The incoming Democratic congressional majority has a clear accountability gap waiting on its agenda: pass a law allowing people to seek damages from federal officers accused of violating their rights. Congress has the power to step into a space the Supreme Court has kept painfully narrow.

That gap has existed for years. The justices have permitted these lawsuits only in the narrowest circumstances, and a case before the court this term could restrict them further or erase them entirely.

The dispute reached the forefront during a Monday hearing in Washington in Nielsen v. Watanabe. The case centers on a civil lawsuit brought by Kekai Watanabe over medical care he received at a federal detention center in Hawaii.

Watanabe alleged that medical staff violated his constitutional rights by showing deliberate indifference to his health. A federal court recounted that he had been “brutally assaulted during a gang-related fight,” leading to the medical treatment at issue.

His lawsuit relies on what is called a “Bivens” claim. The name comes from a 1971 Supreme Court precedent that established damages suits for people alleging that federal officers violated their rights.

The Supreme Court has sharply limited that precedent since then. In a 2022 case, the court observed that it had refused to recognize such claims “in all but the most unusual circumstances.”

The court also made its view of institutional responsibility unmistakable. It said that “prescribing a cause of action is a job for Congress, not the courts.”

Lawyers representing federal prison paramedic Francis Nielsen embraced that reasoning. Watanabe alleged that Nielsen failed to provide adequate treatment, while Nielsen argued that the lawsuit should fail and urged the justices to overturn Bivens altogether.

Nielsen’s lawyers presented their argument bluntly in a brief submitted before the hearing. “Leaving Bivens on the books gives plaintiffs false hope, burdens defendants, and deters Congress from exercising its rightful role,” they said.

Lucas Walker, Nielsen’s lawyer, delivered the same message to the justices during Monday’s hearing. He argued that the court should hand responsibility for the issue “back to Congress where it belongs.”

Watanabe’s lawyers pointed to one of the limited situations in which the Supreme Court permitted a Bivens type claim to proceed. That decision came in the 1980 prison case Carlson v. Green.

Their brief acknowledged the severe restrictions the court has placed on the doctrine. The lawyers conceded that the court “has consistently refused to extend Bivens to any new context,” while stressing that it has “repeatedly declined calls to overturn the doctrine entirely.”

Nielsen has asked the justices to go further than merely rejecting Watanabe’s lawsuit. He argued that Carlson, the prison precedent cited by Watanabe’s legal team, should also be overturned.

How far the court will go remains uncertain. Its ruling is expected by July, meaning the justices could preserve the narrow doctrine, restrict it further, or eliminate it as Nielsen has requested.

By then, the incoming Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress will be fully settled in. That gives lawmakers an opportunity to confront an accountability problem the court itself has repeatedly said belongs with Congress.

Whatever the justices decide, Congress does not have to sit passively while access to damages claims remains narrow or disappears. If lawmakers reject the status quo, they can pass legislation explicitly allowing people to sue federal officers for alleged rights violations.

The case therefore presents more than a dispute over whether one prisoner’s claim may proceed. It exposes a void that the new Congress can fill, provided the incoming majority makes federal accountability part of its agenda instead of leaving the matter entirely to the court.