Lead Opinion
This ease concerns the scope of 28 U. S. C. § 2680, which carves out certain exceptions to the United States’ waiver of sovereign immunity for torts committed by federal employees. Section 2680(c) provides that the waiver of sovereign immunity does not apply to claims arising from the detention of property by “any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer.” Petitioner contends that this clause applies only to law enforcement officers enforcing customs or excise laws, and thus does not affect the waiver of sovereign immunity for his property claim against officers of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). We conclude that the broad phrase “any other law enforcement officer” covers all law enforcement officers. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the dismissal of petitioner’s claim.
I
Petitioner Abdus-Shahid M. S. Ali was a federal prisoner at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, from 2001 to 2003. In December 2003, petitioner was scheduled to be transferred to the United States Penitentiary Big Sandy (USP Big Sandy) in Inez, Kentucky. Before being transferred, he left two duffle bags containing his personal property in the Atlanta prison’s Receiving and Discharge Unit to be inventoried, packaged, and shipped to USP Big Sandy. Petitioner was transferred, and his bags arrived some days later. Upon inspecting his property, he noticed that several items were missing. The staff at USP Big Sandy’s Receiving and Discharge Unit told him that he had been given everything that was sent, and that if things were missing he could file a claim. Many of the purportedly missing items were of religious and nostalgic significance, including two copies of the Qur’an, a prayer rug, and religious magazines. Petitioner estimated that the items were worth $177.
Petitioner filed an administrative tort claim. In denying relief, the agency noted that, by his signature on the receipt form,
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, agreeing with the District Court’s interpretation of § 2680(c).
We granted certiorari,
In the FTCA, Congress waived the United States’ sovereign immunity for claims arising out of torts committed by federal employees. See 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b)(1). As relevant here, the FTCA authorizes “claims against the United States, for money damages ... for injury or loss of property . . . caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment.” Ibid. The FTCA exempts from this waiver certain categories of claims. See §§ 2680(a)-(n). Relevant here is the exception in subsection (c), which provides that § 1346(b) shall not apply to “[a]ny claim arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty, or the detention of any goods, merchandise, or other property by any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer.” § 2680(c).
This case turns on whether the BOP officers who allegedly lost petitioner’s property qualify as “other law enforcement officer[s]” within the meaning of § 2680(c).
Petitioner's argument is inconsistent with the statute’s language.
We think the reasoning of Gonzales and Harrison applies equally to the expansive language Congress employed in 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c). Congress’ use of “any” to modify “other law enforcement officer” is most naturally read to mean law enforcement officers of whatever kind.
Petitioner would require Congress to clarify its intent to cover all law enforcement officers by. adding phrases such as “performing any official law enforcement function,” or “without limitation.” But Congress could not have chosen a more all-encompassing phrase than “any other law enforcement officer” to express that intent. We have no reason to demand that Congress write less economically and more repetitiously.
Recent amendments to § 2680(c) support the conclusion that “any other law enforcement officer” is not limited to officers acting in a customs or excise capacity. In the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, Congress added subsections (c)(l)-(c)(4) to 28 U.S.C. § 2680. §3(a), 114 Stat. 211. As amended, § 2680(c) provides that the § 1346(b) waiver of sovereign immunity, notwithstanding the exception at issue in this case, applies to:
“[A]ny claim based on injury or loss of goods, merchandise, or other property, while in the possession of any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer, if—
“(1) the property was seized for the purpose of forfeiture under any provision of Federal law providing for the forfeiture of property other than as a sentence imposed upon conviction of a criminal offense;
“(2) the interest of the claimant was not forfeited;
“(3) the interest of the claimant was not remitted or mitigated (if the property was subject to forfeiture); and
“(4) the claimant was not convicted of a crime for which the interest of the claimant in the property was subject to forfeiture under a Federal criminal forfeiture law.”
