Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00405/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00405-0/pdf.json

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

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14‐405‐cv

El‐Nahal v. Yassky, et al.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

August Term 2014

(Argued: December 11, 2014    Decided: August 26, 2016)

No. 14‐405‐cv

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

HASSAN EL‐NAHAL, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

‐v.‐ 

DAVID YASSKY, COMMISSIONER MATTHEW DAUS, MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, THE CITY

OF NEW YORK,

Defendants‐Appellees.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Before: POOLER, LIVINGSTON, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the

Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.), granting summary judgment to

Defendants‐Appellees, the City of New York and various of its employees, on

Plaintiff‐Appellant Hassan El‐Nahal’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim that Defendants‐

Appellees violated his Fourth Amendment rights by mandating the installation

of tracking systems in taxicabs, thereby trespassing or physically intruding upon

property for the purposes of gathering information.  Because we find no genuine

issue of material fact as to whether a trespass or physical intrusion occurred with

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respect to any property of El‐Nahal, we conclude that summary judgment was

appropriate, and therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.   

Judge POOLER concurs in part and dissents in part in a separate opinion.  

DANIEL L. ACKMAN, Law Office of Daniel L. Ackman,

New York, N.Y., for Plaintiff‐Appellant.

ELIZABETH S. NATRELLA, for Zachary W. Carter,

Corporation Counsel of the City of New York (Richard

Dearing, Pamela Seider Dolgow, on the brief), New

York, N.Y., for Defendants‐Appellees.

DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff‐Appellant Hassan El‐Nahal (“El‐Nahal”), a New York City taxi

driver, brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit in the United States District Court for the

Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.), principally alleging that the New

York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (“TLC”) — through Defendants‐

Appellees Matthew Daus, a former chairman of the TLC; David Yassky, then‐

chairman of the TLC; Michael Bloomberg, then‐Mayor of New York City; and the

City of New York (collectively, “Defendants”) — had deprived him of his Fourth

Amendment rights in various ways.  As relevant to this appeal, El‐Nahal argued

that the TLC’s mandate that all New York City taxicabs install technology

systems equipped with Global Positioning System (“GPS”) tracking abilities

amounted to a property‐based search pursuant to United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct.

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945 (2012), and that this search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.    The

District Court granted summary judgment to Defendants on all of El‐Nahal’s

Fourth Amendment claims, including his Jones claim, which is the only issue

before us on appeal.  Because the record is devoid of evidence as to whether El‐

Nahal had any interest in a taxi at the time of an alleged trespass or physical

intrusion, El‐Nahal failed to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of

his property‐based Fourth Amendment claim and Defendants were entitled to

summary judgment.    Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s grant of

summary judgment to Defendants.   

I.

A. Background

The TLC is an agency of the City of New York that is tasked with the

“regulation and supervision of the business and industry of transportation of

persons by licensed vehicles for hire in the city.”  N.Y.C., N.Y., Charter ch. 65, §

2303a.  Its duties include the regulation of “rates,” “standards and conditions of

service,” “[r]equirements of standards of safety and . . . efficiency in the

operation of vehicles and auxiliary equipment,” and the “establishment of . . . [a]

uniform system of accounts,” which entails “the right . . . to inspect books and

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records and to require the submission of such reports as the commission may

determine.”  Id. § 2303b.  Pursuant to the New York City Administrative Code,

the TLC may promulgate rules as necessary to implement its authority.  N.Y.C.,

N.Y., Code § 19‐503(a).   

In 2004, the TLC promulgated a rule requiring that all New York City

taxicabs begin to use a Taxicab Technology System (“TTS”), a physical device

located in the backseat of taxicabs that would, among other things, provide credit

and debit card payment services for customers, as well as transmit to the TLC

electronic data about trips made by taxi drivers gathered by means of GPS.  See

N.Y.C., N.Y., Rules tit. 35, § 1‐01 (2010).  Through the TTS, the TLC would collect

— only when drivers were on duty — “the taxicab license number; the taxicab

driver’s license number; the location of trip initiation; the time of trip initiation;

the number of passengers; the location of trip termination; the time of trip

termination; the metered fare for the trip; and the distance of the trip.”  Id. § 3‐

06(b).  Prior to the implementation of the TTS rule, the TLC required drivers to

provide this same information in the form of handwritten trip records.  The TTS

rule mandated that taxicab medallion owners procure TTSs in their taxis by

August 1, 2007.  Id. § 1‐11(g).

