Negron v. United States of America

Background

Steven Negron, a federal prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, sued the United States, Christopher Entzel, and Nicole Gulliver. He alleged that Entzel took his prescription eyeglasses and later returned them after Negron complained. Negron further alleged that Entzel threatened him because he filed grievances and that Entzel and Gulliver caused him to be transferred from the Federal Correctional Institution at Otisville, New York, to the Allenwood Low Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania. According to Negron, the transfer was based on retaliation, racial profiling, and his status as an Orthodox Jewish person of Hispanic or Spanish Jewish identity. He also alleged that prison officials used misleading information in the transfer paperwork.

Negron asserted three negligence-based claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act: negligence, negligent supervision, and negligent training and hiring. He also asserted constitutional damages claims under the judge-made remedy recognized in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, including a First Amendment retaliation claim and a Fifth Amendment equal-protection claim. He sought monetary damages, a declaration of his rights, and injunctive relief, including an order requiring his return to the Otisville facility.

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which addresses a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which addresses whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. Negron did not file an opposition brief, although the court had given him extensions of time after he reported that he had not received the defendants’ opening papers.

Federal Tort Claims Act Claims

The court first held that any Federal Tort Claims Act claims against Entzel and Gulliver had to be dismissed because the United States is the only proper defendant for such a claim.

The court then dismissed the Federal Tort Claims Act claims against the United States for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. It identified two independent grounds. First, the applicable statute bars a prisoner from bringing a claim against the United States for mental or emotional injury suffered in custody without first showing a physical injury. Negron alleged pain and emotional distress from being separated from family members, but he did not allege a physical injury caused by the defendants’ conduct.

Second, the court held that Negron’s negligence claims lacked the required “private analogue.” Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the alleged conduct must be comparable to conduct for which a private person could be liable under the law of the place where the conduct occurred. The court concluded that Negron’s claims were based on the defendants’ alleged failure to follow Bureau of Prisons policies and regulations. Because the relevant law did not recognize a freestanding duty to follow those internal regulations, the claims could not satisfy the private-analogue requirement.

Constitutional Damages Claims

The court dismissed Negron’s First Amendment retaliation claim under Bivens. Bivens is a limited, judge-made remedy allowing damages claims against individual federal officers for certain constitutional violations. The court held that a First Amendment retaliation claim by a federal prisoner presents a new Bivens context, and that the Supreme Court had not recognized a Bivens remedy for that type of claim. The court therefore dismissed the claim without proceeding further through the Bivens analysis.

The court also dismissed Negron’s Fifth Amendment equal-protection claim. Although the Supreme Court had recognized a Bivens remedy for a Fifth Amendment equal-protection claim in an employment case, the court held that Negron’s claim—concerning an allegedly racially and religiously motivated prison transfer—was meaningfully different and therefore arose in a new context. The court declined to create a new Bivens remedy because prison-transfer decisions involve prison administration and because Negron had another potential method of relief: a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the execution of his sentence, including a prison transfer.

The court also construed the complaint as asserting a Fifth Amendment procedural due-process claim concerning the transfer. It dismissed that claim because, under the cited law, transferring a prisoner from one institution to another does not trigger the Due Process Clause’s protections.

Declaratory and Injunctive Relief

The court dismissed Negron’s request for a declaratory judgment because the Declaratory Judgment Act is procedural and does not create an independent claim. Once the Federal Tort Claims Act and Bivens claims were dismissed, there was no underlying claim supporting declaratory relief.

The court dismissed the request for an injunction barring the defendants from the alleged unconstitutional practices because the court had dismissed the related Bivens claims and because the Bivens remedy at issue provides monetary damages, not the requested injunction. To the extent Negron sought an order requiring his return to the Otisville facility, the court held that a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241—not this civil action—was the proper procedure. The court also stated that it could not convert the complaint into such a petition without giving Negron notice and an opportunity to decline conversion or withdraw the request.

Leave to Amend and Disposition

The court denied leave to amend the Federal Tort Claims Act and Bivens claims because amendment would be futile. It dismissed those claims with prejudice. The opinion did not state that the requests for declaratory or injunctive relief were dismissed with prejudice.

The defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted. The court allowed Negron 30 days to seek to convert the part of his complaint concerning a return to the Otisville facility into a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. If he filed that petition within 30 days and remained confined at Allenwood, the court stated that it would transfer the action to the Middle District of Pennsylvania. If he did not file the petition within 30 days, the action would be dismissed in its entirety without further notice.