The amendment does not govern petitioner’s claim because his property was not “seized for the purpose of forfeiture,” as required by paragraph (1). Nonetheless, the amendment is relevant because our construction of “any other law enforcement officer” must, to the extent possible, ensure that the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent. See Robinson v. Shell Oil Co.,
Under petitioner’s interpretation, only law enforcement officers enforcing customs or excise laws were immune under the prior version of § 2680(c). Thus, on petitioner’s reading, the amendment’s only effect was to restore the waiver for cases in which customs or excise officers, or officers acting in such a capacity, enforce forfeiture laws. This strikes us as an implausible interpretation of the statute. If that were Congress’ intent, it is not apparent why Congress would have restored the waiver with respect to the enforcement of all civil forfeiture laws instead of simply those related to customs or excise. Petitioner’s interpretation makes sense only if we assume that Congress went out of its way to restore the waiver for cases in which customs or excise officers, or officers acting in such a capacity, enforce forfeiture laws unrelated to customs or excise. But petitioner fails to demonstrate
Against this textual and structural evidence that “any other law enforcement officer” does in fact mean any other law enforcement officer, petitioner invokes numerous canons of statutory construction. He relies primarily on ejusdem generis, or the principle that “when a general term follows a specific one, the general term should be understood as a reference to subjects akin to the one with specific enumeration.” Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers,
Petitioner likens his case to two recent cases in which we found the canon useful. In Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler, 537 U. S. 371, 375 (2003), we considered the clause “execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process” in 42 U. S. C. § 407(a). Applying ejusdem generis, we concluded that “other legal process” was limited to legal processes of the same nature as the specific items listed.
Petitioner asserts that § 2680(c), like the clauses at issue in Keffeler and Dolan, “‘presents a textbook ejusdem generis scenario.’” Brief for Petitioner 15 (quoting Andrews v. United States,
The structure of the phrase “any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer” does not lend itself to application of the canon. The phrase is disjunctive, with one specific and one general category, not — like the clauses at issue in Keffeler and Dolan — a list of specific items separated by commas and followed by a general or collective term. The absence of a list of specific items undercuts the inference embodied in ejusdem generis that Congress remained focused on the common attribute when it used the catchall phrase. Cf. United States v. Aguilar,
Moreover, it is not apparent what common attribute connects the specific items in § 2680(c). Were we to use the canon to limit the meaning of “any other law enforcement officer,” we would be required to determine the relevant limiting characteristic of “officer of customs or excise.” In Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co.,
Petitioner’s appeals to other interpretive principles are also unconvincing. Petitioner contends that his reading is supported by the canon noscitur a sociis, according to which “ ‘a word is known by the company it keeps.’ ” S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection,
Similarly, the rule against superfluities lends petitioner sparse support. The construction we adopt today does not necessarily render “any officer of customs or excise” superfluous; Congress may have simply intended to remove any doubt that officers of customs or excise were included in “law enforcement officer[s].” See Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA,
In the end, we are unpersuaded by petitioner’s attempt to create ambiguity where the statute’s text and structure suggest none. Had Congress intended to limit §2680(c)’s reach as petitioner contends, it easily could have written “any other law enforcement officer acting in a customs or excise capacity.” Instead, it used the unmodified, all-encompassing phrase “any other law enforcement officer.” Nothing in the statutory context requires a narrowing construction — indeed, as we have explained,
III
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is
Affirmed.
