William L. Huntress, et al. v. United States

In 2006, this Court rejected the EPA’s Clean Water Act jurisdiction over a wetland that does not abut navigable-in-fact waters. Sackett v. E.P.A., 566 U.S. 120, 123–24 (2012) (explaining Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006)). Yet the EPA filed a civil action in 2009 and a felony criminal indictment in 2011 against Petitioners for alleged violations related to purported wetlands located miles from navigable waters. After a court dismissed the indictment for the Government’s grand-jury interference, the Government re-indicted in 2013—after Sackett. That indictment was dismissed in 2016. Petitioners filed this Federal Tort Claims Act suit for abuse of process and malicious prosecution. That Act creates subject-matter jurisdiction and waives sovereign immunity for United States employees’ negligent or wrongful conduct, subject to a few exceptions, including the exercise of “a discretionary function.” 28 U.S.C. 2680(a). But the Act also includes a lawenforcement proviso that clarifies the Act’s provisions “shall apply to any claim” for “abuse of process[ ] or malicious prosecution.” 28 U.S.C. 2680(h) (emphasis added). The court of appeals picked § 2680(a) over § 2680(h) and dismissed. That ruling presents two recurring, important questions for this Court’s review:

1. Whether the discretionary-function exception nullifies the law-enforcement proviso (as four circuits have now held), limits that proviso (as one circuit has held), or yields to it (as one circuit has held).

2. Whether the discretionary-function exemption applies when government officials act outside their jurisdiction.