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In Kidd, the court had previously found that a Fourth Amendment search and seizure claim did not represent a new context under Bivens and thus did not reach the special factors analysis.
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Case No. 2:20-cv-03512-ODW (JPRx)
2022-12-12
Osny Sorto-Vasquez KIDD et al., Plaintiffs, v. Alejandro MAYORKAS, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, in his official capacity et al., Defendants.
Anne Lai, Caitlin Fitzgerald Bellis, UCI School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, Irvine, CA, Giovanni Saarman Gonzalez, Jacob S. Kreilkamp, Anjan Choudhury, Brandon Ross Teachout, Hunter Vaughan Armour, Madelyn Yinuo Chen, Munger Tolles and Olson LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Michael Bryan Kaufman, Stephanie Padilla, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiffs. Aaron Kollitz, Gregory J. Agron, Paul B. La Scala, Christina Alejandra Marquez, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Washington, DC, for Defendants Alejandro Mayorkas, Tae D. Johnson, David Marin, Joseph Macias, United States of America. Gregory J. Agron, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for Defendant Does 1-10. Aaron Kollitz, Gregory J. Agron, Paul B. La Scala, Christina Alejandra Marquez, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for Defendants O. M., C. C., J. H., J. N.
Anne Lai, Caitlin Fitzgerald Bellis, UCI School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, Irvine, CA, Giovanni Saarman Gonzalez, Jacob S. Kreilkamp, Anjan Choudhury, Brandon Ross Teachout, Hunter Vaughan Armour, Madelyn Yinuo Chen, Munger Tolles and Olson LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Michael Bryan Kaufman, Stephanie Padilla, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiffs. Aaron Kollitz, Gregory J. Agron, Paul B. La Scala, Christina Alejandra Marquez, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Washington, DC, for Defendants Alejandro Mayorkas, Tae D. Johnson, David Marin, Joseph Macias, United States of America. Gregory J. Agron, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for Defendant Does 1-10. Aaron Kollitz, Gregory J. Agron, Paul B. La Scala, Christina Alejandra Marquez, AUSA - Office of U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, Joseph Anton Darrow, DOJ-USAO, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for Defendants O. M., C. C., J. H., J. N.
ORDER DENYING INDIVIDUAL OFFICER DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS [193]
OTIS D. WRIGHT, II, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
I. INTRODUCTION
Plaintiffs Osny Sorto-Vasquez Kidd, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights allege that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") officers violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures in arresting and detaining removable immigrants in and near their own homes. Plaintiffs bring claims against several officials for ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security working in their official capacities; the United States of America; and individual ICE officers O.M., C.C., J.H., and J.N. (together, the "Officers"). As is relevant to the present Motion, Kidd asserts claims against the Officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), for violating his Fourth Amendment rights in arresting and detaining him. (First Am. Compl. ("FAC") ¶¶ 194-199, ECF No. 38.)
The Officers previously moved to dismiss the claims asserted against them, including the Bivens claim. (Officers' Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 49.) The Court denied their motion. (Order Den. Mot. Dismiss ("Order") 21, ECF No. 58.) More recently, on June 8, 2022, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Egbert v. Boule, — U.S. —, 142 S. Ct. 1793, 213 L.Ed.2d 54 (2022), reversing a decision by the Ninth Circuit that a Bivens claim that arose in the border patrol context withstood summary judgment. The Officers now move for judgment on the pleadings, asserting that, under Egbert, the Bivens claim against them must now be dismissed. (Mot. J. Pleadings ("Motion" or "Mot."), ECF No. 193.) For the following reasons, the Court DENIES the Motion.
After considering the papers filed in connection with the Motions, the Court deemed the matters appropriate for decision without oral argument. Fed. R. Civ. P. 78(b); C.D. Cal. L.R. 7-15.
II. BACKGROUND
In this putative class action, Plaintiffs allege that ICE agents violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by (1) entering the curtilage of individuals' homes without a valid warrant and (2) obtaining consent or compliance by falsely presenting themselves as local police or probation officials. For the purpose of this Motion, the Court takes all of Plaintiffs' well-pleaded factual allegations as true. See Gregg v. Haw., Dep't of Pub. Safety, 870 F.3d 883, 887 (9th Cir. 2017).
