1) Introduction

This appeal arose from a 2016 detention and interrogation of Brian W. Benderoff at the Detroit Airport by a mix of state/local officers and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents working within a joint state/federal task-force environment. Benderoff alleged he was transported in a government SUV to an HSI Prisoner Processing Unit and held for over ten hours, questioned until he incriminated himself in an alleged financial scheme, and then released.

In 2020 Benderoff was federally indicted for insurance-fraud-related charges, but the indictment was dismissed in 2022 as time-barred. He then sued the involved officers for unlawful detention and malicious prosecution under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and sought damages against federal actors via an implied cause of action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of Narcotics.

The key issues on appeal were:

• Color-of-law classification: whether the “State Defendants” acted under color of state law (supporting § 1983) or federal law (defeating § 1983).
• Bivens availability: whether the alleged airport detention and interrogation by DHS/HSI personnel fit within an existing Bivens context or constituted a “new context” foreclosing an implied damages remedy.
• Service costs: whether two defendants lacked “good cause” for not waiving service, triggering mandatory cost-shifting under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(d)(2).

2) Summary of the Opinion

3) Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Pleading and review standards

• Warman v. Mount St. Joseph Univ. — used for the Sixth Circuit’s de novo review standard on motions to dismiss. The court reaffirmed that appellate review accepts well-pleaded facts as true and views them favorably to the plaintiff.
• Hile v. Michigan (quoting Hill v. Snyder) — supplied the “plausibility” framing: complaints must include sufficient factual matter to state a plausible claim.
• Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly — underscored that legal conclusions couched as factual allegations need not be accepted as true. This mattered because Benderoff’s “state actor” characterization could not substitute for facts showing state authorization or control.

B. § 1983 “under color of state law” and task-force settings

• Fritz v. Charter Twp. of Comstock — provided the basic two-part § 1983 requirement: (1) deprivation of a constitutional right; (2) deprivation caused by persons acting under color of state law.
• King v. United States — the opinion’s central analog for task-force color-of-law analysis. King held that a state officer assigned full-time to an FBI task force acted under color of federal law when the complaint did not allege state involvement in authorizing/administrating the task force actions. The panel applied that same “actual nature and character of the action” inquiry here.
• Crowder v. Conlan — cited via King for the “fairly attributable to the state” requirement, reinforcing that the key question is attribution and control, not the officer’s payroll label.
• Brownback v. King — noted as reversing King on other grounds, but not disturbing the cited color-of-law reasoning the panel relied on.

C. Considering materials at the motion-to-dismiss stage

• Jackson v. City of Columbus — allowed consideration of a document attached to a motion to dismiss when referenced in the complaint and central to the claim. The court used this to consider Adamisin’s police report describing task-force assignment and arrest details.
• Elec. Merch. Sys. LLC v. Gaal (citing Passa v. City of Columbus) — supported judicial notice of public records and limited reliance on their truth when accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned. This supported using Presley’s employment records to establish DHS employment.

D. The modern narrowing of Bivens

• Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of Narcotics — the baseline: a damages remedy implied for egregious Fourth Amendment violations in a home search/seizure setting.
• Davis v. Passman and Carlson v. Green — the only other two Supreme Court-recognized Bivens contexts (Fifth Amendment sex discrimination; Eighth Amendment prisoner medical injury).
• Ziglar v. Abbasi — provided the “meaningfully different” and multi-factor “new context” framework the panel applied (officer rank, right at issue, setting, legal mandate, separation-of-powers risk, etc.).
• Egbert v. Boule — reinforced that differences in the federal agency involved can create a new context, supporting the panel’s reliance on DHS-vs-Federal Bureau of Narcotics distinctions.
• Elhady v. Unidentified CBP Agents — articulated a stringent rule: a new context exists if the case differs in “virtually any way” from the trilogy, pushing strongly against expansion.
• Enriquez-Perdomo v. Newman — applied “new context” analysis to different settings and legal backdrops; the panel used it for the proposition that home-intrusion cases sit at the apex of Fourth Amendment protection and that different settings imply different legal standards.
• Jacobs v. Alam — invoked by Benderoff to argue for “run-of-the-mill” law enforcement claims within Bivens, but the panel distinguished the present airport setting and the trilogy-comparison requirement emphasized by later Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit cases.

E. Waiver of service and “good cause”

• Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(d)(2) — mandates expense shifting when a defendant fails to waive service without good cause.
• 28 C.F.R. § 50.15(a)(1)-(12) — established the right of federal employees sued individually for acts within the scope of employment to request DOJ representation, which the panel treated as a legitimate basis for delay constituting “good cause.”