Notes
The Eleventh Circuit joined five other Courts of Appeals in construing § 2680(c) to encompass all law enforcement officers. See Bramwell v. Bureau of Prisons,
We assume, without deciding, that the BOP officers “detained” Ali’s property and thus satisfy § 2680(c)’s “arising in respect of. . . detention” requirement. The Court of Appeals held that the “detention” clause was satisfied, and petitioner expressly declined to raise the issue on certiorari. See
We consider this question for the first time in this ease. Petitioner argues that this Court concluded in Kosak v. United States,
Of course, other circumstances may counteract the effect of expansive modifiers. For example, we have construed an “any” phrase narrowly when it included a term of art that compelled that result. See Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams,
Justice Kennedy’s dissent (hereinafter the dissent) argues that, during border searches, customs and excise officers “routinely” enforce civil forfeiture laws unrelated to customs or excise. Post, at 239-240. But the examples the dissent provides do not support that assertion. The dissent maintains that a customs officer who seizes material defined as contraband under 49 U. S. C. § 80302 et seq. is one such example. Post, at 240. But a customs officer’s authority to effect a forfeiture of such contraband derives from a specific customs law. See 19 U. S. C. § 1595a(c)(l)(C). Similarly, the dissent suggests that a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent “assisting a customs official” in a border search who seizes drug-related contraband under 21 U. S. C. § 881 is acting in a “traditional revenue capacity.” Post, at 240. But that argument is based on the assumption that an officer who assists in conducting a border search acts in a customs capacity even if he is not a customs officer and is not enforcing a customs law. That assumption, far from self-evident, only underscores the difficulty that would attend any attempt to define the contours of the implied limitation on § 2680(c)’s reach proposed by petitioner and embraced by the dissent. “Acting in a customs or excise capacity” is not a self-defining concept, and not having included such a limitation in the statute’s language, Congress of course did not provide a definition. Finally, the dissent points out that a customs or excise officer might effect a forfeiture of currency or monetary instruments under 31 U. S. C. § 5317(c). Post, at 240. But § 5317(e) is hardly a civil forfeiture law unrelated to customs or excise. See § 5317(c)(2) (2000 ed., Supp. V) (authorizing forfeiture of property involved in a violation of, inter alia, § 5316 (2000 ed.), which sets forth reporting requirements for exporting and importing monetary instruments).
As an example of “other law enforcement officer[s]” acting in an excise or customs capacity, petitioner cites Formula One Motors, Ltd. v. United States,
Similarly, the dissent notes that 14 U. S. C. § 89(a) authorizes Coast Guard officers to enforce customs laws. Post, at 233. But the very next subsection of §89 provides that Coast Guard officers effectively are customs officers when they enforce customs laws. See § 89(b)(1) (providing that Coast Guard officers “insofar as they are engaged, pursuant to the authority contained in this section, in enforcing any law of the United States shall... be deemed to be acting as agents of the particular executive department . . . charged with the administration of the particular law”). As a result, a Coast Guard officer enforcing a customs law is a customs officer, not some “other law enforcement officer.”
Congress, we note, did provide an administrative remedy for lost property claimants like petitioner. Federal agencies have authority under 31 U. S. C. § 3723(a)(1) to settle certain “claim[s] for not more than $1,000 for damage to, or loss of, privately owned property that... is caused by the negligence of an officer or employee of the United States Government acting within the scope of employment.” The BOP has settled more than 1,100 such claims in the last three years. Brief for Respondents 41, n. 17.
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
Statutory interpretation, from beginning to end, requires respect for the text. The respect is not enhanced, however, by decisions that foreclose consideration of the text within the whole context of the statute as a guide to determining a legislature’s intent. To prevent textual analysis from becoming so rarefied that it departs from how a legislator most likely understood the words when he or she voted for the law, courts use certain interpretative rules to consider text within the statutory design. These canons do not demand wooden reliance and are not by themselves dispositive, but they do function as helpful guides in construing ambiguous statutory provisions. Two of these accepted rules are ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis, which together instruct that words in a series should be interpreted in relation to one another.
Today the Court holds, if my understanding of its opinion is correct, that there is only one possible way to read the statute. Placing implicit reliance upon a comma at the beginning of a clause, the Court says that the two maxims noted, and indeed other helpful and recognized principles of statutory analysis, are not useful as interpretative aids in this case because the clause cannot be understood by what went before. In my respectful submission the Court’s approach is incorrect as a general rule and as applied to the statute now before us. Both the analytic framework and the specific interpretation the Court now employs become binding on the federal courts, which will confront other cases in which a series of words operate in a clause similar to the one we consider today. So this case is troubling not only for the result the Court reaches but also for the analysis it employs. My disagreements with the Court lead to this dissent.