The events involving Kidd took place in October 2018, when Kidd lived in a gated apartment complex. (FAC ¶¶ 51-52.) The Officers first gained access to Kidd's apartment complex by waiting outside until a different tenant opened the parking gate while exiting. (Id. ¶ 52.) Upon knocking on Kidd's door, the Officers were greeted by Kidd's mother. (Id. ¶ 53.) Officer C.C. told Kidd's mother that she was a "detective" with local police investigating a dangerous criminal using Kidd's address. (Id.) Kidd's mother was shocked and agreed to help the "detective." (Id.) Once the Officers were inside the home, they visited every room, banging on doors and requesting identification from Kidd's siblings, who at the time were between the ages of eleven and sixteen. (Id.)
Realizing that Kidd was absent, the Officers asked Kidd's mother to call him. (Id. ¶ 54.) Kidd answered his mother's call, and he could hear his siblings crying as his mother "worriedly stated that the police told her there was a dangerous criminal 'out to get' their family." (Id.) Kidd then spoke with C.C., who again identified herself as police and said she needed to speak with Kidd in person to guarantee that his family was safe from an extremely dangerous criminal. (Id.) Kidd agreed to meet with C.C. (Id.)
Two days later, Kidd received a call from C.C. asking him to come outside with a form of identification. (Id. ¶ 55.) Kidd exited his apartment complex to find the Officers waiting for him in tactical vests emblazoned with the word "POLICE." (Id.) After checking Kidd's identification, the Officers revealed that his family was not at risk and that they had invented the story to induce his compliance. (Id.) They admitted their true identities as ICE officers and arrested Kidd for removal. (Id.)
Plaintiffs identify nine other individuals with similar stories. In all the alleged incidents, ICE officers made some sort of misrepresentation in order to induce consent to enter an individual's home or induce them to step outside. (Id. ¶¶ 59-60, 62, 64-65, 67, 69 (impersonation of police), ¶¶ 76, 81, 84, 89, 90 (impersonation of probation officers).) As alleged, the community members ICE targeted were particularly susceptible to the probation officer ruse because those on probation are typically required by law to permit probation officers to access their homes and persons, leaving probationers with no choice but to comply with officers' requests. (Id. ¶ 71.)
On April 16, 2020, Plaintiffs filed their Complaint, and on October 27, 2020, they filed the operative First Amended Complaint. (Compl., ECF No. 1; FAC.) The Officers filed a motion to dismiss, and the remaining Defendants filed a separate motion to dismiss, with both motions brought pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The Court denied the former motion and granted in part and denied in part the latter motion. (Order 2.) Defendants proceeded to answer. (Answers, ECF Nos. 66, 67.)
On September 12, 2022, the Officers filed the Motion now under consideration. The parties briefed the Motion, (Opp'n, ECF No. 196; Reply, ECF No. 200), and the Officers later filed two Notices of Supplemental Authority, (Notice Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 207; Second Notice Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 239).
III. LEGAL STANDARD
After the pleadings are closed, but within such time as to not delay the trial, any party may move for judgment on the pleadings. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c). The standard applied to a Rule 12(c) motion is essentially the same as that applied to Rule 12(b)(6) motions, Gregg, 870 F.3d at 887; a judgment on the pleadings is appropriate when, even if all the allegations in the complaint are true, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ("Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact)." (citations omitted)); Milne ex rel. Coyne v. Stephen Slesinger, Inc., 430 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2005).
When ruling on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, a court should construe the facts in the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and the movant must clearly establish that no material issue of fact remains to be resolved. McGlinchy v. Shell Chem. Co., 845 F.2d 802, 810 (9th Cir. 1988). However, "conclusory allegations without more are insufficient" to withstand a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Id.
If judgment on the pleadings is appropriate, a court has discretion to grant the non-moving party leave to amend, grant dismissal, or enter a judgment. See Lonberg v. City of Riverside, 300 F. Supp. 2d 942, 945 (C.D. Cal. 2004). Leave to amend may be denied when "the court determines that the allegation of other facts consistent with the challenged pleading could not possibly cure the deficiency." Schreiber Distrib. Co. v. Serv-Well Furniture Co., 806 F.2d 1393, 1401 (9th Cir. 1986); Carrico v. City & County of San Francisco, 656 F.3d 1002, 1008 (9th Cir. 2011) ("[Leave to amend] is properly denied . . . if amendment would be futile.").
