The Supreme Court was urged March 2 not to allow an innkeeper near the Canadian border, who sued for being injured by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, to pursue a lawsuit against the agent. The court granted the petition for review (pdf) on Nov. 5, 2021 in Egbert v. Boule, court file 21-147. The case concerns whether the half-century-old Bivens Doctrine, which shields federal agents from legal liability for actions performed in the course of their work, should be expanded to new contexts, such as those with national security implications, something legal observers say the Supreme Court seems unlikely to do. In Hernandez v. Mesa (2020), the Supreme Court called Bivens lawsuits “a disfavored judicial activity.” “And for almost 40 years, we have consistently rebuffed requests to add to the claims allowed under Bivens,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote (pdf) for the majority. The 2020 case concerned a Mexican teen who …