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Around the same time as the TLC promulgated the TTS rule, the TLC also

established a new system for taxi fare “rate codes,” corresponding to different

types of fares a taxi driver may charge.  Rate Code 1, for instance, is the standard

New York City rate and is used for fares from point‐to‐point within New York

City.  Rate Code 4, meanwhile, doubles the fare for each additional unit driven,

and may be engaged by a taxi driver only under certain circumstances upon

entering Nassau or Westchester County.  

In March 2010, the TLC issued a press release announcing that it had

discovered that some taxicab drivers were using the Rate Code 4 setting to

overcharge passengers.  “Using GPS technology installed in taxicabs,” the press

release explained, the “TLC has discovered 1,872,078 trips where passengers

were illegally charged the higher rate” by 35,558 drivers for a total of $8,330,155

in alleged overcharges.    J.A. 135.    The press release qualified this finding by

noting that “there were 361 million taxi trips during that time period, so the

illegal fare was only charged in 0.5% of all trips,” and that the alleged “scam was

primarily perpetrated by a small number of drivers, with 3,000 drivers

overcharging more than 100 times.”  Id.   

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Two months later, in May 2010, the TLC issued a second press release that

modified its initial findings, announcing that the “TLC’s completed analysis”

revealed that “21,819 taxicab drivers overcharged passengers a total of 286,000

times . . . for a total estimated overcharge of almost $1.1 million.”  J.A. 146.  The

press release added that the TLC believed that 13,315 out of the 21,819 drivers

had “engaged in overcharging just one or two times,” but that it expected “to be

able to prove that some drivers engaged in 1,000 or more overcharges.”  Id.  In

response to the scandal, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office arrested 59

drivers “for defrauding and stealing from their customers,” J.A. 150, and the TLC

programmed passenger screens to display “a highly visible alert that advises

riders when the higher, out of town rate is activated,” J.A. 151.   The TLC also

brought administrative actions against many drivers.

Among those who faced administrative charges was El‐Nahal, who at that

point had been a taxi driver for more than twenty years.  On January 3, 2012, the

TLC sent El‐Nahal a letter directing him to appear for a settlement conference in

reference to allegations that he overcharged passengers on 10 occasions between

November 20, 2009 and February 22, 2010 by improperly using the Rate 4 code.  

El‐Nahal contested the allegations.  On May 7, 2012, an administrative law judge

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found, based on trip records the TLC allegedly obtained via GPS, that El‐Nahal

violated the TLC’s rules on six occasions.    The administrative law judge thus

imposed upon El‐Nahal $550 in penalties and revoked El‐Nahal’s TLC license to

drive taxis.   On appeal, the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings Taxi

and Limousine Tribunal Appeals Unit (“Appeals Unit”) overturned the penalty,

ruling that the administrative law judge’s decision was “not supported by

substantial evidence.”  J.A. 187.  The TLC then re‐filed regarding one violation,

and the administrative law judge found El‐Nahal not guilty.    Undeterred, the

TLC re‐filed five other charges against El‐Nahal, and a different administrative

law judge once again found El‐Nahal guilty, imposed a fine, and revoked his

license.    El‐Nahal again appealed, and the Appeals Unit again overturned the

administrative law judge’s decision on the ground that the administrative law

judge’s findings with respect to El‐Nahal’s alleged intent to overcharge were

insufficient.  Nonetheless, the TLC re‐filed charges against El‐Nahal once more.  

An administrative law judge yet again found El‐Nahal guilty, based in part on

GPS trip records and Google maps, and the Appeals Unit yet again reversed the

decision on appeal.  In reversing, the Appeals Unit dismissed the charges with

prejudice and emphasized that the GPS evidence used to convict El‐Nahal could

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not, by itself, show that El‐Nahal “intended to overcharge, only that he did

overcharge.”  J.A. 216.  

B. Procedural History

On May 31, 2013, El‐Nahal filed his complaint.1    As relevant here, the

complaint alleged that “[t]he installation and use of [the] GPS device [through

the TTS] . . . constitutes a[n unlawful] search under the Fourth Amendment.”  

J.A. 34.    The complaint also alleged violations of the New York Constitution,

Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Laws and Rules, the New York City

Charter, and New York common law.  

