Reported / Citable
Background
Russian citizen Grigorii Duralev applied for asylum and received work authorization, but ICE arrested him during a 2018 immigration interview. He spent 525 days in detention and alleged that detention-center employees assaulted him in 2019. After release on bond, federal immigration officials denied a renewed employment-authorization application.
Duralev submitted an administrative tort claim to Homeland Security in July 2021 and later sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, seeking damages for arrest, detention, assault, and negligent denial of work authorization. The Central District of California dismissed the detention-related claims as untimely and held that the permit-denial theory lacked the state-law private analog required by the FTCA.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. FTCA claims generally must be presented to the agency within two years after accrual. Duralev’s arrest, detention, and alleged assault claims accrued when those events occurred, all more than two years before his administrative filing. His continuing consequences and later legal theories did not restart the clock.
The work-authorization claim was timely but failed for a separate jurisdictional reason. The FTCA makes the United States liable only where a private person would be liable under state law in like circumstances. Issuing immigration work permits is a uniquely governmental licensing function, and California tort law supplies no comparable duty owed by a private actor. Characterizing the denial as negligent performance of operational tasks could not create the missing analog. Administrative motions to reopen or reconsider, rather than tort damages, were the prescribed avenue for correcting the agency decision.
Key Takeaways
- FTCA accrual ordinarily follows the injury-producing event, not the end of its consequences.
- Every FTCA theory needs a concrete private-person analog under the relevant state’s tort law.
- Federal licensing and permit decisions often fail that test because private parties exercise no similar authority.
- Administrative review cannot be bypassed by relabeling an agency error as ordinary negligence.
Why It Matters
California counsel evaluating federal tort claims should calendar administrative presentment immediately and analyze the private analog before investing in merits discovery. It is not enough to allege that federal employees performed a task carelessly. The complaint must connect the conduct to a recognized duty that California law would impose on a private person in genuinely similar circumstances.