This appeal arises out of a tragic series of events that culminated in the murder of Philip McCloskey. The co-administrators of the victim’s estate sought damages from both the federal government and the murderer, Gary Lee Sampson. The district court dismissed their action.
See McCloskey v. Mueller,
I. BACKGROUND
Because the district court disposed of this case on a motion to dismiss, see Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b), we glean the relevant facts from the co-administrators’ amended complaint (assuming, without determining, that those facts are true), supplemented by certain undisputed items.
On July 23, 2001, Sampson telephoned the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and spoke with an FBI employee, William H. Anderson. Sampson explained to Anderson that he was in Ab-ington, Massachusetts; that he was wanted for armed robbery; and that he wished to surrender to the authorities. Anderson disconnected the call either accidentally or purposely — the amended complaint contemplates both possibilities — and made no attempt to reconnect it, investigate it, or report it to any other law enforcement officer.
*265 Sampson never called back; instead, after spending several hours fruitlessly-awaiting the FBI’s arrival in Abington, he embarked upon a “killing spree.” The spree began the next day when Sampson abducted and murdered a complete stranger, Philip McCloskey. Before local authorities finally apprehended him on July 31, Sampson had killed two other men as well.
Sampson eventually pleaded guilty to a federal charge of carjacking resulting in Philip McCloskey’s death.
See
18 U.S.C. § 2119(3). Following a penalty-phase trial, the district court imposed a death sentence.
See United States v. Sampson,
After initially denying that a Sampson-initiated telephone call ever took place, Anderson finally admitted the call’s occurrence. In due season, Thomas and Kevin McCloskey, co-administrators of Philip McCloskey’s estate, notified the United States, see 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a), and then commenced a civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They asserted damages claims under both the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against the United States, the .FBI, Robert S. Mueller III, in his official capacity as director of the FBI, and Anderson (collectively, the federal defendants). 1 They also advanced pendent state-law claims for wrongful death against Sampson.
The federal defendants filed an omnibus motion to dismiss. See Fed.R.CivP. 12(b)(1), (6). Sampson likewise moved to dismiss the claims against him. The co-administrators filed a timely opposition.
After pondering the matter, the district court dismissed the case in toto.
See McCloskey,
II. DISCUSSION
We begin our analysis by acknowledging the applicable standard of review. We then address, in turn, the FTCA and section 1983 claims. Finally, we touch upon the dismissal of the claims against Sampson.
A. Standard of Review.
The district court dismissed the FTCA counts for want of subject-matter jurisdic *266 tion and the section 1988 counts for failure to state an actionable claim. Although these rulings derive from different subsections of Rule 12(b), compare Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), with Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), our standard of review sounds the same familiar refrain.
Under either rule, we review the lower court’s dismissal order de novo, accepting the plaintiffs’ well-pleaded facts as true and indulging all reasonable inferences to their behoof.
See, e.g., Dominion Energy Brayton Point, LLC v. Johnson,
B. The FTCA Claims.
“It is beyond cavil that, as the sovereign, the United States is immune from suit without its consent.”
Muirhead v. Mecham,
for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death 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, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.
28 U.S.C. § 1346(b).
Here, the co-administrators assert in substance that the federal defendants were negligent in failing to apprehend Sampson after his attempted surrender.
2
That negligence, they posit, resulted in Philip McCloskey’s death. Although the co-administrators name various federal defendants in these counts, the United States is the only proper defendant in such an action.
See
28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2674, 2679;
see also Roman v. Townsend,
Against this backdrop, we turn to the FTCA claims against the United States.
3
To survive, an FTCA claim must successfully surmount the jurisdictional hurdle erected by 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). That section restricts the liability of the United States to circumstances in which “a private person would be liable ... in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.”
Id.
Since every relevant event in this case occurred in Massachusetts, the substantive law of that juris
*267
diction constitutes the “law of the place” for present purposes. Thus, the co-administrators must identify some basis in Massachusetts law for holding a private party liable in tort for acts or omissions comparable to those they attribute to the FBI and its functionaries.
See Bolduc v. United States,
In appraising the height of this hurdle, it is important to frame the scope of our inquiry. The search for analogous state-law liability is circumscribed by the explicit language of the FTCA, which restricts that search to
private
liability.
See Sea Air Shuttle Corp. v. United States,
The flip side of this coin is that we are not at liberty to derive analogues from instances in which state law enforcement officers — and only state law enforcement officers — would be liable under state law. In the FTCA milieu, “the federal government does not yield its immunity with respect to obligations that are peculiar to governments or official-capacity state actors and which have no private counterpart in state law.”
