Broadfield v. United States

• Decision Date: 20 April 2022
• Docket Number: 3:22-cv-860-K-BN
• Parties: BRIAN BROADFIELD, BOP Register No. 18618-026, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

BRIAN BROADFIELD, BOP Register No. 18618-026, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL., Defendants.

No. 3:22-cv-860-K-BN

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division

April 20, 2022

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

DAVID L. HORAN UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Plaintiff Brian Broadfield, a federal inmate incarcerated in this district, filed a pro se complaint against the United States and individual employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) under the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) and for violations of his civil rights. See Dkt. No 3. Broadfield also moves for a preliminary injunction. See Dkt. Nos. 5.

United States District Judge Ed Kinkeade referred Broadfield's lawsuit to the undersigned United States magistrate judge for pretrial management under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and a standing order of reference.

And the undersigned enters these findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendation that the claims against the United States, its agencies, and its employees in their official capacities should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; that the claims for monetary damages against the individual defendants in their individual capacities should be dismissed with prejudice; and that the request for a preliminary injunction should be denied.

Legal Standards and Analysis

I. The Court should dismiss Broadfield's claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act for lack of jurisdiction.

Broadfield indicates that this action is for violation of his civil rights and pursuant to the FTCA. See Dkt. No. 3 at 1. And he sues the United States and individuals alleged to be employed by the BOP. See id. at 1-3.

Beginning with the FTCA, such “claims may be brought against only the United States, and not the agencies or employees of the United States.” Esquivel-Solis v. United States, 472 Fed.Appx. 338, 339 (5th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (citing 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671, 2679; Galvin v. OSHA, 860 F.2d 181, 183 (5th Cir. 1988)). The Court should therefore dismiss “for want of jurisdiction” any “FTCA claim brought against a federal agency or employee.” Id. at 339-40 (citing Galvin, 860 F.2d at 183; Atorie Air Inc. v. Fed. Aviation Admin., 942 F.2d 954, 957 (5th Cir. 1991)).

And even where the United States is named as a defendant “[t]he United States enjoys sovereign immunity from suit, meaning it cannot be sued without consent.” Gonzalez v. United States, 851 F.3d 538, 543 (5th Cir. 2017) (citations omitted). So, “[t]o maintain a suit in district court against the United States, a plaintiff must bring claims under a statute in which Congress expressly waives the United States' sovereign immunity.” Ortega Garcia v. United States, 986 F.3d 513, 522 (5th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted); see also Carver v. Atwood, 18 F.4th 494, 497 (5th Cir. 2021) (“Sovereign immunity is indeed a jurisdictional bar.” (citation omitted)).

The FTCA is such a statute. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). But “[t]he FTCA provides a limited waiver of sovereign immunity, allowing suit in federal court only when the plaintiff files an administrative claim with the appropriate federal agency within two years after such claim accrues, and the plaintiff either (1) obtained a written denial, or (2) did not receive a response within six months.” Hanna v. United States, No. 20-30581 consol. with No. 21-30410, 2021 WL 5237269, at *1 (5th Cir. Nov. 10, 2021) (per curiam) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a); Price v. United States, 69 F.3d 46, 54 (5th Cir. 1995), on reh'g in part, 81 F.3d 520 (5th Cir. 1996)).

Accordingly, “[a]n FTCA action cannot proceed ‘unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency.'” Bolton v. United States, 946 F.3d 256, 259-60 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a)); see also Semien v. United States, 838 Fed.Appx. 88, 88 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) (“As a jurisdictional prerequisite under the FTCA, a claimant must exhaust his claim administratively before suing by giving notice of the claim to the appropriate federal agency.” (citations omitted)). And, because compliance with Section 2675(a) “‘is a prerequisite to suit under the FTCA, '” where a plaintiff “has not satisfied [this] ‘jurisdictional prerequisite,' the district court properly dismisse[s the plaintiff's FTCA] claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” Barnes v. Gittel, 650 Fed.Appx. 236, 240 (5th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (citations and footnote omitted)).

