear the burden
of establishing its existence. See, e.g., Gordo-González, 873
F.3d at 35. And as we work our way through the case's issues, we
"tilt[]" our analysis "toward the government's claim of immunity,"
interpreting the FTCA "strictly in favor of the . . . government"
2 A statute called the Postal Reorganization Act says that
the Postal Service can "sue and be sued," thus generally waiving
immunity from suit. See 39 U.S.C. § 401(1); see also Loeffler v.
Frank, 486 U.S. 549, 556 (1988) (explaining that by "including a
sue-and-be-sued clause in" the Postal Service's "charter, Congress
has cast off the Service's cloak of sovereignty" (quotation marks
omitted)). But that statute also says that the FTCA governs tort
suits brought against the Postal Service. See 39 U.S.C. § 409(C);
see also Fothergill, 566 F.3d at 252 n.2.
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— knowing all the while that we cannot "enlarge" the FTCA "beyond
such boundaries as its language plainly requires." Carroll v.
United States, 661 F.3d 87, 94 (1st Cir. 2011) (quotation marks
omitted).
Among its many responsibilities, the Postal Service must
"give highest consideration to the prompt and economical delivery
of all mail" — even when choosing "modes of transportation." See
39 U.S.C. § 101(f). And to help it fulfill its mission, the Postal
Service is statutorily entitled to enter into contracts for
transportation "under such terms and conditions as it deems
appropriate." Id. § 5005(a)(3).
The conduct at the core of plaintiffs' claims involves
the Postal Service's not inspecting "Eagle's vehicles for safety-
worthiness" — that is how their briefs characterize the harm-
producing conduct. So we proceed to ask whether that conduct is
discretionary and susceptible to policy-related judgments.
On the first issue (was the Postal Service's inaction
discretionary?), plaintiffs make three attempts to show that a
federal "regulation" obliged the Postal Service to inspect Eagle's
trucks — reminder: conduct is generally considered discretionary
unless a federal statute, regulation, or policy specifically tells
federal officials to act a particular way. See, e.g., Berkovitz,
486 U.S. at 536. None of their arguments is convincing, however.
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Plaintiffs' lead contention focuses on a vehicle
checklist in a Postal Service document called "Handbook PO-515 —
Highway Contractor Safety." But the Handbooks says that
"[d]rivers, clerks, or any other vehicle inspector" must "[c]heck
all tires" and "notify the contractor" — here, that would be Eagle
— "to correct the irregularities." And as the government notes
(without contradiction from plaintiffs) another provision says
that the Handbook applies to vehicles owned or leased by a
contractor — again, that would be Eagle — and not to vehicles owned
by the Postal Service. So the Handbook is not a discretion-
constraining regulation.
Plaintiffs' next contention zeros in on various
provisions in the Postal Service/Eagle contract. But
conspicuously absent from their briefs is any explanation of how
such a contract constitutes a federal regulation — a criticism the
government raises, without a response from plaintiffs. See
generally Díaz-Alarcón v. Flández-Marcel, 944 F.3d 303, 313 (1st
Cir. 2019) (noting that "developing a sustained argument out of
. . . legal precedents is a litigant's job, not ours" (quotation
marks omitted)). But even putting that problem aside, the
provisions they highlight offer them no help.
For example, plaintiffs cite and quote contract language
requiring Eagle to inspect vehicles, including a safety checklist
Eagle drivers must fill out daily (a checklist that mirrors the
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one in the Handbook). And they cite and quote contract language
requiring Eagle to present "[a]ll equipment . . . for inspection
at the location and time indicated by the contracting officer or
authorized representative" and to have "readily available
sufficient stand-by equipment . . . to perform extra trips, to
permit vehicle maintenance, and to prevent delays in emergencies
such as mechanical" snafus. But as the government points out,
none of the language they rely on obliges the Postal Service to
inspect Eagle's vehicles — at most, the contract reserves the
Postal Service's right to inspect, without requiring that the
Service inspect and without saying what the Service must do to
assure Eagle fulfills its contractual responsibilities.3
Plaintiffs' last contention centers on a statement given
by an Eagle representative in the suit against Eagle and its
insurer. Asked in an interrogatory to "[e]xplain what inspection"
Eagle "perform[ed]" on the truck before it collided with the bus,
an Eagle representative wrote that Eagle's "[d]rivers were
required to carry out a full inspection before going on their
routes" — but then she added (ungrammatical phrasing in original,
emphasis added):
3Another contract provision provides (emphasis ours) that
"the Postal Service . . . may" — not "must" or "shall," we note
parenthetically — "randomly inspect vehicles used in the
performance of service on this contract." And in everyday speech,
"may" indicates a degree of discretion. See, e.g., Weyerhaeuser
Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 139 S. Ct. 361, 371 (2018).
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It is supposed that a [Postal Service] inspector carry
out the inspections. However, no [Postal Service]
inspector inspected our trucks and/or trailers used to
transport . . . mail that morning. No record of this
inspection exists.
Yet again — as the government well says — plaintiffs never say how
Eagle's assumptions about the Postal Service's obligation to
inspect constitute a federal regulation that required the Service
to inspect. And anyway, Eagle's surmise — "[i]t is supposed,"
without offering any basis to support this raw supposition — does
not prove that the Service had no choice but to inspect.4
The bottom line is that "plaintiffs can point to no
statutory or regulatory provision" explicitly requiring the Postal
Service to inspect Eagle's vehicles. See Muñiz-Rivera, 326 F.3d
at 16. And the absence "of such directives brands" the Postal
Service's "inaction as discretionary." See id.; see also Carroll,
661 F.3d at 102 (explaining that "[w]here no federal law or policy
limited the government's discretion to delegate . . . safety
precautions . . . to the independent contractors, the United States
4 Plaintiffs' opening brief also says that the contract "has
clauses where the [Postal Service] regulates and controls Eagle's
performance on a day-to-day and hour-by-hour basis." The
government's answering brief calls this a "mischaracterization" of
the contract. We need not referee this tussle, however. That is
because the judge rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Postal
Service exercised such day-to-day control and supervision over
Eagle's employees as to make them federal employees. And
plaintiffs concede they are not challenging that assessment on
appeal.
