Date: 01-23-2008

Case Style: Abdus-Shahid M.S., Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, et al.

Case Number: 06-9130

Judge: Thomas

Court: United States Supreme court on appeal from the Northern District of Georgia, Fulton County

Plaintiff's Attorney: Unknown

Defendant's Attorney: Unknown

Description:

This case concerns the scope of 28 U. S. C. §2680, whichcarves out certain exceptions to the United States' waiverof sovereign immunity for torts committed by federalemployees. Section 2680(c) provides that the waiver ofsovereign immunity does not apply to claims arising fromthe detention of property by "any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer." Petitioner contends that this clause applies only to law enforcementofficers enforcing customs or excise laws, and thus doesnot affect the waiver of sovereign immunity for his property claim against officers of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). We conclude that the broad phrase "any other law enforcement officer" covers all law enforcement officers. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court ofAppeals upholding the dismissal of petitioner's claim.

I

Petitioner Abdus-Shahid M. S. Ali was a federal prisoner at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, from 2001 to 2003. In December 2003, petitioner wasscheduled to be transferred to the United States Penitentiary Big Sandy (USP Big Sandy) in Inez, Kentucky.Before being transferred, he left two duffle bags containing his personal property in the Atlanta prison's Receiving and Discharge Unit to be inventoried, packaged, and shipped to USP Big Sandy. Petitioner was transferred, and his bags arrived some days later. Upon inspecting hisproperty, he noticed that several items were missing. The staff at USP Big Sandy's Receiving and Discharge Unit told him that he had been given everything that was sent, and that if things were missing he could file a claim.Many of the purportedly missing items were of religious and nostalgic significance, including two copies of the Qur'an, a prayer rug, and religious magazines. Petitioner estimated that the items were worth $177.

Petitioner filed an administrative tort claim. In denyingrelief, the agency noted that, by his signature on the receipt form, petitioner had certified the accuracy of the inventory listed thereon and had thereby relinquished any future claims relating to missing or damaged property. Petitioner then filed a complaint alleging, inter alia, violations of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C.§§1346, 2671 et seq. The BOP maintained that petitioner'sclaim was barred by the exception in §2680(c) for propertyclaims against law enforcement officers. The District Court agreed and dismissed petitioner's FTCA claim for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Petitioner appealed.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, agreeing with the District Court's interpretation of §2680(c). 204 Fed. Appx.778, 779–780 (2006) (per curiam). In rejecting petitioner'sarguments, the Court of Appeals relied on this Court's broad interpretation of §2680(c)'s "detention" clause in Kosak v. United States, 465 U. S. 848, 854–859 (1984), ondecisions by other Courts of Appeals, and on its own decision in Schlaebitz v. United States Dept. of Justice, 924 F. 2d 193, 195 (1991) (per curiam) (holding that UnitedStates Marshals, who were allegedly negligent in releasing a parolee's luggage to a third party, were "law enforcement officers" under §2680(c)). See 204 Fed. Appx., at 779–780. We granted certiorari, 550 U. S. ___ (2007), to resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as to the scope of §2680(c).1

II

In the FTCA, Congress waived the United States' sovereign immunity for claims arising out of torts committed by federal employees. See 28 U. S. C. §1346(b)(1). As relevant here, the FTCA authorizes "claims against the United States, for money damages . . . for injury or loss of property . . . caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment." Ibid. The FTCA exempts from this waiver certain categories ofclaims. See §§2680(a)–(n). Relevant here is the exceptionin subsection (c), which provides that §1346(b) shall not apply to "[a]ny claim arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty, or the detention ofany goods, merchandise, or other property by any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer."§2680(c).

This case turns on whether the BOP officers who allegedly lost petitioner's property qualify as "other law enforcement officer[s]" within the meaning of §2680(c).2 Petitioner argues that they do not because "any other lawenforcement officer" includes only law enforcement officersacting in a customs or excise capacity. Noting that Congress referenced customs and excise activities in both thelanguage at issue and the preceding clause in §2680(c),petitioner argues that the entire subsection is focused on preserving the United States' sovereign immunity only as to officers enforcing those laws.