Here, Broadfield states that he “exhausted the administrative grievance procedure as required by the P.L.R.A. and the Federal [T]ort Claims Act.” Dkt. No. 3 at 5. But he provides no evidence that he filed an administrative claim with the appropriate federal agency, the prerequisite to waiving sovereign immunity under the FTCA. See generally id. And a review of Broadfield's complaint reveals no “exceptions that would exempt [him] from this requirement.” McGraw v. Mejia, No. 3:13-cv-740-L, 2015 WL 569002, at *5 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 11, 2015) (“The court cannot identify any form of notice provided by Plaintiffs to the BOP that would satisfy the requirements of the FTCA, nor can it identify any exceptions that would exempt Plaintiffs from this requirement. Because Plaintiffs failed to provide notice to the appropriate federal agency, the court lacks jurisdiction.”); accord Casas-Amador v. FCI Seagoville, No. 3:17-cv-2478-G-BN, 2018 WL 3763845, at *3-*4 (N.D. Tex. July 13, 2018), rec. accepted, 2018 WL 3756946 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 7, 2018); see also Lopez-Heredia v. Univ. of Tex. Med. Branch Hosp., 240 Fed.Appx. 646, 647 (5th Cir. 2007) (per curiam) (“The BOP's FTCA claims procedure is separate from the BOP's administrative remedies procedure.” (citing 28 C.F.R. §§ 543.30-543.32)).

II. The Court should dismiss the claims for monetary damages against the individual defendants in their individual capacities with prejudice because Broadfield has not shown that Bivens should be extended to the new context of this case.

Turning to the alleged civil rights violations and Broadfield's request for monetary damages, see Dkt. No. 3 at 7, a plaintiff may bring an action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), “against individual [federal employees] for [an] alleged constitutional violation, but he may not bring an action against the United States, the BOP, or BOP [employees] in their official capacities as such claims are barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, ” Gibson v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 121 Fed.Appx. 549, 551 (5th Cir. 2004) (per curiam) (citing Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 71-72 (2001); Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991)); see also Multi Denominational Ministry of Cannabis & Rastafari, Inc. v. Gonzales, 474 F.Supp.2d 1133, 1141 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (“A Bivens action does not lie against federal agencies or the United States, which possess sovereign immunity; such actions may be brought only against named federal officers or agents in their personal capacity.” (citing FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 483-86 (1994))).

But Bivens, unlike 42 U.S.C. § 1983, is not a Congressional statute that “entitles an injured person to money damages if a state official violates his or her constitutional rights.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S.Ct. 1843, 1854 (2017) (“Congress did not create an analogous statute for federal officials. Indeed, in the 100 years leading up to Bivens, Congress did not provide a specific damages remedy for plaintiffs whose constitutional rights were violated by agents of the Federal Government.”).

And the United States Supreme Court “has approved of an implied damages remedy under the Constitution itself' only three times - in Bivens, to enforce “a damages remedy to compensate persons injured by federal officers who violated the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures' in violation of the Fourth Amendment; in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979), holding “that the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause gave [a Congressman's administrative assistant] a damages remedy for gender discrimination'; and in Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980), holding “that the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause gave [a prisoner] a damages remedy for failure to provide adequate medical treatment.” Abbasi, 137 S.Ct. at 1854-55.

In Abbasi, the Supreme Court further “stressed that any extension of Bivens to new factual scenarios is now a ‘“disfavored” judicial activity.'” Maria S. ex rel. EHF v. Garza, 912 F.3d 778, 783 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Abbasi, 137 S.Ct. at 1857 (quoting, in turn, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675 (2009))); accord Oliva v. Nivar, 973 F.3d 438, 442 (5th Cir. 2020) (“Bivens was the product of an ‘ancien regime' that freely implied rights of action. That regime ended long ago. Today, Bivens claims generally are limited to the circumstances of the Supreme Court's trilogy of cases in this area....” (citations omitted)), cert. denied, 141 S.Ct. 2669 (2021); Byrd v. Lamb, 990 F.3d 879, 881 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) (“The Supreme Court has cautioned against extending Bivens to new contexts.” (citing Hernandez v. Mesa, 140 S.Ct. 735, 744 (2020) (Hernandez II); Abbasi, 137 S.Ct. at 1861)); Butler v. S. Porter, 999 F.3d 287, 293 (5th Cir. 2021) (“Indeed, in recent decades, the Supreme Court has ‘consistently refused to extend Bivens to any new context.'” (quoting Malesko, 534 U.S. at 68; citation omitted)).

So, as to whether Broadfield may assert claims against the individual defendants for alleged constitutional violations the Court should consider the “two part inquiry for determining whether to allow a Bivens cause of action: (1) whether the instant case involves a ‘new context' that is distinct from prior Bivens cases and (2) whether...