Wilkie v. Robbins

2007-06-25

Headline: Court rejects rancher’s damage suit, denies Bivens remedy and RICO claim, limiting landowners’ ability to sue federal employees for alleged coercive harassment over easement disputes.

Holding: Robbins does not have a private action for damages of the sort recognized in Bivens, and RICO does not cover attempts to obtain property for the federal government.

Real World Impact:

Makes it harder for landowners to sue federal employees for harassment over property disputes.
Limits civil RICO suits when the federal government is the intended beneficiary.
Leaves administrative and tort avenues as primary remedies for such disputes.

Topics: property disputes with federal government, suing federal employees, RICO and extortion claims, administrative remedies

Summary

Background

A Wyoming ranch owner bought property that included a road crossing federal land. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff had earlier accepted an easement from the prior owner but failed to record it. When the BLM later learned of the mistake it demanded a replacement easement from the new owner without offering payment. The rancher refused. He says BLM officials then launched years of pressure and harassment: uninvited surveys, fines, permit reductions and revocations, videotaping of guests, a criminal prosecution that ended in acquittal, and forcible entries of buildings. He sued individual BLM employees for money damages and also alleged a RICO claim based on extortion.

Reasoning

The Court held there is no new, court-made Bivens damages remedy here. It first looked to the available administrative, criminal, and civil procedures the rancher could use and found a patchwork of remedies that, taken together, weigh against creating a broad new constitutional damages action. The Court also explained a practical problem: transforming routine government enforcement and bargaining over land into a new constitutional tort would require an unclear “too much” standard and risk many unsettled suits. On the RICO claim, the Court said Hobbs Act extortion traditionally targets corruption to benefit a private actor, and it will not treat efforts to obtain property on behalf of the federal government as Hobbs Act extortion.

Real world impact

The decision means landowners will generally lack a new federal damages claim for a prolonged campaign of pressure by federal employees and cannot use RICO where the Government itself is the intended beneficiary. Affected people must rely on existing administrative appeals, tort claims, or legislative solutions. The ruling reverses the appeals court and sends the case back for further proceedings.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Ginsburg would have allowed a Bivens remedy for the rancher’s Fifth Amendment retaliation claim given the long, vindictive campaign; Justice Thomas concurred separately, urging a narrower view of Bivens.