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had the flexibility to craft the balance of authority in the
contracts as it saw fit").
On the second issue (was the Postal Service's
discretionary conduct grounded in policy?), plaintiffs must —
given our ruling on the first issue — rebut the presumption that
the Service's exercise of discretion involves policy judgment.
See, e.g., Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 324. Trying to do just that,
plaintiffs write that by "violat[ing] a mandatory regulation," the
Postal Service "cannot be deemed" to have "act[ed] . . . in
furtherance of" legitimate policy concern. But having already
rejected the premise of their argument (that the Service infracted
a discretion-checking regulation), we easily reject their
conclusion (that the Service's action had no valid policy content).
And as the government well notes, if more were needed, the Postal
Service's decision to exercise its statutory authority to contract
out mail-transportation services required a balancing of factors
(cost and safety among them) — making it a policy choice that
judges cannot second-guess. See Muñiz-Rivera, 326 F.3d at 16; see
also Carroll, 661 F.3d at 104 (concluding that "[t]he judgment to
hire independent contractors presumably was based on an assessment
of cost and efficiency concerns relating to the use of government-
employee time").
So we agree with the judge and the government that the
Postal Service's discretionary policy judgment here is of the type
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Congress intended to shield from liability. Which means we also
agree with the judge and the government that the discretionary-
function exception divests the federal courts of jurisdiction over
plaintiffs' suit.
Wait a minute, says plaintiffs. Hoping for a different
conclusion, they insist the judge "deprived [them] of a basic
opportunity to put their best foot forward" on the jurisdiction
issue by denying their request for discovery. In their view, the
uncertain meaning of some of the contract's clauses "required
discovery exploration." Their principal example is a contract
provision requiring that "[t]ractors and trailers used on the route
. . . be spotted as directed by the contracting officer or
authorized representative." To their way of thinking, "[i]t is
not clear . . . what the term 'spotted' refers to" when it comes
"to a duty to inspect." They also write that the "contract . . .
references a list of exhibits" that they have not yet "seen."
Which to them means the judge "should have allowed [their] case to
proceed into discovery." And based on "the foregoing," they think
we must vacate the judgment and remand the case for further
proceedings.
But like the government, we believe plaintiffs' theory
faces an insurmountable obstacle — which is they never made this
argument in the district court. We know this because their papers
opposing a jurisdictional dismissal simply "request[ed] an
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opportunity to do discovery and fully develop the record and if
necessary to amend the pleadings" (or variants of that), without
specifying (as they do here) how discovery might help them avoid
dismissal. The Federal Reporter is brimming with opinions from us
saying things like: "arguments not seasonably advanced below
cannot be raised for the first time on appeal." See Eldridge v.
Gordon Bros. Grp., L.L.C., 863 F.3d 66, 85 (1st Cir. 2017)
(quotation marks omitted). And plaintiffs make no effort to fit
their situation within the "narrowly configured and sparingly
dispensed" exceptions to the raise-or-waive rule (as it is known).
See Daigle v. Me. Med. Ctr., Inc., 14 F.3d 684, 688 (1st Cir.
1994); see also B & T Masonry Const. Co. v. Pub. Serv. Mut. Ins.
Co., 382 F.3d 36, 41 (1st Cir. 2004) ("recogniz[ing] that an
appellate court has the authority, in its discretion, to consider
theories not articulated below," though stressing "that exceptions
of this kind . . . should be few and far between," and noting that
"[t]he typical case involves an issue that is one of paramount
importance and holds the potential for a miscarriage of justice"
(quotation marks omitted)); Correa v. Hosp. S.F., 69 F.3d 1184,
1196 (1st Cir. 1995) (explaining that "appellate discretion" here
"should not be affirmatively exercised unless error is plain and
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the equities heavily preponderate in favor of correcting it").5
We thus say no more on the discovery issue.
Conclusion
We sympathize with plaintiffs over their children's
plight. But as "hard as our sympathies may pull us, our duty to
maintain the integrity of the substantive law pulls harder."
Mahon, 742 F.3d at 16 (quotation marks omitted); see also 28 U.S.C.
§ 453 (providing that federal justices and judges must "administer
justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor
and to the rich," and must also "faithfully and impartially
discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon" them "under
the Constitution and laws of the United States"). And because the
FTCA's discretionary-function exception applies here, we have no
choice but to conclude (as the judge did) that the district court
lacked jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims.
5 Plaintiffs suggest that because they argued below that the
Postal Service "was required to inspect," they sufficiently
preserved all arguments related to that claim — including the
specific discovery arguments they now make on appeal. We have
rejected that kind of contention before and (consistent with
controlling precedent) must do so again. See, e.g., Employers
Ins. Co. of Wausau v. OneBeacon Am. Ins. Co., 744 F.3d 25, 29 (1st
Cir. 2014) (stressing that "theories not squarely presented below
typically cannot be advanced here," and holding that "[w]hen a
party places an issue as broad as 'contract interpretation' before
the [district] court, it does not thereby preserve every argument
that might fall under that rubric" (quotation marks omitted));
United States v. Slade, 980 F.2d 27, 31 (1st Cir. 1992)
(emphasizing that "a party is not at liberty to articulate specific
arguments for the first time on appeal simply because the general
issue was before the district court").
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Affirmed. No costs to either party.
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