I
A
The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA or Act) allows those who allege injury from
As the Court states, at issue here is the extent of the exception for suits arising from the detention of goods in defined circumstances. The relevant provision excepts from the general waiver
“claim[s] arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty, or the detention of any goods, merchandise, or other property by any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer.” 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c).
Both on first reading and upon further, close consideration, the plain words of the statute indicate that the exception is concerned only with customs and taxes. The provision begins with a clause dealing exclusively with customs and tax duties. And the provision as a whole contains four express references to customs and tax, making revenue duties and customs and excise officers its most salient features. Cf. Gutierrez v. Ada,
This is not to suggest that the Court’s reading is wholly impermissible or without some grammatical support. After all, detention of goods is not stated until the outset of the second clause and at the end of the same clause the words “any other law enforcement officer” appear; so it can be argued that the first and second clauses of the provision are so separate that all detentions by all law enforcement officers in whatever capacity they might act are covered. Still, this ought not be the preferred reading; for between the beginning of the second clause and its closing reference to “any other law enforcement officer” appears another reference to “officer[s] of customs or excise,” this time in the context of property detention. This is quite sufficient, in my view, to continue the limited scope of the exception. At the very least, the Court errs by adopting a rule which simply bars all consideration of the canons of ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis. And when those canons are consulted, together with other common principles of interpretation, the case for limiting the exception to customs and tax more than overcomes the position maintained by the Government and adopted by the Court.
The ejusdem generis canon provides that, where a seemingly broad clause constitutes a residual phrase, it must be controlled by, and defined with reference to, the “enumerated categories . . . which are recited just before it,” so that the clause encompasses only objects similar in nature. Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams,
The Court counters that § 2680(c) “is disjunctive, with one specific and one general category,” rendering ejusdem generis inapplicable. Ante, at 225. The canon’s applicability, however, is not limited to those statutes that include a laundry list of items. See, e. g., Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers,
A proper reading of § 2680(c) thus attributes to the last phrase (“any other law enforcement officer”) the discrete characteristic shared by the preceding phrases (“officer[s] of customs or excise” and “assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty”). See also Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance,
The common attribute of officers of customs and excise and other law enforcement officers is the performance of functions most often assigned to revenue officers, including, inter alia, the enforcement of the United States’ revenue laws and the conduct of border searches. Although officers of customs and officers of excise are in most instances the only full-time staff charged with this duty, officers of other federal agencies and general law enforcement officers often will be called upon to act in the traditional capacity of a revenue officer. For example, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents frequently assist customs officials in the execution of border searches. See, e. g., United States v. Gurr,
The same is true in the tax context. Under 26 U. S. C. §6321, a delinquent taxpayer’s property is subject to forfeiture, see Glass City Bank v. United States,
B
The Court reaches its contrary conclusion by concentrating on the word “any” before the phrase “other law enforcement officer.” 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c). It takes this single last phrase to extend the statute so that it covers all detentions of property by any law enforcement officer in whatever capacity he or she acts. There are fundamental problems with this approach, in addition to the ones already mentioned.
