The argument is that plaintiff was a U.S. citizen detained for three and a half years under immediate threat of deportation, without counsel for most of that time, with only limited access to legal materials, without ever being charged with a crime. That is what should be considered “extraordinary”. If he weren’t detained, I would agree with you. If he could reasonably be expected to know about FTCA and how to file while in detention, I would agree with you. This falls under the “means of knowledge” exception to the principle of ignorantia juris non excusat cited in Larson.
You have a point, and I admit my original analysis was flawed.
My new position is that the detention itself may have caused Watson’s difficulty in obtaining counsel, which caused his pro se status. Mr. Watson’s detention itself, along with his lack of education, limited library time and resources[SUP]1[/SUP], impending deportation, and involuntary pro se status might have together prevented him from bringing action under FTCA. It could be argued that he would have brought action had any one of these factors been absent.
The fact that he had limited library time and resources I find to be significant, while the Second Circuit sort of brushed this off. Where their cites also involved prisoners with limited library time and resources, those same prisoners had legal counsel. One possible purpose of equitable tolling, which I find relevant in this situation, is to establish that ignorance of the law is excused because the person could not be reasonably expected to know the law or have means of knowing the law. That is a question usually left for finders of fact, and indeed the Second Circuit is supposed to find an abuse of discretion before overturning a finding of equitable tolling. I just don’t see that being met here, but then again, I’m not a lawyer (let alone a judge!).
I also contend this:
The government’s assertion of Watson’s alienage could not have been so disheartening as to preclude him from filing an administrative claim for damages while (at the same time) it did not inhibit him from contesting his citizenship in an immigration proceeding based on identical facts
Mr. Watson had limited library time/resources and was being told he is not a citizen and will be deported for that reason. It is entirely plausible for him to spend all of his precious time preparing to assert his citizenship instead of looking into civil remedies for false imprisonment of a citizen, because if he gets deported his civil case will be rendered moot.
Add to this the mistake of law later made by his own lawyers and even the district court in applying Heck instead of Wallace - it is plausible that the prison’s copy of Prosser on the Law of Torts omitted Wallace.
[SUP]1[/SUP] “Plaintiff’s abilities were also limited by the resources available in the library of the detention facility at which he was held, and by restrictions on use of those facilities. Id. at 33:8–40:16 (describing limited time plaintiff had in the law library and the limited resources available there).”
Watson v. United States, 133 F. Supp. 3d 502, 523 (E.D.N.Y. 2015)
~Max