IV. DISCUSSION
The starting point for this analysis is this Court's pre-Egbert determination that Plaintiffs state a valid Bivens claim against the Officers. In denying the Officers' motion to dismiss, the Court found that this case, which involves claims against immigration officers for unreasonable searches and seizures committed in and around individuals' homes, was not "different in a meaningful way from previous Bivens cases decided by the Court." (Order 21 (citing Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1864, 198 L.Ed.2d 290 (2017)).) The Officers now ask this Court to revisit its finding in light of the Supreme Court's opinion in Egbert.
The Officers' request implicates the law of the case doctrine, which applies whenever a court is asked to revisit a decision on a rule of law previously made by that same court or a higher court in the same case. Chinatown Neighborhood Ass'n v. Harris, 33 F. Supp. 3d 1085, 1093 (N.D. Cal. 2014). The doctrine "posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case." Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983). "Law of the case rules are founded upon 'the sound public policy that litigation must come to an end . . . . [A] court cannot efficiently perform its duty to provide expeditious justice to all if a question once considered and decided by it were to be litigated anew in the same case . . . .' " Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1489 (9th Cir. 1997) (quoting Kimball v. Callahan, 590 F.2d 768, 771 (9th Cir. 1979)), overruled on other grounds by Gonzalez v. Arizona, 677 F.3d 383, 389 n.4 (9th Cir. 2012). The law of the case doctrine "also serves to maintain consistency." Id. (citing 18 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478 (1981)). The doctrine "is not a limitation on a tribunal's power, but rather a guide to discretion." United States v. Alexander, 106 F.3d 874, 876 (9th Cir. 1997).
Here, given that the Court's prior finding was based on the same pleading and legal standard that are presently at issue, that finding—that the First Amended Complaint states a legally valid Bivens claim against the Officers—constitutes law of the case. Even so, a court may depart from the law of the case when: "(1) the decision is clearly erroneous and its enforcement would work a manifest injustice, (2) intervening controlling authority makes reconsideration appropriate, or (3) substantially different evidence was adduced at a subsequent trial." Gonzalez, 677 F.3d at 389 n.4; Old Person v. Brown, 312 F.3d 1036, 1039 (9th Cir. 2002). Some cases articulate the first prong as two separate, independently sufficient prongs—that is, they replace the "and" in prong (1) with "or"—and further recognize an additional catch-all prong of "other changed circumstances." Alexander, 106 F.3d at 876. The Ninth Circuit has recognized this apparent split of authority but has declined to rule on it. United States ex rel. Godecke v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., No. 2:08-cv-06403-GHK (AGRx), 2016 WL 11673222, at *4 n.7 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 2016)
Of particular relevance here, intervening controlling authority makes reconsideration appropriate only if the new case is "a binding 'opinion directly on point and irreconcilable with the earlier decision in the period between the first and second decisions of the lower court.' " See Godecke, 2016 WL 11673222, at *5 (quoting 3-30 Moore's Manual—Federal Practice & Procedure § 30.31). By contrast, if an intervening, binding opinion merely " 'clarifie[s] and refine[s] the law,' and would not have changed the result of the original decision," law of the case applies, and the original decision remains unchanged. Id. (quoting Merritt v. Mackey, 932 F.2d 1317, 1321 (9th Cir. 1991)).
The Court's denial of the present Motion rests on two separate but related bases. First, the Officers fail in their burden of presenting a persuasive argument demonstrating that Egbert is "irreconcilable" with this Court's prior Order. See id. Second, the Court's own independent analysis confirms that Egbert did not fundamentally alter the law of Bivens in a way that renders Plaintiffs' Bivens claim inviable in this case.
A. Officer Defendants' Burden
First, the Officers' Motion fails because it is facially apparent that the Court's prior Order, and specifically the ruling that the Bivens claim in the FAC is viable, constitutes law of the case, and the Officers do not carry their burden of demonstrating that an exception to the law of the case doctrine applies. As the Officers are the ones seeking dismissal of claims, the Officers bear the burden of persuasion; that is, they must present arguments demonstrating that dismissal is appropriate in spite of the law of the case. Mil-Ray v. EVP Int'l, LLC, No. 3:19-cv-00944-YY, 2021 WL 2903225, at *1 (D. Ore. July 8, 2021) (noting consensus among federal courts that, "Federal Rule 12(b)(6) places th[e] burden [of persuasion] on the moving party" (alterations in original) (quoting Cohen v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of D.C., 819 F.3d 476, 481 (D.C. Cir. 2016))); cf. Bethesda Lutheran Homes & Servs., Inc. v. Born, 238 F.3d 853, 856 (7th Cir. 2001) ("[T]hat earlier ruling was the law of the case, and if the plaintiffs wanted us to depart from it they had to acknowledge the ruling and give reasons for our abandoning it. This they had failed to do . . . .").
