pelleas have claimed that mr wallace violated their fourth amendment rights by conducting a building interior inspection of their home on march fifth two thousand and fourteen mr wallace raises only one point of  appeal one point of error by the trial court and that is that the district court erred in denying him qualified immunity because it was not clearly established law on march fifth two thousand and fourteen that are residents fourth amendment rights are violated by  building inspector who conducts an interior inspection after obtaining a residence signature on a consent to inspect form and after informing the residence of the visions of a city ordinance that provides that the subject contacted dispatch and advised that he needed a project eighty seven inspector at the home to conduct a project eighty seven inspection project eighty seven is an program designed to inspect nuisance and problem fifth two thousand and fourteen that a search warrant had been executed at the home by the st louis police department and the property had been identified by the police as a nuisance property  point to to say this was a nuisance property in other words is there some subsection what were the features of this particular house that potentially made it a nuisance well the ordinance to find a nuisance property as a property that has conditions if not complied with could constitute a fire hazard or threaten the health or safety of the occupants of the structure in this particular case  mr wallace when he received the call from dispatch relied on the police officers judgment that the house had had problems and potential building code violation so is it limited to building code violations or you said it's commonly applied to targets what you've term drug houses that seems like a different nuisance than a building code violation is there a distinction here that i'm missing are they they collectively put into the same nuisance category of the ordinance you're correct your honor and that the ordinance does not specifically state that the program is targeting  nuisance conditions like the existence of guns and drugs at the home or drug sales at the home but i do believe that that would be a reasonable interpretation of the ordinance by a public official such as a building official municipal code inspector like mr wallace mr wallace testified in this case that he believes that the police go into the building or the home and they see fourteen there was no clearly established law that would have put inspector wallace on notice that using a consent to inspect form in the presence of police and after notifying the resident that their home could be subject to condemnation under the city ordinance that was not clearly established law and in fact there had been a two thousand and seven district court case that case was up versus the city of st louis and that case dealt with a nother project eighty seven inspection that was conducted by a colleague of mr wallis's the inspector in that case and mr wallace had worked together for many years and  by courts have previously held that even someone who's been arrested and is in police custody can give valid consent so i don't think the handcuffs issue rules out the application of qualified immunity and in india pel case there are very very similar facts the inspection like this inspection had been initiated by police in this case t the signature on the form was voluntary isn't that a factual dispute you assume that a from the from mr walker standpoint it was i didn't want to sign it i was handcuff this was not voluntary and he and mr waller says no you weren't handcuffs you voluntarily signed the form is that a factual dispute that would take this outside of qualified in your honor i don't believe that that factual dispute application of mr wallace is qualified immunity a public official like mr wallace must be on notice that what he is doing violates clearly established while before he violated the fourth amendment rights of a homeowner and that a large police presence at a housing inspection inspection is not unusual that is unusual but that's not sufficiently intimidating to deprive an adult of his ability to get an informed dollars will involuntary consent let me let me ask this does he mr wallace agrees that he did have to get consent correct that's correct mr walz testified that he understands that he has to get consent to search form and it by using of the ordinance and his rights under the ordinance could be a fourth amendment violation the district court  involved a defendant who was stopped in a signed a consent form which was written in english and he later claimed that he had limited ability to understand written english the illinois rodriguez case dealt with a entry into a apartment where the police officers were let in by a woman who had keys to the apartment and they reasonably believed that she held a common authority over the premises so none of these cases involved a building inspection nor did any of these cases involve the use of a consent form in the context of a search or inspection of a home the supreme court just this year has reminded lower courts that when performing the qualified immunity analysis the clearly established wall must be defined it must not be defined at a very high level of generality it must be particular to the facts of this case the trial court erred in this case by defining the fourth amendment clearly established right at too high a level of generality  the supreme court in what the white case which was issued earlier this year reminded courts that there has to be a similar case where a similar public official acting under similar circumstances has been held to held to have complied with the fourth amendment so mr wallace on march fourth march fifth two thousand and fourteen with simply not on notice that what he was doing could potentially be unlawful and that's what the courts if you look at the case mr wallace keeps trying to shift us to this idea that he could go in if he wanted to and sort of didn't need the consent that's how i read the case but there's plenty of case law that says that a administrative warrant must be rick must be had and there was no warrant here so it's undisputed there was no warrant instead every single time they executed one of the swat rage and did a search on a house they would call the building inspector and one would come over in other words there was no and i would emphasize that the police officer a minute he had no knowledge of the building code and he had no knowledge of any problems in this house there related to the building condition except the broken window which he had just broken or he and his team had just broken so if they're calling every time every single time and saying sign the consent if the  good they can probably go in but if they but the reason the reason you get to the consent the issue that you spoke about judge kelly is not consent good is that they can't just go in the n and this is in the city code section one hundred four point six it's pretty much what my opponent said new sensors danger fire the buildings about to fall down that sort of thing now i think they'd be then going with some kind of a emergency exception of the war choir meant which is that that's a different case bill seems to be focused on the qualified immunity of the building inspector not the police justification for the him that he is going in at the request of the police and seeking consent was going to violate the rights of the apple here i would draw the court's attention to the can camera versus muni court which we cite and then the follow up cases the clifford case both supreme court united states which say that there is a warrant requirement for an administrative search this is a building inspector correct he said we will immediately condemn the house