Valadez–lopez v. Chertoff

• Decision Date: 26 August 2011
• Docket Number: 09–17479,09–17481.,Nos. 09–16375,s. 09–16375
• Citation: 11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11030,2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13113,656 F.3d 851
• Parties: Juan Carlos VALADEZ–LOPEZ, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Michael CHERTOFF; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; John McGinness; Mack Wimbish; Yakov Grinberg, in his individual capacity; Donald Lown, in his individual and official capacities, Defendants,andUnited States of America, Defendant–Appellee.Juan Carlos Valadez–Lopez, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Michael Chertoff; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; United States of America, Defendants,andDonald Lown, in his official capacities, Defendant–Appellee.Juan Carlos Valadez–Lopez, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Michael Chertoff; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; United States of America, Defendants,andYakov Grinberg, in his individual capacity, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

656 F.3d 851

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11,030

2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13,113

Juan Carlos VALADEZ–LOPEZ, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Michael CHERTOFF; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; John McGinness; Mack Wimbish; Yakov Grinberg, in his individual capacity; Donald Lown, in his individual and official capacities, Defendants,andUnited States of America, Defendant–Appellee.Juan Carlos Valadez–Lopez, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Michael Chertoff; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; United States of America, Defendants,andDonald Lown, in his official capacities, Defendant–Appellee.Juan Carlos Valadez–Lopez, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Michael Chertoff; Alberto R. Gonzales; Jerry J. Enomoto; United States of America, Defendants,andYakov Grinberg, in his individual capacity, Defendant–Appellee.

Nos. 09–16375

09–17479

09–17481.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Nov. 30, 2010.Filed Aug. 26, 2011.

Carter C. White, Lorin Kline (certified law student), and Elizabeth Liang (certified law student); University of California Davis School of Law (King Hall) Civil Rights Clinic, Davis, California; Laurence O. Masson, Berkeley, CA, for the plaintiff/appellant.J. Scott Smith, Angelo, Kilday & Kilduff, Sacramento, CA, for defendants/appellees Donald Lown and Richard Van Zandt.Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Benjamin B. Wagner, United States Attorney General, Thomas M. Bondy and Kelsi Brown Corkran, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for the federal defendants/appellees.Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Ronald S.W. Lew, Senior District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:07–cv–01566–LEW.Before: MARY M. SCHROEDER, SIDNEY R. THOMAS, and RONALD M. GOULD, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

THOMAS, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, we consider whether the plaintiff properly exhausted his administrative remedies under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA” or the “Act”), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346, 2671–80, see id. § 2675(a), where the federal agencies denied the plaintiff's administrative tort claims before he amended his complaint in an ongoing civil action to name the United States as a party and allege a new cause of action under the Act. We conclude that the claims were properly exhausted, but affirm the district court's dismissal on the alternate ground that Valadez–Lopez stated FTCA claims that fall outside the Act's waiver of sovereign immunity. We also affirm the grant of summary judgment on Valadez–Lopez's ineffective assistance of counsel claims, premised on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978).

I

This case has a complicated procedural and factual history. Distilled to its essence, the salient facts are as follows: Juan Carlos Valadez–Lopez's public defender knew that Valadez–Lopez was an undocumented immigrant, yet nonetheless advised him to plead no contest to attempted burglary in the first degree on charges that he jiggled the door knob of a house that was not his own. Based on Valadez–Lopez's conviction, the government detained him for a year pending his removal proceedings in local jails on contract with the federal government. Valadez–Lopez was ultimately permitted to withdraw his plea and eventually prevailed on his applications for asylum and cancellation of removal. He claims that various authorities unconstitutionally deprived him of medication for his schizophrenia during his immigration detention, and that that detention resulted from the insufficient training that Yolo County, California, provided to its public defenders regarding the immigration consequences of criminal pleas.

He initially filed suit against local officials under § 1983 and federal officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971). He separately filed administrative tort claims with the appropriate federal agencies, pursuant to the FTCA's exhaustion requirement. See 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). In his administrative tort claims, Valadez–Lopez alleged that federal authorities negligently deprived him of medication he needed to control his schizophrenia during his immigration detention. After six months, having received no response from the agencies as to his administrative claims, he considered the requests to have been deemed denied, see id., and amended his complaint to name the United States as a defendant and allege liability under the FTCA. Subsequently, he received notification from the agencies that his administrative claims had been denied. The notice contained the form language stating that if he were dissatisfied with the denial of his claims, he could file suit in federal district court within six months after the denial notification was mailed.