First, the Court’s analysis cannot be squared with the longstanding recognition that a single word must not be read in isolation but instead defined by reference to its statutory context. See King v. St. Vincent’s Hospital,
In Gutierrez,
As already mentioned, the context of § 2680(c) suggests that, in accordance with these precedents, the statutory provision should be interpreted narrowly to apply only to customs and revenue duties. Its first clause deals exclusively with customs and tax duties and, between the first and second clauses, it refers two more times to customs and tax. See Gutierrez, supra, at 254-255; A-Mark, Inc. v. United States Secret Serv. Dept. of Treasury,
Further, § 2680(c) provides that there will be immunity only where there has been a “detention” of goods, merchandise, or property. “[Detention” is defined by legal and nonlegal dictionaries alike as a “compulsory,” “forced,” or “punitive” containment. Black’s Law Dictionary 459 (7th ed. 1999) (compulsory); American Heritage Dictionary 494 (4th ed. 2000) (forced or punitive). The issue whether petitioner’s property was “detained” within the meaning of the statute was not raised in this case; and so the Court leaves for another day the exception’s applicability to these facts. See ante, at 218, n. 2. It is important, however, to bear in mind that, in the context of detention of goods by customs and tax agents, it will be the rare case when property is voluntarily turned over, rather than forcibly appropriated; indeed, customs and tax agents are in the regular business of seizing and forfeiting property, as are law enforcement agents acting in the capacity of revenue enforcement. See Dept, of Homeland Security, U. S. Customs and Border Protection and U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mid-Year FY2007— Top IPR Commodities Seized (May 2007), online at http://www. cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ipr/ seizure/07_midyr_seizures.ctt/07_midyr_seizures.pdf (all Internet materials as visited Jan. 10, 2008, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (by midyear 2007, customs officials had executed 7,245 commodity seizures, worth a total of $110,198,350); GAO, Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation’s Ports of Entry 17 (GAO-08-219, Nov. 2007), online at http:// www.gao.gov/new.items/d08219.pdf (“According to [U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)], in fiscal year 2006, CBP officers ... seized more than 644,000 pounds of illegal drugs, intercepted nearly 1.7 million prohibited agricultural items, and seized over $155 million in illegal commercial merchandise, such as counterfeit footwear and handbags” (footnote omitted)).
In other contexts, however, the word “detention” may or may not accurately describe the nature of the Government action. A prisoner’s voluntary decision to deliver property for transfer to another facility, for example, bears a greater similarity to a “bailment” — the delivery of personal property after being held by the prison in trust, see American Heritage Dictionary, supra, at 134 — than to a “detention.”
Not a single federal statute mentions the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in the context of property detention. On the other hand, the majority of the nine federal statutes other than § 2680(c) containing a reference to the detention of goods, merchandise, or other property are specific to customs and excise. Compare 19 U. S. C. § 1499(a) (authorizing customs agents to examine and detain imported merchandise); §1595a(c)(3) (authorizing customs
This would seem to indicate that Congress contemplated that the statutory provision considered here would apply only in those narrow circumstances where the officer is in the regular business of forfeiting property, namely, revenue enforcement. At the very least, it demonstrates that “detention” will be a difficult concept to apply case by case under the majority’s interpretation of the statute — a problem alleviated by limiting the statute to customs and tax.
Second, the Court’s construction of the phrase “any other law enforcement officer” runs contrary to “ ‘our duty “to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.”’” Duncan v. Walker,
Third, though the final reference to “any other law enforcement officer” does result in some ambiguity, the legislative history, by virtue of its exclusive reference to customs and excise, confirms that Congress did not shift its attention from the context of revenue enforcement when it used these words at the end of the statute. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 33 (1946) (in discussing 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c) referring only to “the detention of goods by customs officers”); A. Holtzoff, Report on Proposed Federal Tort Claims Bill 16 (1931) (noting that the property-detention exception was added to the legislation to “include immunity from liability in respect of loss in connection with the detention of goods or merchandise by any officer of customs or excise”).
Indeed, the Court’s construction reads the exception to defeat the central purpose of the statute, an interpretative danger the Court has warned against in explicit terms. See Kosak,
II
A
The 2000 amendments do not require a contrary conclusion. The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA), as applicable here, limits the operation of §2680(c)’s exception. See § 3(a), 114 Stat. 211. The limitation (i. e., the exception to the exception) applies where there has been an injury or loss of goods and “the property was seized for the purpose of forfeiture under any provision of Federal law.” 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c)(1). In my view the amendment establishes that officers of customs and excise, and law enforcement officials performing functions traditionally reserved for revenue officers, shall be liable in tort for damage to the property when the owner’s interest in the goods in the end is not forfeited (and when other conditions apply). And this is so regardless of whether the officer acted under the revenue laws of the United States or, alternatively, another civil or criminal forfeiture provision.