Petitioner's argument is inconsistent with the statute'slanguage.3 The phrase "any other law enforcement officer" suggests a broad meaning. Ibid. (emphasis added). We have previously noted that "[r]ead naturally, the word ‘any' has an expansive meaning, that is, ‘one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind.'" United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997) (quoting Webster's Third

New International Dictionary 97 (1976)). In Gonzales, we considered a provision that imposed an additional sentence for firearms used in federal drug trafficking crimesand provided that such additional sentence shall not beconcurrent with "any other term of imprisonment." 520 U. S., at 4 (quoting 18 U. S. C. §924(c)(1) (1994 ed.) (emphasis deleted)). Notwithstanding the subsection's initial reference to federal drug trafficking crimes, we held thatthe expansive word "any" and the absence of restrictivelanguage left "no basis in the text for limiting" the phrase"any other term of imprisonment" to federal sentences.520 U. S., at 5. Similarly, in Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578 (1980), the Court considered the phrase "any other final action" in amendments to the Clean Air Act. The Court explained that the amendments expanded a list of Environmental Protection Agency Administratoractions by adding two categories of actions: actions undera specifically enumerated statutory provision, and "any other final action" under the Clean Air Act. Id., at 584 (emphasis deleted). Focusing on Congress' choice of the word "any," the Court "discern[ed] no uncertainty in themeaning of the phrase, ‘any other final action,'" and emphasized that the statute's "expansive language offer[ed] no indication whatever that Congress intended" to limit the phrase to final actions similar to those in the specifically enumerated sections. Id., at 588–589.

We think the reasoning of Gonzales and Harrison applies equally to the expansive language Congress employed in 28 U. S. C. §2680(c). Congress' use of "any" tomodify "other law enforcement officer" is most naturally read to mean law enforcement officers of whatever kind.

The word "any" is repeated four times in the relevant portion of §2680(c), and two of those instances appear in the particular phrase at issue: "any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer." (Emphasisadded.) Congress inserted the word "any" immediatelybefore "other law enforcement officer," leaving no doubt that it modifies that phrase. To be sure, the text's references to "tax or customs duty" and "officer[s] of customs orexcise" indicate that Congress intended to preserve immunity for claims arising from an officer's enforcement of taxand customs laws. The text also indicates, however, that Congress intended to preserve immunity for claims arising from the detention of property, and there is no indicationthat Congress intended immunity for those claims to turnon the type of law being enforced.

Petitioner would require Congress to clarify its intent tocover all law enforcement officers by adding phrases such as "performing any official law enforcement function," or"without limitation." But Congress could not have chosena more all-encompassing phrase than "any other law enforcement officer" to express that intent. We have no reason to demand that Congress write less economicallyand more repetitiously.

Recent amendments to §2680(c) support the conclusion that "any other law enforcement officer" is not limited toofficers acting in a customs or excise capacity. In the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, Congress addedsubsections (c)(1)–(c)(4) to 28 U. S. C. §2680. §3(a), 114 Stat. 211. As amended, §2680(c) provides that the §1346(b) waiver of sovereign immunity, notwithstanding the exception at issue in this case, applies to:

"[A]ny claim based on injury or loss of goods, merchandise, or other property, while in the possession of any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer, if -

"(1) the property was seized for the purpose of forfeiture under any provision of Federal law providing for the forfeiture of property other than as a sentence imposed upon conviction of a criminal offense;

"(2) the interest of the claimant was not forfeited;

"(3) the interest of the claimant was not remitted ormitigated (if the property was subject to forfeiture);and

"(4) the claimant was not convicted of a crime forwhich the interest of the claimant in the property wassubject to forfeiture under a Federal criminal forfeiture law."

