On August 8, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago ruled that Vance and Nathan Ertel may proceed to sue Rumsfeld. Unless overturned, the ruling will allow these two plaintiffs to subpoena government documents and to compel sworn testimony about U.S. torture policies. In the past, courts have generally refrained from allowing such suits related to federal government conduct in zones of military conflict, granting government agents qualified immunity under the Bivens doctrine. In its opinion, the Court asked, "On what conceivable basis could a U.S. public official possibly conclude that it was constitutional to torture U.S. citizens?" With reference to the defendants' arguments for immunity, the Court wrote that "The theory would immunize every enlisted soldier in the war zone and every official in between … for deliberate torture and even coldblooded murder of civilian U.S. citizens." In October 2011, however, the 7th Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, vacating the prior opinion. The 7th Circuit Court dismissed the case in November 2012.