Background
Raymond Carrin died from complications associated with Hepatitis C while he was an inmate in federal custody. His estate sued federal prison officials, alleging they violated his Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights by failing to provide adequate medical treatment. The district court dismissed the case after the Eleventh Circuit issued its decision in Johnson v. Terry, finding that the Administrative Remedy Program provided an alternative remedy that counseled against expanding the Bivens remedy.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied the two-step Bivens analysis. At step one, the court determined that Carrin’s claims were meaningfully different from the three recognized Bivens cases, particularly Carlson v. Green, due to the severity, type, and duration of the injury. At step two, the court found that the Administrative Remedy Program constituted a special factor counseling against expanding the Bivens remedy. The court held that the existence of this alternative remedial structure was dispositive, regardless of whether the estate could access it after Carrin’s death.
We affirm the district court’s decision because Carrin’s claims differ from the closest Bivens comparison largely due to the presence of the ARP, even though Carrin’s estate could not use the ARP after his death.
Opinion of the Court, Page 2
What it means going forward
The ruling reinforces the barrier to filing Bivens claims in federal prison medical care cases where an Administrative Remedy Program exists, even if the plaintiff did not exhaust that remedy or cannot access it posthumously.