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. Why § 1983 failed: functional federal control defeated “state action”

The court treated “color of law” as a functional inquiry tied to who directed and authorized the challenged conduct. On the complaint’s own narrative, TSA reported Benderoff to an HSI tip line; HSI dispatched officers; Benderoff was transported to an HSI facility (the Prisoner Processing Unit); and he was held there for hours in HSI custody. Those facts, as pleaded, pointed to federal initiation and federal operational control.

Crucially, the panel rejected the idea that an officer’s usual state/local employment status resolves § 1983’s color-of-law element when the challenged action is task-force work directed by federal authorities. Following King v. United States, the absence of allegations that state or local authorities “authorized or administered” the detention was dispositive.

The panel also relied on motion-to-dismiss record principles to consider (1) a police report referenced in the complaint showing task-force assignment to HSI, and (2) employment records demonstrating that one purported “state” defendant was actually a DHS employee. Together, those materials reinforced federal attribution.

B. Why Bivens failed: airport detention by DHS agents is a “new context”

The court framed the central Bivens question as whether the case is “meaningfully different” from the three recognized contexts (Bivens, Davis, Carlson). Although Benderoff characterized his claims as routine Fourth Amendment law-enforcement misconduct, the panel focused on setting and legal backdrop: an international airport is a public, security-intensive environment where expectations of privacy are significantly diminished relative to the home—the paradigmatic Bivens setting.

The panel treated this reduced privacy expectation and altered legal environment as creating a different “context,” consistent with Enriquez-Perdomo v. Newman. It also emphasized that the defendant agency mattered: DHS agents differ from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents in Bivens, which Egbert v. Boule recognizes as a context-shifting distinction. Finally, it noted that Benderoff’s Fifth Amendment framing did not align with Davis v. Passman (sex discrimination).

Given Sixth Circuit precedent that a context is “new” if it differs “in virtually any way” from the trilogy (Elhady v. Unidentified CBP Agents), the panel found a new context and, because Benderoff conceded special factors would then defeat relief, ended the inquiry and declined to imply a damages action.

C. Why service costs were denied: awaiting DOJ representation can be “good cause”

Rule 4(d)(2) requires cost shifting absent good cause. The panel upheld the district court’s finding that the defendants promptly sought DOJ representation as authorized by 28 C.F.R. § 50.15, and the delay in DOJ approval was not attributable to them. Because they acted quickly to invoke a lawful representation process and awaited the government’s decision, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding good cause.

3.3 Impact

• Task-force liability channeling: Plaintiffs suing mixed state/federal task-force participants in the Sixth Circuit must plead concrete facts showing state or local authorization/control of the challenged act to maintain § 1983 claims. Mere state employment status, without factual allegations of state direction, will likely be insufficient when the operation is federally initiated and housed in federal facilities.
• Further contraction of Bivens for DHS/airport settings: The decision reinforces that airport-based seizures/interrogations by DHS personnel are meaningfully different from the home-search paradigm and will be treated as “new contexts,” making damages remedies unlikely absent congressional action.
• Practical litigation consequences: The service-waiver holding signals that courts may treat pending DOJ representation decisions as “good cause,” reducing plaintiffs’ leverage to recoup service and fee costs where federal employees promptly initiate the representation process.

4) Complex Concepts Simplified

• “Under color of state law” (for § 1983): A defendant is liable under § 1983 only if the challenged conduct is fairly attributable to a state. In joint task forces, courts look past job titles to who directed the specific action—who called the shots.
• Bivens remedy: A judge-made right to sue federal officers for damages for certain constitutional violations. Today, courts almost never expand it beyond the three established Supreme Court contexts.
• “New Bivens context”: Even small differences from prior recognized contexts—different setting (airport vs home), different agency (DHS vs narcotics agents), different legal mandate—can make a case “new,” which usually ends the claim.
• Waiver of service and cost shifting: Rule 4 encourages defendants to waive formal service to save costs. If they refuse without good reason, they pay the plaintiff’s service expenses. “Good cause” can include circumstances like awaiting an official DOJ decision on representation when promptly requested.

5) Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit’s opinion delivers three clear signals. First, § 1983 claims against state/local officers embedded in federal task-force operations will fail absent well-pleaded facts showing state authorization or control of the challenged detention. Second, alleged unconstitutional seizures and interrogations in an international airport by DHS agents constitute a “new Bivens context,” making an implied damages remedy unavailable under current doctrine. Third, defendants who promptly seek DOJ representation may have “good cause” to miss waiver-of-service deadlines, insulating them from mandatory cost shifting.