Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00405/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00405-1/pdf.json

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

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1 POOLER, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part: 

2 

3 I concur in the majority’s excellent analysis of the line between United States v. 

4 Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012), on the one hand, and United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 

5 (1983), and United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984), on the other hand. Indeed, had 

6 Defendants pressed the same analysis before the district court, I would join the majority 

7 in holding that Defendants had successfully shifted the burden to El-Nahal to “come 

8 forward with specific evidence demonstrating the existence of a genuine dispute of 

9 material fact” on the issue of El-Nahal’s property interest in the taxi at the time of the 

10 alleged trespass, Brown v. Eli Lilly & Co., 654 F.3d 347, 358 (2d Cir. 2011), and that El11 Nahal failed to meet this burden. 

12 I disagree, however, that Defendants “point[ed] out to the district court . . . an 

13 absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 

14 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986). The majority relies on Defendants’ statements that “the initial 

15 placement of the monitor was not at issue,” Defs.’ Mem. of L. in Supp. at 11, El‐Nahal v. 

16 Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 13; 

17 Defs.’ Mem. of L. in Opp. at 12, El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460, 469–70 

18 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 30, that because the “physical 

19 placement of the GPS device in the vehicles is not at issue” Jones “has little or no 

20 relevance in Plaintiff’s claim,” Defs. Mem. of L. in Supp. at 11, and the analysis 

21 following the heading “There Was No Trespass on Plaintiff’s Person or Property 

22 Constituting a Search,” the only even arguably relevant portion of which merely again 

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1 stated that “the physical placement of the GPS device in the vehicles is not at issue.” 

2 Defs.’ Reply Mem. of L. in Supp. at 7, El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460, 469–70 

3 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 36. Thus, in 64 pages of briefing by 

4 Defendants, the only statement referring to an absence of evidence on the point of El5 Nahal’s interest in the taxi at the time of the trespass is that “the physical placement of 

6 the GPS device in the vehicles is not at issue.” I, quite frankly, do not know what this 

7 statement means. While the majority draws nuanced lines between Jones and Knotts and 

8 Karo, showing the importance of an ownership interest at the time of the trespass, at most

9 Defendants implicitly hint at such a distinction. I do not think this was sufficient to shift 

10 the burden to El-Nahal to provide evidence of his property interest in the taxi. 

11 It is evident, moreover, that the district court did not read these statements in the 

12 same manner as does the majority, as the district court held that Jones did not control on 

13 the grounds that the trespass in Jones was surreptitious, that taxis are not truly private 

14 property, and that the system was installed pursuant to regulations. See El-Nahal v. 

15 Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460, 467-68 (S.D.N.Y. 2014). Although I agree that the majority 

16 need not reach these issues, see Maj. Op. at 12 n.3, in my view, they were decided 

17 incorrectly. 

18 As an initial matter, I cannot agree that the surreptitious nature of the intrusion 

19 was a critical factor to the holding in Jones. Beyond the fact that the Jones majority never 

20 characterized the intrusion in this manner, its reasoning expressly disclaimed any reliance 

21 on the target’s expectations regarding the possibility of surveillance. The physical 

22 invasion of a constitutionally protected area is no less actionable under the Fourth 

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1 Amendment merely because it is conspicuous. See, e.g., United States v. Isiofia, 370 F.3d 

2 226, 232-33 (2d Cir. 2004) (holding that a warrantless home search was unconstitutional 

3 where the defendant witnessed the search and gave consent, later found to be 

involuntary).1 4 To hold otherwise would allow the government to conduct unreasonable 

5 searches merely by announcing them. But the government could not, for instance, 

6 eliminate the Fourth Amendment’s protection of “homes, papers, and effects” if it “were 

7 suddenly to announce on nationwide television that all homes henceforth would be 

8 subject to warrantless entry.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 n.5 (1979). 

9 Accordingly, El-Nahal’s awareness of the GPS does not preclude the finding that the 

10 surveillance entailed a search. 

11 Nor, in my view, is the fact that the GPS was installed pursuant to an 

12 administrative rule dispositive. On numerous occasions, the Supreme Court has addressed 

13 statutes and regulations implicating Fourth Amendment rights. For instance, in Grady v. 

14 North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015), the Supreme Court applied Jones’s reasoning in 

15 evaluating a state statute mandating the satellite-based monitoring of certain categories of 

16 recidivist sex offenders. By unanimous opinion, the Court concluded that “a State . . . 

17 conducts a search when it attaches a device to a person’s body, without consent, for the 

 

1

 Indeed, this point is illustrated by Entick v. Carrington, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765), a 

case the Supreme Court has described as “undoubtedly familiar to every American 

statesman at the time the Constitution was adopted, and considered to be the true and 

ultimate expression of constitutional law with regard to search and seizure.” Jones, 132 S. 

Ct. at 949 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Entick, the plaintiff prevailed in an 

action for trespass after the King’s messengers, acting under the claimed authority of a 

general warrant, “with force and arms” entered and searched his dwelling “against his 

will.” 

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1 purpose of tracking that individual’s movements,” id. at 1370, a decision not changed by 

2 the fact that this search was conducted pursuant to statute. See id. at 1371 (rejecting 

3 argument that this was not unconstitutional because the “State’s monitoring program is 

4 civil in nature”); see also Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1958, 1968-69 (2013) 

5 (considering the constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment of DNA swabs taken 

6 pursuant to Maryland statute). Most recently, in City of Los Angeles v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 

7 2443 (2015), the Supreme Court struck down a city ordinance requiring hotels to permit 

8 the warrantless inspection of their guest records on the basis that it authorized a regime of 

9 unreasonable searches without opportunity for precompliance review. Id. at 2447-48, 

10 2451-53. Plainly, the government’s physical intrusion on a constitutionally protected area 

11 is subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny even if the intrusion is authorized by municipal 

12 regulations. 

