Bravo v. Garland

Background

Luis Bravo alleged that he was arrested in the Dominican Republic on federal fraud charges and held for ten days by the Dominican military in a cage with severe conditions while awaiting extradition to the United States. He alleged injuries, illness, seizures, infected sores, and exposure to rats and extreme temperatures. After extradition, he alleged that he received limited medical attention during brief periods in federal custody in New York and later was diagnosed with dengue fever.

Bravo’s third amended complaint asserted several constitutional claims, including claims concerning his arrest, alleged excessive force, confinement conditions in the Dominican Republic, additional detention at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and denial of medical care in the Dominican Republic and New York. He also asserted negligence claims and made references that could have been construed as a request for relief concerning the duration of his criminal proceedings. He proceeded without a lawyer.

Claims Abandoned by Bravo

In his opposition to the motion to dismiss, Bravo stated that he would pursue only his constitutional claims concerning denial of medical care and that the court could disregard all other counts. The court treated his other claims as abandoned and dismissed those claims without prejudice. The court’s footnote states that the abandoned claims included other claims under the court-created damages remedy discussed below, negligence claims, and a purported request for habeas relief. The court also addressed the arguments concerning those claims based on the defendants’ briefing.

Bivens Claims Against the U.S. Marshals Service

The court explained that a Bivens claim is a damages claim implied by the courts against certain federal officers for constitutional violations. It held that Bivens does not provide liability for federal agencies or other entities. Because the U.S. Marshals Service is a federal entity, the court dismissed Bravo’s Bivens claims against it.

Medical-Care Claims

The court held that Bravo’s claims concerning treatment in the Dominican Republic would require a new extension of the Bivens remedy. The Supreme Court had not recognized a Bivens remedy for events occurring outside the United States. The court also identified special factors counseling against extending the remedy, including the possible effect on foreign relations, the role of the executive branch in dealing with foreign governments and militaries, and Congress’s limits on tort claims arising in foreign countries.

The court likewise held that Bravo’s claims concerning medical care in the United States presented a new Bivens context. It reasoned that Bravo was a pretrial detainee, so the domestic claims arose under the Fifth Amendment rather than the Eighth Amendment right involved in the Supreme Court’s earlier medical-care case. The court also considered the allegations involving a private prison facility to be meaningfully different from that earlier case and found the alleged misconduct substantially less severe.

The court identified additional reasons not to extend Bivens to the domestic claims. It pointed to congressional legislation concerning prisoner-abuse claims that did not create a separate damages remedy against federal jailers and to the Federal Tort Claims Act as an alternative remedial scheme. The court concluded that these considerations counseled against creating a new damages remedy.

Leave to Amend and Disposition

The court concluded that amending the remaining Bivens claims would be futile because they involved injuries abroad and a short period of pretrial detention in the United States, and because substantial reasons counseled against extending Bivens to the alleged circumstances. It denied leave to amend.

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed the Bivens claims against the U.S. Marshals Service with prejudice and dismissed Bravo’s remaining, unabandoned Bivens claims concerning medical care in the Dominican Republic and New York with prejudice. It dismissed the remaining abandoned claims without prejudice, entered judgment for the defendants, and directed that a copy of the order be mailed to Bravo.