ent to an FTCA action. First, the Bivens remedy, in addition to compensating victims, serves a deterrent purpose. See Butz v. Economou, supra, at 505.* Because the Bivens remedy is recoverable against individuals, it is a more effective deterrent than the FTCA remedy against the United States. It is almost axiomatic that the threat of damages has a deterrent effect,' Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 442 (1976) (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment), surely particularly so when the individual official faces personal financial liability.

Petitioners argue that FTCA liability is a more effective deterrent because the individual employees responsible for the Government's liability would risk loss of employment and because the Government would be forced to promulgate corrective policies. That argument suggests, however, that the superiors would not take the same actions when an employee is found personally liable for violation of a citizen's constitutional rights. The more reasonable assumption is that responsible superiors are motivated not only by concern for the public fisc but also by concern for the Government's integrity.

Second, our decisions, although not expressly addressing

Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 serves similar purposes. See, e. g., Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S. 584, 590-591 (1978); Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 256 (1978); Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242 (1972); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 172-187 (1961).

'Indeed, underlying the qualified immunity which public officials enjoy for actions taken in good faith is the fear that exposure to personal liability would otherwise deter them from acting at all. See Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 497 (1978); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 240 (1974). * Some doubt has been cast on the validity of the assumption that there exist adequate mechanisms for disciplining federal employees in such cases. See Testimony of Griffin B. Bell, Attorney General of the United States, Joint Hearing on Amendments to the Federal Tort Claims Act before the Subcommittee on Citizens and Shareholders Rights and Remedies and the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, p. 6 (1978).

and deciding the question, indicate that punitive damages may be awarded in a Bivens suit. Punitive damages are "a particular remedial mechanism normally available in the federal courts," Bivens, 403 U. S., at 397, and are especially appropriate to redress the violation by a Government official of a citizen's constitutional rights. Moreover, punitive damages are available in "a proper" § 1983 action, Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 257, n. 11 (1978) (punitive damages not awarded because District Court found defendants "did not act with a malicious intention to deprive respondents of their rights or to do them other injury"),' and Butz v. Economou, suggests that the "constitutional design" would be stood on its head if federal officials did not face at least the same liability as state officials guilty of the same constitutional transgression. 438 U. S., at 504. But punitive damages in an FTCA suit are statutorily prohibited. 28 U. S. C. § 2674. Thus FTCA is that much less effective than a Bivens action as a deterrent to unconstitutional acts.

Third, a plaintiff cannot opt for a jury in an FTCA action, 28 U. S. C. § 2402, as he may in a Bivens suit.10 Petitioners argue that this is an irrelevant difference because juries have been biased against Bivens claimants. Reply Brief for Petitioners 7, and n. 6; Brief for Petitioners 30-31, n. 30. Significantly, however, they do not assert that judges trying the claims as FTCA actions would have been more receptive, and

Moreover, after Carey punitive damages may be the only significant remedy available in some § 1983 actions where constitutional rights are maliciously violated but the victim cannot prove compensable injury.

10 Petitioners argue that the availability of punitive damages or a jury trial under Bivens is irrelevant because neither is a necessary element of a remedial scheme. But that argument completely misses the mark. The issue is not whether a Bivens cause of action or any one of its particular features is essential. Rather the inquiry is whether Congress has created what it views as an equally effective remedial scheme. Otherwise the two can exist side by side. Moreover, no one difference need independently render FTCA inadequate. It can fail to be equally effective on the cumulative basis of more than one difference.

they cannot explain why the plaintiff should not retain the choice.

Fourth, an action under FTCA exists only if the State in which the alleged misconduct occurred would permit a cause of action for that misconduct to go forward. 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (b) (United States liable "in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred"). Yet it is obvious that the liability of federal officials for violations of citizens' constitutional rights should be governed by uniform rules. See Part III, infra. The question whether respondent's action for violations by federal officials of federal constitutional rights should be left to the vagaries of the laws of the several States admits of only a negative answer in the absence of a contrary congressional resolution.

Plainly FTCA is not a sufficient protector of the citizens' constitutional rights, and without a clear congressional mandate we cannot hold that Congress relegated respondent exclusively to the FTCA remedy.

