Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 2 (1995)

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418

GUTIERREZ de MARTINEZ v. LAMAGNO

Syllabus

sumption that Congress intends judicial review. Review will not be cut off absent persuasive reason to believe that Congress so intended. No such reason is discernible here. Pp. 423-425. (b) Congress, when it composed the Westfall Act, legislated against a backdrop of judicial review: courts routinely reviewed the local United States Attorney's scope-of-employment certification under the Act's statutory predecessor. The plain purpose of the Westfall Act was to override Westfall v. Erwin, 484 U. S. 292, which had added a "discretionary function" requirement, discrete from the scope-of-employment test, as a criterion for a federal officer's personal immunity. Although Congress thus wanted the employee's personal immunity to turn solely on the critical scope-of-employment inquiry, nothing tied to the Act's purpose shows an intent to commit that inquiry to the unreviewable judgment of the Attorney General or her delegate. Pp. 425-426. (c) Construction of the Westfall Act as Lamagno urges—to deny to federal courts authority to review the Attorney General's scope-of-employment certification—would oblige this Court to attribute to Congress two highly anomalous commands. First, the Court would have to accept that, whenever the case falls within an exception to the FTCA, Congress has authorized the Attorney General to sit as an unreviewable judge in her own cause—able to block petitioners' way to a tort action in court, at no cost to the federal treasury, while avoiding litigation in which the United States has no incentive to engage, and incidentally enhancing the morale—or at least sparing the purse—of federal employees. This conspicuously self-serving interpretation runs counter to the fundamental principle that no one should be a judge in his own cause, and has been disavowed by the United States. Pp. 426-429. (d) Second, and at least equally perplexing, Lamagno's proposed reading would cast Article III judges in the role of petty functionaries, persons required to rubber-stamp the decision of a scarcely disinterested executive officer, but stripped of capacity to evaluate independently whether that decision is correct. This strange course becomes all the more surreal when one adds to the scene the absence of any obligation on the part of the Attorney General's delegate to conduct proceedings, to give the plaintiff an opportunity to speak to the scope-of-employment question, to give notice that she is considering the question, or to give any explanation for her action. This Court resists ascribing to Congress an intention to place courts in the untenable position of having automatically to enter judgments pursuant to decisions they have no authority to evaluate. Pp. 429-430. (e) The Westfall Act's language is far from clear. Section 2679(d)(2) provides for removal of the case from state to federal court and for substitution of the United States as defendant upon the Attorney Gener-

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