| Venue: | US Ct. App. DC Cir. |
| Facts: | Cope got into a traffic accident on a very slippery stretch of road. There had been prior studies about the over-use of the road, and how slippy it was. It was a high-accident area, and seemingly low on the park service's list of priorities for repair. |
| Posture: | Two claims asserted at trial: duty to repair the road better, and duty to post better warning signs. Both dismissed at trial as being "discretionary" functions, and therefore exempt from jurisdiction under the FTCA. |
| Issue: | Was the court correct in granting summary judgment on both claims? In particular, was this a discretionary set of decisions (i.e. "subject to policy analysis")? |
| Holding: | No, and no. |
| Rule: | The discretionary exemption is for policy decisions. If a decision is not grounded in policy, it's not exempt. |
| Reasoning: | The point of the exemption is to prevent situations where courts
second-guess legislative expertise. So we look at the two
decisions.
Not repairing the road was a discretionary decision: it balanced funding, the probability of harm, and other projects that needed resources. Signage, on the other hand, is non-discretionary: there was a sign, so given that the hazard was so extreme, the park service can't say that refusal to put more emphatic signs was an exercise of discretion: once they took some action, they were bound to follow through. |
| Dicta: | The mechanistic application of [...] frameworks encourages courts to avoid the proper analysis. |