III

Bivens actions are a creation of federal law and, therefore, the question whether respondent's action survived Jones' death is a question of federal law. See Burks v. Lasker, 441 U. S. 471, 476 (1979). Petitioners, however, would have us fashion a federal rule of survivorship that incorporates the survivorship laws of the forum State, at least where the state law is not inconsistent with federal law. Respondent argues, on the other hand, that only a uniform federal rule of survivorship is compatible with the goal of deterring federal officials from infringing federal constitutional rights in the manner alleged in respondent's complaint. We agree with respondent. Whatever difficulty we might have resolving the question were the federal involvement less clear, we hold that only a uniform federal rule of survivorship will suffice to redress the constitutional deprivation here alleged and to protect against repetition of such conduct.

Opinion of the Court

446 U.S. In short, we agree with and adopt the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, 581 F. 2d, at 674-675 (footnote omitted):

"The essentiality of the survival of civil rights claims for complete vindication of constitutional rights is buttressed by the need for uniform treatment of those claims, at least when they are against federal officials. As this very case illustrates, uniformity cannot be achieved if courts are limited to applicable state law. Here the relevant Indiana statute would not permit survival of the claim, while in Beard [v. Robinson, 563 F. 2d 331 (CA7 1977),] the Illinois statute permitted survival of the Bivens action. The liability of federal agents for violation of constitutional rights should not depend upon where the violation occurred. . . . In sum, we hold that whenever the relevant state survival statute would abate a Bivens-type action brought against defendants whose conduct results in death, the federal common law allows survival of the action."

Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S. 584 (1978), holding that a § 1983 action would abate in accordance with Louisiana survivorship law is not to the contrary. There the plaintiff's death was not caused by the acts of the defendants upon which the suit was based." Moreover, Robertson expressly

11 Robertson fashioned its holding by reference to 42 U. S. C. § 1988, which requires that § 1983 actions be governed by

"the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the State wherein the court having jurisdiction of [the] civil... cause is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Section 1988 does not in terms apply to Bivens actions, and there are cogent reasons not to apply it to such actions even by analogy. Bivens defendants are federal officials brought into federal court for violating the Federal Constitution. No state interests are implicated by applying purely federal law to them. While it makes some sense to allow aspects of § 1983 litigation to vary according to the laws of the States under whose authority § 1983 defendants work, federal officials have no similar

14

POWELL, J., concurring in judgment

recognized that to prevent frustrations of the deterrence goals of § 1983 (which in part also underlie Bivens actions, see Part II, supra) "[a] state official contemplating illegal activity must always be prepared to face the prospect of a § 1983 action being filed against him." 436 U. S., at 592. A federal official contemplating unconstitutional conduct similarly must be prepared to face the prospect of a Bivens action. A uniform rule that claims such as respondent's survive the decedent's death is essential if we are not to "frustrate in [an] important way the achievement" of the goals of Bivens actions. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696, 702 (1966).12

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE POWELL, with whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins, concurring in the judgment.

Although I join the judgment, I do not agree with much of the language in the Court's opinion. The Court states the principles governing Bivens actions as follows:

"Bivens established that the victims of a constitutional

claim to be bound only by the law of the State in which they happen to work. Bivens, 403 U. S., at 409 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Moreover, these petitioners have the power to transfer prisoners to facilities in any one of several States which may have different rules governing survivorship or other aspects of the case, thereby controlling to some extent the law that would apply to their own wrongdoing. See Robertson, 436 U. S., at 592-593, and n. 10. Another aspect of the power to transfer prisoners freely within the federal prison system is that there is no reason to expect that any given prisoner will have any ties to the State in which he is incarcerated, and, therefore, the State will have little interest in having its law applied to that prisoner. Nevertheless, as to other survivorship questions that may arise in Bivens actions, it may be that the federal law should choose to incorporate state rules as a matter of convenience. We leave such questions for another day.

12 Otherwise, an official could know at the time he decided to act whether his intended victim's claim would survive. Cf. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp. (whether statute of limitation will matter cannot be known at time of conduct).