428
Opinion of the Court
events giving rise to the action were not wholly unrelated to the project,' " immunity necessarily attached.1
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed. It agreed with petitioner that the Madera Canal "serves no flood control purpose," but nevertheless held that immunity attached "solely because it is a branch of the Central Valley Project." 177 F. 3d 834, 839 (1999). As the Ninth Circuit put it, "[a]l-though the water in the Madera Canal was not held for the purpose of flood control, because it was part of the Central Valley Project, it was 'not wholly unrelated' to flood control." Ibid. (emphasis added). In so holding, however, the court recognized that the Government would probably not have enjoyed immunity in at least three other Circuits where the courts require a nexus between flood control activities and the harm done to the plaintiff.2 Noting the "harsh result of [the] decision," the Ninth Circuit frankly acknowledged that "[t]he 'not wholly unrelated' test applied by this and other circuits reads broadly an already broadly written grant of immunity." Ibid. As the Ninth Circuit recognized, under such a test, there would seem to be no "set of facts where the government is not immune from damage arising from water that at one time passed through part of the Central Valley or other flood control project." Ibid.
II
Not until more than a half century after its enactment did this Court have occasion to interpret § 702c. In a consolidated case arising out of two separate accidents, we held that the section "bars recovery where the Federal Government
1 App. to Pet. for Cert. 15 (quoting Washington v. East Columbia Basin Irrigation Dist., 105 F. 3d 517, 520 (1997)).
2 Citing Fryman v. United States, 901 F. 2d 79 (CA7 1990); Boyd v. United States, 881 F. 2d 895 (CA10 1989); and Hayes v. United States, 585 F. 2d 701 (CA4 1978), the Ninth Circuit specifically identified the Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits as ones which likely would have reached a different result.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007