The amendment does not govern petitioner's claim because his property was not "seized for the purpose of forfeiture," as required by paragraph (1). Nonetheless, the amendment is relevant because our construction of "anyother law enforcement officer" must, to the extent possible, ensure that the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent. See Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337, 340 (1997) (citing United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, 489 U. S. 235, 240 (1989)). The amendment canceled the exception - and thus restored the waiver of sovereign immunity - for certain seizures of property based on any federal forfeiture law. See 28 U. S. C. §2680(c)(1) (excepting property claims if "the property was seized for thepurpose of forfeiture under any provision of Federal lawproviding for the forfeiture of property" (emphasis added)). Under petitioner's interpretation, only law enforcementofficers enforcing customs or excise laws were immune under the prior version of §2680(c). Thus, on petitioner'sreading, the amendment's only effect was to restore the waiver for cases in which customs or excise officers, or officers acting in such a capacity, enforce forfeiture laws.This strikes us as an implausible interpretation of the statute. If that were Congress' intent, it is not apparentwhy Congress would have restored the waiver with respect to the enforcement of all civil forfeiture laws instead of simply those related to customs or excise. Petitioner's interpretation makes sense only if we assume that Congress went out of its way to restore the waiver for cases inwhich customs or excise officers, or officers acting in sucha capacity, enforce forfeiture laws unrelated to customs orexcise. But petitioner fails to demonstrate that customs or excise officers, or officers acting in such a capacity, ever enforce civil forfeiture laws unrelated to customs or excise, much less that they do so with such frequency that Congress is likely to have singled them out in the amendment.5 It seems far more likely that Congress restored the waiver for officers enforcing any civil forfeiture law because, in its view, all such officers were covered by the exception to the waiver prior to the amendment.

Against this textual and structural evidence that "anyother law enforcement officer" does in fact mean any otherlaw enforcement officer, petitioner invokes numerous canons of statutory construction. He relies primarily on ejusdem generis, or the principle that "when a general term follows a specific one, the general term should be understood as a reference to subjects akin to the one with specific enumeration." Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117, 129 (1991). In petitioner'sview, "any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer" should be read as a three-item list, and the final, catchall phrase "any other law enforcement officer" should be limited to officers of the same nature as the preceding specific phrases. Petitioner likens his case to two recent cases in which we found the canon useful. In Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler, 537 U. S. 371, 375 (2003), we considered the clause "execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process" in 42 U. S. C. §407(a). Applying ejusdem generis, we concluded that "other legal process" was limited to legal processes of the same nature as the specific items listed. 537 U. S., at 384–385. The department's schemefor serving as a representative payee of the benefits due tochildren under its care, while a "legal process," did not share the common attribute of the listed items, viz., "utilization of some judicial or quasi-judicial mechanism . . . by which control over property passes from one person to another in order to discharge" a debt. 537 U. S., at 385. Similarly, in Dolan v. Postal Service, 546 U. S. 481 (2006),the Court considered whether an exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity for claims arising out of the "‘loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter'" barred a claim that mail negligently left on the petitioner's porch caused her to slip and fall. Id., at 485 (quoting 28 U. S. C. §2680(b)). Noting that "loss" and "miscarriage" both addressed "failings in the postal obligation to deliver mail in a timely manner to the right address," 546 U. S., at 487, the Court concluded that "negligent transmission" must be similarly limited, id., at 486– 489, and rejected the Government's argument that the exception applied to "all torts committed in the course of mail delivery," id., at 490.

Petitioner asserts that §2680(c), like the clauses at issuein Keffeler and Dolan, ‘"presents a textbook ejusdem generis scenario.'" Brief for Petitioner 15 (quoting Andrews v. United States, 441 F. 3d 220, 224 (CA4 2006)). We disagree. The structure of the phrase "any officer ofcustoms or excise or any other law enforcement officer"does not lend itself to application of the canon. The phraseis disjunctive, with one specific and one general category,not - like the clauses at issue in Keffeler and Dolan - a list of specific items separated by commas and followed by ageneral or collective term. The absence of a list of specific items undercuts the inference embodied in ejusdem generis that Congress remained focused on the commonattribute when it used the catchall phrase. Cf. United States v. Aguilar, 515 U. S. 593, 615 (1995) (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (rejecting thecanon's applicability to an omnibus clause that was "one of . . . several distinct and independent prohibitions" ratherthan "a general or collective term following a list of specific items to which a particular statutory command is applicable"). Moreover, it is not apparent what common attributeconnects the specific items in §2680(c). Were we to use the canon to limit the meaning of "any other law enforcementofficer," we would be required to determine the relevantlimiting characteristic of "officer of customs or excise." In Jarecki v. G. D. Searle Co., 367 U. S. 303 (1961), for example, the Court invoked noscitur a sociis in limiting the scope of the term "‘discovery'" to the common characteristic it shared with "‘exploration'" and "‘prospecting.'" Id., at 307. The Court noted that all three words in conjunction "describe[d] income-producing activity in the oil andgas and mining industries." Ibid. Here, by contrast, no relevant common attribute immediately appears from thephrase "officer of customs or excise." Petitioner suggeststhat the common attribute is that both types of officers arecharged with enforcing the customs and excise laws. But we see no reason why that should be the relevant characteristic as opposed to, for example, that officers of thattype are commonly involved in the activities enumerated in the statute: the assessment and collection of taxes and customs duties and the detention of property.