Bolduc,
Refined to bare essence, our obligation is to appraise the height of the section 1346(b) hurdle through a narrowed lens and ask only whether, under Massachusetts law, a private party who is approached by a fugitive seeking to turn himself in would be guilty of actionable negligence if he did nothing in .response and the fugitive thereafter committed a series of violent crimes. On the pleadings before us (which do not allege any special circumstances), we answer that isthmian question in the negative.
In Massachusetts, “a tort plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant owed him a duty, (2) the defendant breached that duty, (3) the breach constituted a proximate cause of the ensuing harm, and (4) the breach caused actual injury.”
Fithian v. Reed,
Generally speaking, a defendant’s duty is more limited when negligence consists of an omission rather than an act of commission.
See Carrier v. Riddell, Inc.,
The first exception comes into play when “a special relation exists between the actor and the [plaintiff] which gives [the plaintiff] a right to protection.” Restatement § 315;
see Jean W.,
The second exception arises when “a special relation exists between the actor and the third person which imposes a duty upon the actor to control the third person’s conduct.”
Id.
§ 315;
see Jean W.,
In the absence of a special relationship sufficient to trigger one of these exceptions, a private party is not liable for failing, either intentionally or inadvertently, to exercise control over the actions of a third party so as to protect others from harm. Id. § 315 cmt. b. This is so even if the prospective harm is substantial and “the actor realizes that he has the ability to control the conduct of [the] third person, and could do so with only the most trivial of efforts.” Id.
It follows inexorably from the foregoing that, for a duty to attach here, the amended complaint must reveal the existence of a special relationship between either Anderson (and, thus, the FBI) and Philip McCloskey or between Anderson (and, thus, the FBI) and Sampson.
It is readily evident that, at the times material hereto, no special relationship had been forged between Anderson (or the FBI) and the decedent. Prior to his murder, Philip McCloskey was a random member of the public at large. Neither Anderson nor the FBI had any reason to *269 know that he existed. He occupied no special position that might be deemed even faintly analogous to a common carrier’s passenger or an innkeeper’s guest. Nor did Anderson or the FBI “take custody” of Philip McCloskey in any way, shape, or form.
So viewed, this case is easily distinguished from
Mulloy v. United States,
To say more on this point would be to paint the lily. We hold, without serious question, that no special relationship existed between Anderson or the FBI, on the one hand, and Philip McCloskey, on the other hand, sufficient to give rise to a duty under Massachusetts tort law either to protect McCloskey or to ward off his slayer.
The relationship between Sampson and Anderson is not quite so easily dismissed. There is some semblance of a pre-murder tie, as Sampson’s telephone call to Anderson linked the two men, however fleetingly (and, thus, linked Sampson and the FBI). We nonetheless conclude that this solitary link is inadequate to give rise to a duty on Anderson’s part to control Sampson.
Anderson and Sampson were not in a sustained relationship akin to that enjoyed by a parent and child, a master and servant, or a possessor and licensee. The question, then, boils down to whether it can be said, under the generous pleading standard applicable at the motion-to-dismiss stage, that Anderson (and, thus, the FBI) took charge of Sampson in such a way or to such an extent that his activities could give rise to a duty to exercise control over Sampson.
Cf. Sheridan v. United States,
While we have been unable to find a Massachusetts case squarely on point, our analysis is informed by the state courts’ warm reception of applicable Restatement principles. Those principles counsel against finding a duty based on so fragile a connection as exists here.
See
Restatement §§ 315-319. Moreover, four former justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (which, at full strength, numbers seven justices) have agreed that “[i]n the absence of special assurances having been given, the law imposes no duty on a private individual carefully to extinguish a fire he did not cause, or carefully to remove an intoxicated motorist from the highway whose intoxication or presence on the highway he did not bring about.”
Jean W.,
*270
No more need be said. We are confident, given these telltales and given the absence of any allegation that special assurances were offered, that Anderson, if a purely private actor, would not have acquired a duty to control Sampson merely by his reception of Sampson’s brief telephone call. After all, Anderson took no action aimed at taking charge of Sampson. His failure to act, while lamentable, is too amorphous a foundation on which to erect a duty to control.
8
Cf. Bergmann v. United States,
The principal cases on which the co-administrators rely do not mitigate the force of this reasoning. None of them involves a fact pattern that is substantially similar (or even fairly analogous) to the fact pattern here. By the same token, none of them evinces a connection between the parties as ephemeral as Anderson’s (and the FBI’s) fleeting connection with Sampson.
See, e.g., Marin v. United States,
In a last-ditch effort to stem the tide, the co-administrators propose that the issue of whether government actors “took charge” of a third person must be decided by a trier of fact. That proposition is incorrect. When the raw facts are undisputed, “[t]he existence of a duty is typically a question of law, not of fact.”
