Law360 (June 22, 2026, 6:53 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case over whether a federal inmate can use a 1971 high court precedent to pursue damages from prison officials for allegedly failing to provide adequate medical care after a 2021 prison fight.

In an order list, the justices said they would hear prison nurse Francis Nielsen's petition for certiorari in a suit brought by prisoner Kekai Watanabe that began in Hawaii federal court. According to court filings, Watanabe sued four officials at a federal prison in Honolulu, seeking damages and injunctive relief for violations of his Eighth Amendment rights.

Watanabe's federal case was initially dismissed for creating a new context under the 1971 Supreme Court case Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents , which allows individuals to sue federal officers for financial damages, but only in certain contexts. The court also said there were other means for Watanabe to obtain relief.

However, the Ninth Circuit revived his case in 2024, finding that what Watanabe was alleging — that he failed to receive proper medical treatment after a prison fight — was not substantially different from what was alleged in Carlson v. Green , a landmark 1980 Supreme Court decision.

In that case, the high court found that federal inmates may sue federal officials for damages under the Eighth Amendment when the officials are deliberately indifferent to a prisoner's medical needs.

In Watanabe's case, the Ninth Circuit declined en banc rehearing in 2025, but there was debate among the judges — and in other circuits — over whether medical needs had to be sufficiently serious for causes of action to be justified under Carlson.

Watanabe says he suffered from a fractured coccyx, while in Carlson the inmate had a fatal asthma attack, which Nielsen argues is different enough that Watanabe's claims constitute a new cause of action.

According to Nielsen, because this is a new cause of action, the court should have determined whether Congress might be best to determine Watanabe's options for remedies. Additionally, Nielsen argued that because there was potentially another way Watanabe could have sought legal remedies, he should not be able to do so under Bivens.

"The Ninth Circuit's contrary holdings exacerbate two deep and acknowledged circuit conflicts. The Third, Fifth, Seventh, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held that the availability of alternative remedies that were not considered in prior cases makes the Bivens context 'new' and precludes Bivens' extension," he said.

There was debate within the circuits over how to determine whether an inmate has brought about a "new context" inquiry under Bivens, and the circuits are also "divided over whether alternative remedies create a new Bivens context," Nielsen said.

He argued that the Ninth Circuit made a mistake by "disregarding previously unconsidered alternative remedial structures when determining whether the context is 'new.'" Nielsen also said a mistake was made by not differentiating Watanabe's case from Carlson because of the difference in the severity of the injuries.

Watanabe, meanwhile, thought the Ninth Circuit's ruling should be upheld. He argued in a response that there was nothing differentiating his case from Carlson and that the Supreme Court shouldn't take the matter up anyway, because Carlson didn't need to be revisited.

Additionally, Watanabe said there was no reason for the justices to take up this petition because "consistent with this court's instructions, the lower courts are overwhelmingly rejecting efforts to expand Bivens and Carlson to new contexts."

"That courts are allowing a very small number of cases with facts not meaningfully different from the original Bivens trilogy to proceed is no cause for certiorari," he said.

Representatives for Watanabe declined to comment Monday, and representatives for Nielsen did not respond to requests for comments.

Nielsen is represented by Jeffrey A. Lamken and Christian I. Bale of MoloLamken LLP.

Watanabe is represented by Joshua Morgan Wesneski of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

The case is Nielsen v. Watanabe, case number 25-417, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.

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