Petitioner's appeals to other interpretive principles are also unconvincing. Petitioner contends that his reading issupported by the canon noscitur a sociis, according towhich "a word is known by the company it keeps." S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, 547 U. S. 370, 378 (2006). But the cases petitioner cites in support of applying noscitur a sociis involved statutes with stronger contextual cues. See Gutierrez v. Ada, 528 U. S. 250, 254–258 (2000) (applying the canon to narrow therelevant phrase, "any election," where it was closely surrounded by six specific references to gubernatorial elections); Jarecki, supra, at 306–309 (applying the canon tonarrow the term "discoveries" to discoveries of mineral resources where it was contained in a list of three words, all of which applied to the oil, gas, and mining industries and could not conceivably all apply to any other industry).Here, although customs and excise are mentioned twice in§2680(c), nothing in the overall statutory context suggests that customs and excise officers were the exclusive focus of the provision. The emphasis in subsection (c) on customs and excise is not inconsistent with the conclusion that "any other law enforcement officer" sweeps as broadly asits language suggests.

Similarly, the rule against superfluities lends petitioner sparse support. The construction we adopt today does notnecessarily render "any officer of customs or excise" superfluous; Congress may have simply intended to remove any doubt that officers of customs or excise were included in "law enforcement officers." See Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA, 495 U. S. 641, 646 (1990) (noting that "technically unnecessary" examples may have been "inserted out of anabundance of caution"). Moreover, petitioner's construction threatens to render "any other law enforcement officer" superfluous because it is not clear when, if ever, "other law enforcement officer[s]" act in a customs orexcise capacity.6 In any event, we do not woodenly apply limiting principles every time Congress includes a specific example along with a general phrase. See Harrison, 446 U. S., at 589, n. 6 (rejecting an argument that ejusdem generis must apply when a broad interpretation of the clause could render the specific enumerations unnecessary).

In the end, we are unpersuaded by petitioner's attempt to create ambiguity where the statute's text and structure suggest none. Had Congress intended to limit §2680(c)'sreach as petitioner contends, it easily could have written"any other law enforcement officer acting in a customs or excise capacity." Instead, it used the unmodified, all-encompassing phrase "any other law enforcement officer."Nothing in the statutory context requires a narrowingconstruction - indeed, as we have explained, the statute is most consistent and coherent when "any other law enforcement officer" is read to mean what it literally says.See Norfolk & Western R. Co., 499 U. S., at 129 (noting that interpretive canons must yield "when the wholecontext dictates a different conclusion"). It bears emphasis, moreover, that §2680(c), far from maintaining sovereign immunity for the entire universe of claims against - - - - - - the agents' conduct within the scope of section 2680(c)"). But it is not clear that the agents in that case were acting in an excise or customs capacity rather than in their ordinary capacity as law enforcement agents. It seems to us that DEA agents searching a car for drugs areacting in their capacity as officers charged with enforcing the Nation'sdrug laws, not the customs or excise laws.

Similarly, the dissent notes that 14 U. S. C. §89(a) authorizes CoastGuard officers to enforce customs laws. Post, at 5-6. But the very nextsubsection of §89 provides that Coast Guard officers effectively are customs officers when they enforce customs laws. See §89(b)(1) (providing that Coast Guard officers "insofar as they are engaged, pursuant tothe authority contained in this section, in enforcing any law of theUnited States shall . . . be deemed to be acting as agents of the particular executive department . . . charged with the administration of the particular law"). As a result, a Coast Guard officer enforcing a customslaw is a customs officer, not some "other law enforcement officer." law enforcement officers, does so only for claims "arisingin respect of" the "detention" of property. We are not at liberty to rewrite the statute to reflect a meaning we deemmore desirable.7 Instead, we must give effect to the textCongress enacted: Section 2680(c) forecloses lawsuitsagainst the United States for the unlawful detention ofproperty by "any," not just "some," law enforcementofficers.

* * *

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-9130.pdf

Outcome: For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court ofAppeals for the Eleventh Circuit is Affirmed.

Plaintiff's Experts: Unknown

Defendant's Experts: Unknown

Comments: None