The majority’s reading of CAFRA for a contrary proposition is premised on the assumption that there is no circumstance in which a customs or excise officer, or an officer acting in such a capacity, would “enforce [civil] forfeiture laws unrelated to customs or excise.” Ante, at 222. But customs and tax officials, along with law enforcement officers performing customs and tax duties, routinely do just that. See, e. g., Customs and Border Protection, Seizures and Penalties Links, http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/toolbox/legal/ authority_enforce/seizures_penalties.xml (CBP has “full authority to ... seize merchandise for violation of CBP laws or those of other federal agencies that are enforced by CBP”). Indeed, the customs laws expressly contemplate forfeitures and seizures of property under nonrevenue provisions. See, e. g., 19 U. S. C. § 1600 (“The procedures [governing seizures of property] set forth in [§§ 1602-1619] shall apply to seizures of any property effected by customs officers under any law enforced or administered by the Customs Service unless such law specifies different procedures”).
By way of example, a customs or excise official might effect a civil forfeiture of currency or monetary instruments under the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U. S. C. § 5317(c) (2000 ed., Supp. V); or of counterfeit instruments, illegal music recordings, or firearms under the Contraband Act, 49 U. S. C. § 80302 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. IV). Similarly, a DEA agent assisting a customs official in a border search (and thus acting in a customs capacity) might effect a civil forfeiture of vehicles or goods associated with the drug trade under federal
The Court counters that the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U. S. C. § 5317(c), is not “unrelated to customs or excise” because it cross-references a requirement for exporting and importing monetary instruments, § 5316. See ante, at 223, n. 5. But § 5316, despite being “[r]elated” to customs duties, is part of the federal Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act, see § 5311 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. IV), not the United States’ customs laws.
The Court also notes that customs agents have the authority to seize contraband under the customs laws, particularly 19 U. S. C. § 1595a(c)(l). I do not dispute that customs agents often act under customs laws when seizing property. My point, which goes unrefuted by the Court, is that it was reasonable for Congress to have specified that customs and excise officers would be covered by the exception to the exception even when acting pursuant to federal laws more generally. For instance, § 1595a(c)(l) applies only where “[m]er-
chandise... is introduced... into the United States contrary to law,” which appears to target the importation of property subject to duty or entry restrictions. Title 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c), by contrast, was amended in 2000 to encompass not only the detention of “goods or merchandise” but the detention of all “property.” § 3(a), 114 Stat. 211. In circumstances not involving imported “merchandise,” then, the customs official would be acting pursuant to law enforcement authority derived not from the customs laws but, inter alia, the Contraband and Bank Secrecy Acts. The same is true of noncustoms officers acting in a customs capacity.
At the very least this renders the Court’s reliance on the views of a subsequent Congress suspect. We have said “subsequent acts can shape or focus” the meaning of a statute. FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,
B
Though the Court does not much rely on the point, perhaps it has concerns respecting suits like the one now before us. Petitioner sues for lost property valued at about $177. Law enforcement officers in the federal prison system must take inventory of the property they store, and with just under 200,000 persons in the federal prison population, see Federal Bureau of Prisons, Weekly Population Report, online at http://www.bop.gov/news/weekly_report.jsp (reporting 199,342 federal inmates as of January 7, 2008), the burden on the Government to account for missing items of little value could be a substantial one.
There are sound reasons, though, for rejecting this concern in interpreting the statute. To begin with, as already discussed, if it were a congressional objective to give a comprehensive exception to all officers who detain property, Congress most likely would have written a specific provision to address the point, quite apart from the special concerns it had with customs and revenue. The exception as the
Second, as the Court observed when interpreting another exception that raised the concern of numerous frivolous claims, liability for negligent transmission “is a risk shared by any business [involved in management of detention facilities],” including the Government. Dolan,
Third, there are already in place administrative procedures that must be exhausted before the suit is allowed, diminishing the number of frivolous suits that would be heard in federal court. See 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (“No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted”). Under 28 CFR § 543.31(a) (2007), the “owner of the damaged or lost property” first must file an FTCA claim with the BOP regional office; the BOP, in turn, is authorized by statute to settle administrative claims for not more than $1,000, see 31 U. S. C. § 3723(a), which likely encompasses most claims brought by federal prisoners. Only if the prisoner is “dissatisfied with the final agency action” may he or she file suit in an “appropriate U. S. District Court.” 28 CFR § 543.32(g).