Here, the Officers fail in this burden. Their moving papers are devoid of any reference whatsoever to the Court's prior Order or the law of the case doctrine. (See generally Mot.) Moreover, though Plaintiffs devote much of their Opposition brief to the law of the case issue, Defendants make short shrift of the issue in the Reply. While Defendants argue forcefully and at length that "Bivens law patently changed with Egbert," (Reply 3), they do not complete the argument by demonstrating that Egbert changed Bivens law in a way that is irreconcilable with this Court's prior opinion. Their only reference to the law of the case and any potential exceptions is their assertion that the doctrine "does not permit, much less require, district courts to ignore intervening - and indeed watershed - Supreme Court decisions defining the law at issue." (Id.) Strictly and technically speaking, this assertion is not an accurate statement of the law. The law of the case doctrine indeed either permits or requires trial courts to "ignore" intervening Supreme Court decisions defining the law at issue when the Supreme Court decision is reconcilable with the trial court's prior order. Godecke, 2016 WL 11673222, at *5. Here, the Officers simply make no attempt to explain how Egbert is irreconcilable with this Court's Order. Instead, they present the same arguments they presented in favor of their previous unsuccessful motion to dismiss without ever pointing out exactly (1) what part of Egbert constitutes the controlling change in the law, and (2) what part of the Court's prior holding is rendered wrong by that change. Accordingly, the Officers' argument is incomplete, and they fail in their burden of demonstrating dismissal is appropriate.
B. Independent Analysis
Moreover, the Court's own independent analysis of Egbert and the Bivens claim in this case confirms that Egbert is not irreconcilable with this Court's prior decision—in other words, that this Court's prior decision remains correct, including under Egbert. The Court reaches this conclusion in two steps: first, by observing that Egbert did not fundamentally alter the two-step Bivens test, and second, by concluding that, whatever incremental changes Egbert may have made to Bivens law, those changes do not remove the claim in the present case from the sphere of viable Bivens claims.
1. Egbert did not fundamentally alter the two-step Bivens test.
Factually, Egbert involved the aptly named Smuggler's Inn, a bed-and-breakfast situated a few feet from the U.S.-Canada border, and its enterprising proprietor, Mr. Boule. 142 S. Ct. at 1800. Boule would sometimes act as a paid confidential informant for U.S. Border Patrol by providing the agency with information about persons of interest Boule was scheduled to lodge or transport. Id. at 1800-01. On one occasion, Boule informed Border Patrol Agent Erik Egbert of a certain Turkish national who had arrived in the United States via New York and was staying at the Smuggler's Inn for a night. Id. at 1801. Based on these facts, Egbert grew suspicious of possible immigration violations. Id. He waited in his patrol vehicle outside the inn in anticipation of the Turkish national's arrival. Id. When the Turkish national arrived in a SUV, Egbert followed the SUV onto the property. Then:
Agent Egbert exited his patrol vehicle and approached the car. Boule's employee also exited the car; the guest remained inside. From the front porch of his inn, Boule asked Agent Egbert to leave. When Agent Egbert refused, Boule stepped off the porch, positioned himself between Agent Egbert and the vehicle, and explained that the person in the car was a guest who had come from New York to Seattle and who had been through security at the airport. Boule again asked Agent Egbert to leave. Agent Egbert grabbed Boule by his chest, lifted him up, and shoved him against the vehicle and then threw him to the ground. Boule landed on his hip and shoulder.
Agent Egbert opened the car door and asked the guest about his immigration status . . . . After concluding that the guest was lawfully in the country (just
as Boule had previously informed Agent Egbert), the three officers departed. Boule later sought medical treatment for his injuries.Id. at 1811-12 (Sotomayor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The Supreme Court found that these facts presented reasons to hesitate before recognizing a Bivens cause of action against Egbert for two reasons: (1) "Congress is better positioned to create remedies in the border-security context," and (2) "the Government has already provided alternative remedies that protect plaintiffs like Boule." Id. at 1804. The Supreme Court went on to discuss each of these two points in detail, identifying each as an "independent reason" foreclosing a Bivens claim. Id. Reason (1) was based on the "potential" for "harmful or inappropriate" consequences of "judicial intrusion" into the field of border security, id. at 1805, and reason (2) arose from the fact that the grievance Boule filed against Agent Egbert "secured adequate deterrence and afforded Boule an alternative remedy," id. at 1807.