and so then you're out and that was or was a true statement of the law well no it was not a true state of the law if you believe that he had no right to go in and make the expection it's also not a true statement a lot because there was no situation requiring that house to be condemned the house was in perfectly good shape ordinance was once a procedure that was authorized oh i see what you're saying yes but the ordinance this one hundred four point six it's page thirty seven of our brief talks about the idea that that only applies when there is a nuisance and the nuisances defined as judge kelly city fire hazards serious threat to life health or safety of the occupant structure or portion of where the violations occur of which there was none in this case and there's also not was there none judge arnold the mr wallace the building inspector it mitt that he knew of none and he said no i don't know when i go in on these project eighty seven's i don't know what the condition is of the house at all i now there are some cases that talk about handcuffing us not being dispositive and that's why we said in our brief that that's not dispositive shied as if i'm pronouncing it correctly the briefs in the case cited by both sides talked about the totality of the circumstances though hundred four point four but the beginning is that he has to have a bug there or has he has to have reasonable cause to believe that there exist in a structure a condition to which as a i'd like to draw the court's attention to the cross case just for a second so this upheld case that my opponent cites was the district court case it came up to this court under a different name cross versus or smoke where there were two different houses i think the one the second one he first went into illinois a house on the city street called illinois and i don't think that's the important one the second one is they went into cherokee and the person there said or same exact circumstances sign the former and the man sobel what happens if i don't sign the form and same sort of thing he said you you have to sign the form and the court denied qualified immunity in that case went on i don't know what the final outcome was like to draw the court's attention very briefly to the by dissents in that case he repeated that it ministre tive searchers are absolutely subject to the war requirement ministre to matters but i think that is only in highly regulated industries which this is not and then this bustamante case  don't sign this consent form we're going to condemn it and you'll have to you'll have to go none of the handcuffing none of the swat team nothing else would that would i would claim based on  supreme court united states she lives at the end of the road the police show up and say we have a warrant to respect your house search your house and they were being dishonest they didn't have that warrant and the supreme court united states said that that search was no good so here where there's this allegation of a threat to condemn when he doesn't have knowledge of any fact that means a house it's critical that he had no knowledge of any condition in the house that would cause it to be condemned oh didn't even look at it it was all sagging on one side or anything like that but this is a testified correct that he and his colleagues go out on these calls regularly and every time they think that they're it hearing to the city ordinance ordinance and doing their job here's how i respond to every citizen of the united states understands in their gut the sanctity of the home understands that you can't and we have that quote from william pitt in our in our breaks talking about principle of the law he is required to know this ordinance and it says he has to have this nuisance notice which he didn't have well ok then let's take it another step further let's say he does have information that there's a building violation that could rise to the level of a nuisance he asked the fellow to sign the consent isis why i don't want to sign this what's going to happen if i don't want to he says well i'm going to condemn it and so he signs it and then he comes back and says that was coercive you were going to kick me out if you didn't if i didn't sign it that clearly established i would say that's the cross case and in that case this court implied that it would be all right it didn't finally answer that had it only been prepared ten days ahead even though it was the case of the condition that house had been going on for years and when the officer who had prepared that form was asked about and deposition the off wouldn't answer questions and so that the opinion from this court said district court you better better look into that a little bit so there seemed to be an implication this was this quote skepticism that the district court in this case talked about considerable skepticism and i think that the the question is not wholly answered it's not before this court in this case but i mean i would say that if the the fully directly answer your question if the building inspector actually did have knowledge that the house was had had conditions that caused an immediate safety problem that he could say hey you got to get out of i mean the classic one would be where you look at the house and it's tilting and you think this place about to fall over and we've got to get people out of here for the purpose of public safety that's an emergency i think that would step outside the war requirement but none of that appl i would just note that the trial court did discuss the difference between the person who is signing the form and the conditions around the person which was called the environment so we can see that mister victor millbrook he was sort of the family representative he's he's a sophisticated young man he has a very good job and  clearly established right is to have nobody enter your house without a warrant unless you are within an exception to the war acquirement the cameron case and the clifford case apply that to know in the circumstances that where your principle was being violated the shade as case talks about the totality of the circumstances because of the bumper case which is the one i talked about with the lady at the end of the road where it there was a false threat which that was considered enough to make the search bad i think that meets my qualified immunity argument on the concern you have  have he may have made a mistake of law many may have thought he had the things that day what would happen despite what the law actually was they may have been doing to us or were some regularity for all i know be we our client said that there were no people going in and out of this house as a drug house and those arguments were all rejected by the trial court but not subject to appeal at this phase of the proceedings i see my time has expired if the court has no questions i'd ask the court to affirm the district court thank you so much for hearing me today that he had authority under the ordinance to condemn the house if inspection was not permitted i just wanted to point out that mr wallis is intitled to rely on the judgment evidence of this part of this as part of the routine yes that was typically the procedure that you're saying that whatever his notice was that he thought that i mean there's reason to believe that he thought the law had been complied with him that day followed the policy and followed the ordinance correctly qualified immunity protects all but the incompetent and those who knowingly violate the law given the existence of the case where the eastern district of missouri held that providing citizens with accurate information as to their rights does not invalidate their consent even when that information is disconcerting the fourth amendment i see that i've run out of time i want to thank the court for your time