Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-15-01200/USCOURTS-ca6-15-01200-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 16a0023p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

1:12-cv-1338 

WILLIAM RUSSELL GARDNER, et al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

JASON EVANS, et al. 

Defendants, 

DAVID BRAND; STEVE MALONEY; SCOTT SANFORD;

GREGG SCRIMGER, 

Defendants-Appellants. 

1:12-cv-00914 

HENRY LEE HOLSEY, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

AARON WIEBER, et al., 

Defendants, 

SCOTT SANDFORD, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 15-1200 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids. 

Nos. 1:12-cv-00914; 1:12-cv-01338—Robert J. Jonker, District Judge. 

Argued: December 9, 2015 

Decided and Filed: February 4, 2016 

Before: BATCHELDER and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges; CARR, District Judge.

 

The Honorable James G. Carr, Senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, 

sitting by designation. 

>

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No. 15-1200 Gardner, et al. v. Evans, et al. Page 2 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: F. Joseph Abood, OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY, Lansing, Michigan, for 

Appellants. J. Nicholas Bostic, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Mary 

Massaron, PLUNKETT COONEY, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellants. J. Nicholas 

Bostic, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellees. 

_________________ 

OPINION 

_________________ 

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. The district court denied the defendants’ 

motions for summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity, holding that the defendants 

should have known that because the eviction notices they issued lacked specific information 

advising of the available appeals process, those notices were constitutionally inadequate. We 

must decide whether our decision in J.C. Flatford v. City of Monroe, 17 F.3d 162 (6th Cir. 1994), 

clearly established that a notice of eviction must include a direct explanation of the postdeprivation appeals process. Because we do not think that Flatford clearly established such a 

rule, we REVERSE the decision of the district court. 

I. 

 Between December 9, 2009, and May 8, 2010, William Gardner and seven of his fellow 

plaintiffs (collectively, “Tenants”) were evicted from their respective homes in Lansing, 

Michigan, for alleged violations of the Lansing Housing and Premises Code. Jason Evans and 

the other defendants are the code compliance officers (collectively, “Inspectors”) who inspected 

the buildings and issued the notices of eviction. In each instance, the evictions followed an 

inspection of the buildings conducted in conjunction with criminal drug investigations. 

 After the respective Inspector went through each of the homes, he summarized his 

findings in an eviction “red-tag” notice form, which he gave to the home’s Tenant. Each red-tag 

was filled out as specified by the Lansing Housing and Premises Code § 1460.07. But none of 

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the red-tags provided any information regarding the occupant’s right to appeal the inspector’s 

decision and receive an administrative hearing. Each red-tag stated: 

 You must contact the undersigned, no later than seven days before the 

compliance due date, to set up an appointment to meet at the structure (to verify 

that all corrections have been completed) or to acquire an authorized extension. 

Before the re-inspection you must obtain all required permits and have those 

repairs inspected and approved by the appropriate inspector. 

 All violations must be corrected with approved materials and methods. If 

you have any questions or concerns about complying within the time indicated, 

you may contact at (517) 483-4064 Monday through Thursday between the hours 

of 8-9 AM or 12-1 PM. [Name of the officer to contact.] 

The red-tag notices failed to reveal that § 1460.12 of the Lansing Housing and Premises Code 

outlines a post-deprivation appeals process and directs that if an evicted occupant fails to file an 

appeal within twenty days after receiving a red-tag, the occupant waives the right to 

administrative review. Unaware of these requirements, none of the Tenants filed an appeal 

within the twenty-day period, and thus all of them inadvertently waived their right to an 

administrative review. Without recourse to any administrative remedy, the Tenants’ sole option 

was to pursue a judicial remedy. 

 The only question presented to us in this appeal is whether the district court erred by 

denying the Inspectors’ qualified immunity defense with respect to the constitutional adequacy 

of the notice given to the Tenants. 

II. 

 To overcome the defense of qualified immunity, a plaintiff “must, at a minimum, offer 

sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of fact, that is, evidence on which [a] jury could 

reasonably find for the plaintiff.” DiLuzio v. Village of Yorkville, 796 F.3d 604, 608–09 (6th Cir. 

2015) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 256 (1986)) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). But where, as here, the facts surrounding a question of qualified 

immunity are not in dispute, “the district court’s denial of qualified immunity is subject to de 

novo review.” Thomas v. Cohen, 304 F.3d 563, 568 (6th Cir. 2002). In determining whether a 

defendant is entitled to qualified immunity, we consider two questions: First, did the defendant 

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violate a constitutional right? And second, were the contours of that right clearly established? 

Quigley v. Tuong Vinh Thai, 707 F.3d 675, 680–81 (6th Cir. 2013). 

A. 

 First, we address whether a constitutional violation occurred. The Tenants argue that the 

Inspectors violated their due process rights by failing to provide constitutionally sufficient notice 

of their ability to appeal the red-tag evictions. See Flatford, 17 F.3d at 168–69. In response, the 

Inspectors assert that the telephone number and the offer to answer questions was sufficient to 

satisfy the constitutional notice requirement. See Silvernail v. Cnty. Of Kent, 385 F.3d 601, 604–

05 (6th Cir. 2004). They also assert that, because the Lansing Housing and Premises Code was 

extant and available to the public, the Tenants had constructive notice of the appeals process. 