Contrary to the Officers' suggestions, this Court does not read Egbert as constituting a "sea change" in Bivens jurisprudence. (See Mot. 4.) Both before and after Egbert, courts engage in a two-step inquiry to determine if a Bivens claim is viable. First, courts ask whether the case presents "a new Bivens context," that is, whether it "is different in a meaningful way from previous Bivens cases decided by" the Supreme Court. Ziglar, 137 S. Ct. at 1859-60; see id. at 1865 (noting "trivial" differences do not "suffice to create a new Bivens context"). If the case does not present a new context, the inquiry ends, and the Bivens claim is viable. If, on the other hand, the case does present a new context, courts then ask whether there are " 'special factors' indicating that the Judiciary is at least arguably less equipped than Congress to 'weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to proceed.' " Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1803 (quoting Ziglar, 137 S. Ct. at 1858). This "inquiry does not invite federal courts to independently assess the costs and benefits of implying a cause of action." Id. at 1805. Instead, "[a] court faces only one question: whether there is any rational reason (even one) to think that Congress is better suited to 'weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to proceed.' " Id. (quoting Ziglar, 137 S. Ct. at 1858).
Egbert did not alter the structure of this two-step inquiry. After describing the two steps in some detail, the Court in Egbert merely observes that "[w]hile our cases describe two steps, those steps often resolve to a single question: whether there is any reason to think that Congress might be better equipped to create a damages remedy." Id. at 1803. This Court does not read this language as fundamentally altering the Bivens inquiry because the language does not suggest any intent to uproot five decades of Bivens jurisprudence. A Court with such an intent would undoubtedly use stronger language in supplanting a well-used rule with a new one. Moreover, the choice of the word "often" plainly acknowledges that there are some cases where the Bivens analysis will not resolve to this single question; in those cases, the well-known two-part inquiry would continue to apply.
The remainder of the Egbert opinion dispels any remaining doubt about this conclusion by acknowledging and proceeding according to the two-step inquiry. At the outset of the analysis section (section III), the Court states that "[t]he Court of Appeals conceded that Boule's Fourth Amendment claim presented a new context for Bivens purposes, yet it concluded there was no reason to hesitate before recognizing a cause of action against Agent Egbert. That conclusion was incorrect for two independent reasons." Id. at 1804 (citation omitted). The remainder of the Fourth Amendment part of the opinion focuses on those two reasons. By acknowledging and applying the two-step inquiry, the Supreme Court reinforced that the two-step inquiry remains the appropriate approach to Bivens analysis. See Mejia v. Miller, 53 F.4th 501, 504 (9th Cir. 2022) (describing "longstanding" two-part framework for analyzing Bivens claims).
2. To the extent Egbert refined the law of Bivens, the refinements do not alter the result in the present case.
Rather than fundamentally altering Bivens jurisprudence, Egbert appears to provide courts with two special factors to consider in determining whether to hesitate to recognize a Bivens cause of action. First, in discussing why Congress is better positioned to create remedies in the border-security context, the Supreme Court may have narrowed the field of viable Bivens claims by noting that courts are "plainly" not "competent to authorize a damages action . . . against Border Patrol agents generally." 142 S. Ct. at 1806. Second, in discussing how the government already provides alternative remedies that protect plaintiffs like Boule, the Supreme Court may have expanded the sort of alternative remedies whose availability forecloses Bivens relief. Id. at 1806-07.
Regardless, this Court need not and does not expressly decide whether Egbert changed Bivens law in these ways, because, even if it did, these changes do not bear on the present case or on the reasoning supporting the Court's prior ruling on the issue. This Court's previous finding that Plaintiffs' Bivens claim is viable was fundamentally based on the conclusion that this case does not present a new Bivens context. (Order 21 ("Here, a Bivens claim is appropriate because the circumstances do not present a 'new context.' ").) That reasoning remains undisturbed by Egbert for the simple reason that Egbert was not a case about the context inquiry (step one of the Bivens analysis); instead, it was a case about the special factors inquiry (step two of the Bivens analysis). See Mejia, 53 F.4th at 505 ("Egbert reiterates the longstanding first step of the Bivens, question, but clarifie[s] . . . the second step . . . .").
