Wilkie v. Robbins

After the Bureau of Land Management failed to record an easement negotiated with a ranch's former owner, Robbins (plaintiff) took the property free of it and refused the Bureau's subsequent requests to grant one; over the following years, Bureau employees (defendants) altered his permits, trespassed to survey his land without permission, refused to fix a public road he then repaired himself (leading to a trespass fine), and charged him with two counts of impeding a federal employee, of which a jury acquitted him in 30 minutes. Robbins sued seeking a new Bivens cause of action for intimidation and harassment; after procedural back-and-forth, the district court allowed his Fifth Amendment claim to proceed, the court of appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Whether a landowner has an implied Bivens cause of action against federal officials for a course of retaliatory conduct aimed at coercing him to relinquish an ownership right.