See City of West Covina v. Perkins, 525 U.S. 234, 240–41 (1999). The district court agreed with 

the Tenants, holding that our precedent in Flatford clearly established that direct and clear notice 

of an appeals process is necessary to satisfy the constitutional notice requirement. 

 “The essence of due process is the requirement that a person in jeopardy of serious loss 

be given notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 

424 U.S. 319, 348 (1976) (quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 171–72 

(1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). In cases 

where tenants are deprived of the right to occupy their homes for any length of time, 

“fundamental fairness requires notice in short order of the right to an administrative hearing, 

including the manner designated for obtaining timely review.” Flatford, 17 F.3d at 169 (footnote 

omitted). These general principles are well-established, but there are no bright-line rules 

regarding how such notice must be given or how many details it must include. Rather, the 

sufficiency of notice requires a fact-based analysis that seeks to determine whether the notice is 

“reasonably calculated to inform the Plaintiffs of the allegations against them and provide[] a 

means for responding to the allegations.” Silvernail, 385 F.3d at 605. 

 For purposes of deciding this case, we need not determine whether the red-tags provided 

by the Inspectors meet the constitutional notice standard that we have just outlined. Even if we 

assume, without deciding, that the Tenants are correct and that the red-tags were constitutionally 

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infirm, the Tenants cannot satisfy the second prong of the qualified immunity analysis, namely, 

whether this constitutional notice requirement was clearly established. 

B. 

 The district court held that “[a]t least since Flatford, it has been clearly established in this 

Circuit that meaningful post-deprivation review process is constitutionally required, and that 

direct, personal notice of such a process to affected individuals is also required.” Gardner v. 

Evans, Nos. 1:12cv1338, 1:12cv914, 2015 WL 403166 at *18 (W.D. Mich. Jan. 28, 2015). We 

disagree. 

 The Supreme Court has stated that, in order for a qualified immunity defense to fail, 

[t]he contours of the right [at issue] must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable 

official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to 

say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very 

action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the 

light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent. 

Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987) (internal citations omitted); see also Thomas v. 

Cohen, 304 F.3d 563, 568–69 (6th Cir. 2002). Applying this standard to the present case, the 

Tenants’ position fails because any inadequacies in the notice provided by the Inspectors would 

not have been apparent to a reasonable official solely upon the basis of Flatford. 

 In Flatford, our primary concern was who received the notice, not what the notice must 

include. See Flatford, 17 F.3d at 169. There, the official inspector gave detailed notice of the 

alleged violations and available avenues for redress to the landlord but not to the tenants who 

actually held possessory interests in the premises. Id. We held that the inspector’s actions were 

“objectively unreasonable” because he knew that the Flatfords, the tenants, were not being 

allowed to enter their home and yet they were never given any information as to why they were 

evicted, whom they could contact, when they could expect relief, or how they could seek relief. 

Id. Thus, Flatford stands for the principle that the tenant is entitled to the same notice that is 

afforded to the landlord. But it does not clearly establish the particularity or specificity required 

for such notice. 

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 A diversity of precedent highlights this general lack of clarity regarding the notice 

requirement for a post-deprivation appeals process. For example, in West Covina, the Supreme 

Court noted that “neither the Federal Government nor any State requires officers to provide 

individualized notice of the procedures for seeking return of seized property.” West Covina, 

525 U.S. at 242–43. There, as here, officers had seized the plaintiffs’ property and provided 

them with a notice form that explained the seizure and gave a phone number to call for further 

information. Id. at 236–37. The Court stated that as long as the review process was available to 

the plaintiffs through an extant, publicly available source, then the officers were not responsible 

for providing particular notice of the remedies and process available. Id. at 241–43. 

The generalized notice provided was sufficient to satisfy due process. See, e.g., Grayden v. 

Rhodes, 345 F.3d 1225, 1244–45 (11th Cir. 2003) (holding under similar circumstances that “a 

reasonable [housing] code enforcement officer could readily have concluded that [he] was under 

no obligation to provide notice . . . of the tenants’ right to challenge the condemnation decision” 

because that right was specified in a published, “generally available” city code). 

 Moreover, in Silvernail, we indicated that even though the plaintiffs’ notice included only 

a phone number and an offer to answer questions, such notice was “reasonably calculated to 

inform the Plaintiffs of the allegations against them and provided a means for responding to the 

allegations.” Silvernail, 385 F.3d at 605. More specific notice was not required. Id. at 604–05. 

 We need not multiply examples on this point. Flatford did not clearly establish that a 

notice of eviction must include an explicit reference to the availability of any post-deprivation 

appeals process and the manner in such an appeal may be pursued. The case law is not so clear 

on this point as to render the Inspectors’ actions unreasonable. 

III. 

 Because we conclude that the type of notice required in these situations was not clearly 

established, we REVERSE the decision of the district court, and REMAND the case for 

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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