If Congress had intended to give sweeping immunity to all federal law enforcement officials from liability for the detention of property, it would not have dropped this phrase onto the end of the statutory clause so as to appear there as something of an afterthought. The seizure of property by an offleer raises serious concerns for the liberty of our people and the Act should not be read to permit appropriation of property without a remedy in tort by language so obscure and indirect.
For these reasons, in my view, the judgment of the Court of Appeals ought to be reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Stevens joins, dissenting.
I agree with Justice Kennedy that context makes clear that Congress intended the phrase “any other law enforcement officer” to apply only to officers carrying out customs or excise duties. See 28 U. S. C. § 2680(c). But I write separately to emphasize, as Justice Kennedy’s dissent itself makes clear, that the relevant context-extends well beyond Latin canons and other such purely textual devices.
As with many questions of statutory interpretation, the issue here is not the meaning of the words. The dictionary meaning of each word is well known. Rather, the issue is the statute’s scope. What boundaries did Congress intend to set? To what circumstances did Congress intend the phrase, as used in this statutory provision, to apply? The majority answers this question by referring to an amendment that creates an exception for certain forfeitures and by emphasizing the statutory word “any.” As to the amendment, I find Justice Kennedy’s counterargument convincing. See ante, at 239-241 (dissenting opinion). And, in my view, the word “any” provides no help whatsoever.
The word “any” is of no help because all speakers (including writers and legislators) who use general words such as “all,” “any,” “never,” and “none” normally rely upon context to indicate the limits of time
Context, of course, includes the words immediately surrounding the phrase in question. And canons such as ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis offer help in evaluating the significance of those surrounding words. Yet that help is limited. That is because other contextual features can show that Congress intended a phrase to apply more broadly than the immediately surrounding words by themselves suggest. See Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams,
In this case, not only the immediately surrounding words but also every other contextual feature supports Justice Kennedy’s conclusion. The textual context includes the location of the phrase within a provision that otherwise exclusively concerns customs and revenue duties. And the nontextual context includes several features that, taken together, indicate that Congress intended a narrow tort-liability exception related to customs and excise.
First, drafting history shows that the relevant portion of the bill that became the Federal Tort Claims Act concerned only customs and excise. Initially, the relevant provision of the bill exempted only claims “arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty.” See, e.g., S. 4377, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1930). In 1931, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, Alexander Holtzoff, wrote additional draft language, namely,
Second, insofar as Congress sought, through the Act’s exceptions, to preclude tort suits against the Government where “adequate remedies were already available,” Kosak, supra, at 858; see S. Rep. No. 1400, at 33; H. R. Rep. No. 1287, at 6 (setting forth that purpose), a limited exception makes sense; a broad exception does not. Other statutes already provided recovery for plaintiffs harmed by federal officers enforcing customs and tax laws but not for plaintiffs harmed by all other federal officers enforcing most other laws. See Bazuaye v. United States,
Third, the practical difference between a limited and a broad interpretation is considerable, magnifying the importance of the congressional silence to which Justice Kennedy points, see ante, at 238. A limited interpretation of the phrase “any other law enforcement officer” would likely encompass only those law enforcement officers working, say, at borders and helping to enforce customs and excise laws. The majority instead interprets this provision to include the tens of thousands of officers performing unrelated tasks.
The Justice Department estimates that there are more than 100,000 law enforcement officers, not including members of the armed services. See, e. g., Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, B. Reaves, Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2004, p. 1 (July 2006). And although the law’s history contains much that indicates the provision’s scope is limited to customs and excise, it contains nothing at all suggesting an intent to apply the provision more broadly, indeed, to multiply the number of officers to whom it applies by what is likely one or more orders of magnitude. It is thus not the Latin canons, ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis, that shed light on the application of the statutory phrase but Justice Scalia’s more pertinent and easily remembered English-language