13 With respect to whether the taxi was constitutionally protected property, the 

14 district court answered in the negative, reasoning that “[t]he pervasive regulation of taxis 

15 and their openness to public use distinguishes them from the truly private property at 

16 issue in Jones.” El-Nahal, 993 F. Supp. 2d at 467 (emphasis added). Although I agree 

17 that taxicabs differ from noncommercial vehicles in important respects, in my view, these 

18 distinctions do not strip them of all Fourth Amendment protections. If the taxi was El19 Nahal’s private personal property, Jones dictates that such property qualifies as “an 

20 ‘effect’ as that term is used in the [Fourth] Amendment.” 132 S. Ct. at 949 (“It is 

21 important to be clear about what happened in this case: The Government physically 

22 occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information.”). As such, it was 

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1 entitled to special “Fourth Amendment significance” as “one of those protected areas 

2 enumerated” in the constitutional text. Id. at 953. At bottom, the Court must “assur[e] 

3 preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth 

4 Amendment was adopted.” Id. at 950 (alteration in original) (quoting Kyllo v. United 

5 States, 533 U.S. 27, 34 (2001)). “The Framers would have understood the term ‘effects’ 

6 to be limited to personal, rather than real, property.” Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 

7 170, 177 n.7 (1984). The term was not limited, however, to personal property of a 

8 noncommercial nature. It included “the goods of a merchant [or] tradesman.” Altman v. 

9 City of High Point, 330 F.3d 194, 201 (4th Cir. 2003) (quoting Dictionarium Britannicum 

10 (Nathan Baily ed., 1730)). 

11 To recount now familiar history, “one of the primary evils intended to be 

12 eliminated by the Fourth Amendment was the massive intrusion on privacy undertaken in 

13 the collection of taxes pursuant to general warrants and writs of assistance.” G. M. 

14 Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U.S. 338, 355 (1977). “The hated writs of assistance 

15 had given customs officials blanket authority to search where they pleased for goods 

16 imported in violation of British tax laws.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583 n.21 

17 (1980). The “particular offensiveness” engendered by these general warrant “was acutely 

18 felt by the merchants and businessmen whose premises and products were inspected for 

19 compliance with the several parliamentary revenue measures.” Marshall v. Barlow’s, 

20 Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 311 (1978) (emphasis added). 

21 Consistent with this purpose, “[o]ur prior cases have established that the Fourth 

22 Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches applies to administrative 

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1 inspections of private commercial property.” Spinelli v. City of New York, 579 F.3d 160, 

2 167 (2d Cir. 2009). The Fourth Amendment is therefore implicated by searches 

3 conducted by regulatory authorities involving the unlicensed “physical entry” on a 

4 business’s private property. See G. M. Leasing Corp., 429 U.S. at 354 (indicating that 

5 Fourth Amendment would be implicated by “warrantless seizure of property, even that 

6 owned by a corporation, situated on private premises to which access is not otherwise 

7 available for the seizing officer”). 

8 The conclusion that TLC’s rule worked an unlicensed physical intrusion on a 

9 constitutionally protected effect is not altered by the taxicab’s “openness to public use.” 

10 El-Nahal, 993 F. Supp. 2d at 467. “What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even 

11 in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. 

12 United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). An implied license therefore permits regulatory 

13 officials to do what “any private citizen might do,” without implicating the Fourth 

14 Amendment. See Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 1416 (2013) (quoting Kentucky v. 

15 King, 131 S. Ct. 1849, 1862 (2011)). A government agent, in the same manner as a 

16 private person, may hail a taxi when it is on duty and physically occupy it for the duration 

17 of a trip. See Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 470 (1985). But, without the driver’s 

18 leave, a typical passenger may not dust the car’s interior for fingerprints, mount a camera 

19 on the dashboard, or rifle through the vehicle’s glove compartment to peruse the tips that 

20 other passengers have paid. “[T]here is no basis for the notion that because a retail store 

21 invites the public to enter, it consents to wholesale searches and seizures that do not 

22 conform to Fourth Amendment guarantees.” Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 

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1 329 (1979). The Supreme Court explored a related issue in Jardines, where law 

2 enforcement officers invited a narcotics-detecting canine to sniff around a suspect’s front 

3 porch. The Court held that a Fourth Amendment search occurred because the detectives 

4 had gathered information by “physically entering and occupying” the constitutionally 

5 protected curtilage of the house, in order “to engage in conduct not explicitly or 

6 implicitly permitted by the homeowner.” Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1414. The dog’s 

7 investigation amounted to an “unlicensed physical intrusion,” despite the fact that custom 

8 extended an implicit license “to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, 

9 wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” Id. at 

10 1415. “The scope of a license—express or implied—is limited not only to a particular 

11 area but also to a specific purpose.” Id. at 1416. The detectives’ conduct was therefore a 

12 search under the Fourth Amendment because they engaged in behavior that objectively 

13 exceeded the scope of their implicit license to enter while occupying a constitutionally 

14 protected area. Id. at 1416-17. Here as well, the implied license all taxis extend to the 

15 public does not encompass an invitation to install surveillance technology in their 

16 vehicles. 

17 *** 

18 Accordingly, I join the majority’s analysis of Jones, Knotts, and Karo. Because I 

19 do not believe that Defendants properly put at issue El-Nahal’s interest in the taxi at the 

20 time of the trespass, and because I disagree with the district court’s analysis of the 

21 physical trespass-based Fourth Amendment claim, I would vacate and remand for further 

22 factual development. I therefore concur in part and respectfully dissent in part. 

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