Whether the discretionary-function exception nullifies the law-enforcement proviso

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In 2006, this Court rejected the EPA’s Clean Water Act jurisdiction over a wetland that does not abut navigable-in-fact waters. Sackett v. E.P.A., 566 U.S. 120, 123-24 (2012) (explaining Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006)). Yet the EPA filed a civil action in 2009 and a felony criminal indictment in 2011 against Petitioners for alleged violations related to purported wetlands located miles from navigable waters. After a court dismissed the indictment for the Government’s grand-jury interference, the Government re-indicted in 2013—after Sackett. That indictment was dismissed in 2016. Petitioners filed this Federal Tort Claims Act suit for abuse of process and malicious prosecution. That Act creates subject-matter jurisdiction and waives sovereign immunity for United States employees’ negligent or wrongful conduct, subject to a few exceptions, including the exercise of “a discretionary function.” 28 U.S.C. 2680(a). But the Act also includes a lawenforcement proviso that clarifies the Act’s provisions “shall apply to any claim” for “abuse of process[ ] or malicious prosecution.” 28 U.S.C. 2680(h) (emphasis added). The court of appeals picked § 2680(a) over § 2680(h) and dismissed. That ruling presents two recurring, important questions for this Court’s review: 1. Whether the exception nullifies the law-enforcement proviso (as four circuits have now held), limits that proviso (as one circuit has held), or yields to it (as one circuit has held). 2. Whether the exemption applies when government officials act outside their jurisdiction.