WASHINGTON — The owner of an inn on the Canadian border who said he was attacked by a Border Patrol agent may not charge the officer for violating the constitution by using excessive force, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
The decision, by a 6-to-3 vote along ideological lines, came just short of overriding a 1971 precedent, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, that left federal courts, rather than Congress, could at least approve certain types of lawsuits. money from federal officials accused of violating constitutional rights.
But the basic message of Wednesday’s decision, Egbert v. Boule, No. 21-147, was that only Congress can approve such lawsuits.
The case was brought by Robert Boule, the owner of a bed-and-breakfast in Blaine, Washington, called the Smuggler’s Inn. Mr Boule said he had served as a confidential informant for the federal government, helping agents locate and arrest people who illegally crossed the border.
In March 2014, he told Erik Egbert, a border police officer, that a Turkish citizen was arriving at the inn.
When the guest’s car reached the inn, Mr. Egbert entered Mr. Boule’s property without a search warrant. Mr Boule said he told the officer to leave, only to be thrown against the vehicle and then to the ground.
Mr. Egbert looked at the guest’s paperwork and found it to be in order. That night, the guest illegally entered Canada.
Mr Boule took the agent to court, saying he had violated the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force and the First Amendment by contacting the IRS and requesting an audit of Mr Boule’s tax returns.
A federal trial judge dismissed the case, saying the Bivens decision did not allow the kinds of claims Mr Boule insisted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned that dismissal, leaving Mr. Boule could follow both theories.
Judge Clarence Thomas, writing for five judges, said the court has only extended Bivens twice, which related to the unconstitutional search of a Brooklyn home, most recently in 1980. In Mr Boule’s case, Judge Thomas wrote. : Made a mistake when it triggered action for Boule’s Fourth Amendment undue force claim and First Amendment retaliation claim.”
Judge Thomas wrote that courts should focus on a “single question” in such cases: Is there “any reason to believe Congress is better equipped” than a court to weigh the costs and benefits of allow lawsuits against federal officials for money?
In particular, Judge Thomas wrote, the national security interest in border security distinguished the case in court from ordinary Fourth Amendment violations. He cited a 2020 decision dismissing a lawsuit filed by the parents of a teen killed by a U.S. cop who fired a shot across the Mexican border.
Judge Neil M. Gorsuch voted with the majority but said he would have gone further. The court, he wrote, must “gively return the power to create new causes of action to the representatives of Congress.”
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, accompanied by Judges Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan, agreed that Mr. Boule was unable to pursue his claim under the First Amendment. But she wrote that a claim to the Fourth Amendment based on the agent’s use of excessive force was allowed by Bivens.
She wrote that the case of Mr. Boule is “far from any other, in which the court refused to renew Bivens for reasons of national security or foreign relations.”
The majority’s attempts to invoke those interests, she added, were dishonest.
“This case has nothing to do with national security,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “The court may wish otherwise, but given the facts of this case, its attempt to cast the specter of national security is a mere sleight of hand.”
Justice Sotomayor added that “Agent Egbert, a line officer, was engaged in a routine investigation into the status of an alien on US soil who had no actual or implied links to terrorism, and who recently entered US Customs to boot.”
Justice Sotomayor said she hoped that some lawsuits under the Bivens decision could still survive.
“While today’s opinion will make it more difficult for plaintiffs to file a successful Bivens claim, even in the context of the Fourth Amendment,” she wrote, “the lower courts shouldn’t read it to make Bivens a dead letter.” to make.”
However, on the next page of her dissent, Judge Sotomayor seemed to admit that few, if any, such lawsuits are likely to succeed.
“The court’s decision today,” she wrote, “ignores our repeated recognition of the importance of Bivens’ actions, particularly in the context of the Fourth Amendment search and seizure, and closes the door to lawsuits against Bivens by many who will suffer serious constitutional violations at the hands of federal agents.”