As mentioned above, the Supreme Court noted only briefly that the Ninth Circuit conceded Boule's case presented a new Bivens context; it then proceeded straight to the special factors analysis. Egbert, 142 S. Ct. at 1804. It devoted no substantive analysis to the context question. Id. Moreover, it is clear that the remaining Fourth Amendment analysis—sections III.A.1 and 2 of the opinion—is a special factors analysis, not a context analysis. See id. at 1804-07. Throughout these two sections, the Court confirms its focus on the special factors in concluding that "the Judiciary is comparatively ill suited to decide whether a damages remedy against any Border Patrol agent is appropriate," id. at 1805, and that "Congress has provided alternative remedies for aggrieved parties in Boule's position that independently foreclose a Bivens action here," id. at 1806. This is the language of a Court grappling with whether special considerations counsel hesitation in recognizing a Bivens claim; this is not the language of a Court comparing the facts of the case before it to prior Bivens cases to determine whether the context is new. This conclusion is confirmed by the sharp contrast between the Egbert Court's language and that of opinions that are undoubtedly focused on the step-one context inquiry, such as Ziglar. Compare id., with Ziglar, 137 S. Ct. at 1859 ("The proper test for determining whether a case presents a new Bivens context is as follows.").
Thus, to the extent Egbert changed the law of Bivens, it did so only with respect to part two of the Bivens inquiry, the special-factors analysis. Egbert is not irreconcilable with this Court's prior holding because this Court's holding rested independently on its finding with respect to part one of the Bivens inquiry, that this case does not present a new context. (See Order 21); cf. Mejia, 53 F.4th at 504 (emphasizing "the continued force, or even the necessity, of Bivens in the search-and-seizure context in which it arose" (quoting Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1857 (2017))). Egbert does not render this finding incorrect or outdated because Egbert did not change the law regarding what constitutes a new Bivens context. And while this Court additionally noted that no special factors counseled hesitation, it need not have reached this second step, as its finding of no new context was sufficient to end the inquiry. See Mejia, 53 F.4th at 504 (describing "longstanding framework" under which "courts . . . first . . . determine whether the Bivens claim arose in a 'new context' ").
For these same reasons, this Court's previous citation to the Ninth Circuit's now-reversed opinion in Boule v. Egbert, 980 F.3d 1309, 1314 (9th Cir. 2020), for support that the claim here does not present a new context, does not make this Court's prior conclusion irreconcilable with Egbert.
C. Supplemental Authority
On October 17, 2022, the Officers filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority, informing the Court of Monroe v. Kirby, No. 2:21-cv-00017-GW (PDx) ("Monroe") (C.D. Cal. filed Jan. 4, 2021), a case decided by a different court in the Central District of California. However, Monroe adds nothing meaningful to the analysis here and in any event is nonbinding. In Monroe, the court found a new context because the incident in question happened at a Veterans Administration hospital rather than in or around an individual's home. (See Tentative Ruling on Federal Defs.' Mot. J. Pleadings ("Tentative Ruling") at 5, Monroe (C.D. Cal. Oct. 11, 2022), ECF No. 207-1; Order Adopting Tentative Ruling at 1, Monroe (C.D. Cal. Oct. 13, 2022), ECF No. 207-2.) This difference was key to the court's holding, and the court further noted that the result would have been the same "even pre-Egbert." (Tentative Ruling 5.) The case before this Court is inapposite to Monroe because the incidents in question here all happened in or around individuals' homes. Moreover, and in any case, even if Monroe interpreted Egbert in a way that aided this Court's analysis, the law of the case doctrine does not require district courts to revisit their own rulings merely because a fellow district court issues an opinion, no matter how potentially relevant or helpful the opinion to the case at hand. See Godecke, 2016 WL 11673222, at *5.
Finally, both parties argue that the Ninth Circuit's very recent opinion in Mejia v. Miller supports their respective positions. (Second Notice Suppl. Authority; Opp'n Second Notice Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 271.) Regardless of whose position Mejia supports, the Court has taken care to ensure its own interpretation of Egbert is consistent with the Ninth Circuit's recent guidance in Mejia. Beyond that, Mejia cannot further bind this Court in this case, because it is factually inapposite in at least two senses. Mejia involved Bureau of Land Management officers, and, like in Monroe, none of the events in question occurred in or near the plaintiff's home. 53 F.4th at 506.
V. CONCLUSION
The Officers do not show, and the Court does not find, that Egbert is irreconcilable with this Court's prior finding that Plaintiffs' Bivens claim is viable. Thus, the Officers' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is DENIED. (ECF No. 193.)
IT IS SO ORDERED.