Carrier,
C. The Section 1983 Claims.
The co-administrators also contest the dismissal of their section 1983 claims against the federal defendants. That statute’s reach is limited to “person[s] who [act] under color of any statute,
*271
ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia.” 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thus, to plead a viable section 1983 claim, a complaint must allege action under color of state law.
See, e.g., Redondo-Borges,
Here, the relevant counts of the amended complaint assign fault to federal actors functioning as such. They contain no hint of any tortious activity under color of state authority, nor do they limn any extraordinary circumstances that might implicate the federal defendants in state action.
Cf. Hampton v. Hanrahan,
When pressed, the co-administrators confess that the amended complaint fails to allege any action by the federal defendants under color of state law. They asseverate, however, that the district court should have deferred ruling on their section 1983 claims until pretrial discovery had run its course. That asseveration puts the cart before the horse.
When evaluating a motion to dismiss, the trial court must decide in the first instance whether the plaintiff is entitled to undertake discovery at all.
Rodi v. S. New Eng. Sch. of Law,
In this instance, the co-administrators have not proffered even the most hazy outline of a viable section 1983 claim. Their attempts to do so, as framed in then-amended complaint, fail to meet even the most abecedarian notice pleading requirements.
See
Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2) (requiring that a complaint contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief’). They are, therefore, not entitled to discovery.
See Nestor Colon Medina & Sucesores, Inc. v. Custodio,
Even were we to recharacterize the co-administrators’ constitutional claims under the framework crafted in
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of FBN,
Here, the co-administrators sued Mueller only in his official capacity. And although they originally named Anderson as both an individual-capacity and an official-capacity defendant, the district court, on the parties’ joint motion early in the case, dismissed all claims against Anderson in his individual capacity. Having joined in the motion to dismiss, the co-administrators cannot now appeal the resultant order.
See BIW Deceived v. Local S6, Indus. Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers,
III. CONCLUSION
To recapitulate, we hold (i) that the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the co-administrators’ FTCA claims,
10
and (ii) that the co-administrators have failed to state any cognizable cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Accordingly, the lower court properly dismissed all the claims against the federal defendants (including the punitive damages claim, which has no independent footing). In so holding, we do not intend to place our imprimatur upon Anderson’s failures. We are, however, bound both by the terms of the FTCA, which, like all waivers of sovereign immunity, “must not be enlarged beyond such boundaries as its language plainly requires,”
United States v. Horn,
We need go no further. Without any federal claims left in the case, the lower court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims asserted against Sampson.
See
28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3);
see also Martinez v. Colon,
Affirmed.
Notes
. Despite naming the FBI as a defendant, the amended complaint does not textually set forth any claim against the FBI; all claims against the federal defendants are directed only to the United States, Mueller, and Anderson. Based on other filings, the district court interpreted each of these claims as asserted against the FBI as well.
See McCloskey,
. To the extent that the co-administrators alleged, and the district court dismissed, FTCA claims based on theories of negligent supervision or inadequate technology, we consider any potential challenges abandoned.
See United States v. Zannino,
. Although the FTCA is mentioned explicitly only in count 1 of the amended complaint, we treat the state-law wrongful death claims against the federal defendants (counts 4-6) as coming under the umbrella of the statute. This recasting benefits the co-administrators, as the FTCA provides the exclusive remedy against the United States for wrongful death. See 28 U.S.C. § 2679(a)-(b).
. Take, for example, an innkeeper, who may be said to assume a duty to use reasonable care to secure the demised premises and, thus, may be held liable for the harm done by a marauder if he defaults on that duty.
See, e.g., Fund v. Hotel Lenox of Boston, Inc.,
. Take, for example, a school, which may be said to assume a duty of care toward its students and, thus, may be held liable for foreseeable harm that comes to them if it defaults on that duty.
See, e.g., Marquay v. Eno,
. Take, for example, a parent, who may be said to assume a duty of reasonable care to prevent his minor child from inflicting harm on others and, thus, may be held liable for the harm done by the child if he defaults on that duty.
See, e.g., Caldwell v. Zaher,
. Take, for example, a jailer, who may be said to assume a duty of reasonable care to control a prisoner in his custody and, thus, may be held liable to one whom the prisoner harms if he (the jailer) defaults on that duty.
See, e.g., Buckler v. State,
. Because there is no special relationship here, we need not address the secondary issue of foreseeability.
See
Restatement § 319 (noting that the duty assumed by "one who takes charge of a third person” only accrues when "he knows or should know [that the person is] likely to cause bodily harm to others if not controlled”);
see also Jean W.,
. The co-administrators also cite
Estate of Davis v. United States,
. Since we affirm the dismissal of the FTCA counts on private-person liability grounds, we need not address the district court's alternative holding anent the discretionary function exception.
See McCloskey,