The district court granted the United States' motion to dismiss the FTCA claims for lack of administrative exhaustion and granted the local defendants' motion for summary judgment on the § 1983 claims. Valadez–Lopez timely appealed.

II

The district court erred in concluding that Valadez–Lopez had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, and that it therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his FTCA claims.

The FTCA “waives the sovereign immunity of the United States for actions in tort” and “vests the federal district courts with exclusive jurisdiction over suits arising from the negligence of Government employees.” Jerves v. United States, 966 F.2d 517, 518 (9th Cir.1992). “However, the Act further provides that before an individual can file an action against the United States in district court,[he] must seek an administrative resolution of [his] claim.” Id. (emphasis added) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a)). Specifically, the FTCA provides that:

An action shall not be instituted upon a claim against the United States for money damages ... unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency and his claim shall have been finally denied by the agency in writing and sent by certified or registered mail. The failure of an agency to make final disposition of a claim within six months after it is filed shall, at the option of the claimant any time thereafter, be deemed a final denial of the claim for purposes of this section.

28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) (emphasis added). “The requirement of an administrative claim is jurisdictional.” Brady v. United States, 211 F.3d 499, 502 (9th Cir.2000) (citing Cadwalder v. United States, 45 F.3d 297, 300 (9th Cir.1995)). “Because the requirement is jurisdictional, it ‘must be strictly adhered to. This is particularly so since the FTCA waives sovereign immunity. Any such waiver must be strictly construed in favor of the United States.’ ” Id. (quoting Jerves, 966 F.2d at 521). Indeed, the Supreme Court has described the FTCA's exhaustion requirement as a “clear statutory command.” McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113, 113 S.Ct. 1980, 124 L.Ed.2d 21 (1993).

As applied to these facts, the plain text of the FTCA's “clear statutory command” in 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) establishes that Valadez–Lopez properly exhausted his administrative remedies under the Act. Valadez–Lopez's original complaint neither named the United States as a defendant nor stated a claim under the Act. He only amended his complaint to name the United States and include an FTCA cause of action after the government had failed to respond to his administrative claims within six months. The statute provides that “[t]he failure of an agency to make final disposition of a claim within six months after it is filed shall, at the option of the claimant any time thereafter, be deemed a final denial of the claim for purposes of this section.” 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). As we noted in Jerves, “[a] tort claimant may not commence proceedings in court against the United States without first filing her claim with an appropriate federal agency and either receiving a conclusive denial of the claim from the agency or waiting for six months to elapse without a final disposition of the claim being made.” 966 F.2d at 519 (emphasis added) (citing Caton v. United States, 495 F.2d 635, 638 (9th Cir.1974)). Here, Valadez–Lopez exhausted his administrative remedies before “institut[ing] ... a claim against the United States” under the FTCA. 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). The government subsequently acknowledged that his FTCA claim was administratively exhausted by notifying Valadez–Lopez that the claim was denied and that he had six months from that date in which to file an FTCA lawsuit. Under these facts, there is no doubt that the FTCA claims were administratively exhausted, and that the district court had jurisdiction over his FTCA claim.

Although it portrays its argument to the contrary as one founded on failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the government's central thesis is that “[t]he filing of an amended complaint is not the equivalent to instituting an action following the exhaustion of administrative remedies.” (Emphasis added.) The government reasons that the court is required to dismiss the FTCA claim in the amended complaint and to require the plaintiff to file an entirely new lawsuit founded on the same nucleus of facts. The government concedes, however, that if the plaintiff had filed a new lawsuit as it suggests, the second suit could be—and probably should be—consolidated with the prior pending action.

The government's position finds support in neither the plain language of the statute nor in the law of our circuit. In Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security, 538 F.3d 1250 (9th Cir.2008), for example, we stated that where a plaintiff filed suit before exhausting administrative remedies, she might have saved her FTCA claim by “ask[ing] the district court to stay the litigation so she could attempt to[exhaust] while the litigation was pending.” Id. at 1258 (citing McNeil, 508 U.S. at 113, 113 S.Ct. 1980). There is nothing in the statute or our case law that would prevent a...