On August 21, 2013, Defendants moved to dismiss El‐Nahal’s complaint

pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).  Attached to

the motion were seventy‐two pages of exhibits.  At an initial pretrial conference

held on September 13, 2013, Judge Forrest converted Defendants’ motion to

dismiss into a motion for summary judgment and directed El‐Nahal to file his

opposition to Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and his own motion

for summary judgment by September 24, 2013.  On September 24, 2013, El‐Nahal

cross‐moved for partial summary judgment with respect to his § 1983 and New

                                                            

1 Although El‐Nahal filed the complaint on behalf of himself and similarly

situated individuals, he at no point in the district court proceedings sought class

certification.   

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York Constitution claims, and opposed Defendants’ motion for summary

judgment.   

By order dated January 29, 2014, the district court granted Defendants’

motion for summary judgment on El‐Nahal’s § 1983 claim, and dismissed the

state claims for lack of supplemental jurisdiction.  El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F. Supp.

2d 460, 469–70 (S.D.N.Y. 2014).  The district court held that the installation and

use of the TTS did not constitute a search for the purposes of the Fourth

Amendment.    As to whether the challenged conduct intruded on El‐Nahal’s

reasonable expectation of privacy, the district court, citing our decision in Buliga

v. N.Y.C. Taxi & Limousine Comm’n, 324 F. App’x 82, 82 (2d Cir. 2009) (affirming a

district court’s ruling that the TLC rule requiring the installation of a TTS in all

taxis did not invade the plaintiff’s reasonable expectation of privacy), concluded

that El‐Nahal had no “reasonable expectation of privacy in any of the  

information collected” by the TTS.  El‐Nahal, 993 F. Supp. 2d at 465.  Regarding

El‐Nahal’s claim that the mandatory installation of the TTS was a search because

it involved a physical intrusion for the purpose of obtaining information, the

district court rejected the claim on the grounds that “taxi drivers are aware of the

system, the system is installed pursuant to regulations, and the taxicabs in which

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the system is installed are not truly private vehicles.”  El‐Nahal, 993 F. Supp. 2d at

467.  The district court further reasoned that even assuming, arguendo, that the

mandatory installation of the TTS did constitute a search for Fourth Amendment

purposes, the search was justified pursuant to the “special needs” doctrine.  Id. at

469.  El‐Nahal timely appealed.

II.

“We review an award of summary judgment de novo.”    F.D.I.C. v.

Giammettei, 34 F.3d 51, 54 (2d Cir. 1994).  Upon proper motion, Rule 56(c) of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mandates the entry of summary judgment

“against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence

of an element essential to that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the

burden of proof at trial.”  Hayut v. State Univ. of N.Y., 352 F.3d 733, 743 (2d Cir.

2003) (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322‐23 (1986)).    “In such a

situation, there can be ‘no genuine issue as to any material fact,’ since a complete

failure of proof concerning an essential element of the nonmoving party’s case

necessarily renders all other facts immaterial.”    Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322–23

(quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) (1963) (current version at Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)

(2010))).  Thus, “[t]he moving party is ‘entitled to a judgment as a matter of law’

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because the nonmoving party has failed to make a sufficient showing on an

essential element of her case with respect to which she has the burden of proof.”  

Id. at 323 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) (1963) (current version at Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(a) (2010))); see also Goenaga v. March of Dimes Birth Defects Found., 51 F.3d 14, 18

(2d Cir. 1995) (noting that “the movant’s burden will be satisfied if he can point

to an absence of evidence to support an essential element of the nonmoving

party’s claim”).

*     *     *

El‐Nahal argues that the district court erred by granting summary

judgment on his Fourth Amendment claim because pursuant to Jones, “[p]hysical

placement of a tracking device on a private vehicle in order to obtain information

is . . . a search,” so that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when “[t]he

TLC mandated the physical placement of tracking devices in privately owned

taxicabs.”  Appellant’s Br. at 29.   El‐Nahal has not argued on appeal that he was

subjected to a search by virtue of an intrusion on any reasonable expectation of

privacy he had regarding the installation and use of the TTS.2  Instead, he asserts

                                                            

2 The reasonable‐expectation‐of‐privacy approach for deciding whether a

search has occurred within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment derives from

Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), which

affirms that the Fourth Amendment protects against invasions upon an

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here that he “explicitly ‘rejected the premise’ of defendants’ argument below that

he was required to demonstrate an invasion of privacy” and that his Fourth

Amendment claim “does not depend on whether his expectation of privacy was

violated.”  Appellant’s Br. at 31–32.  Accordingly, we address the only argument

El‐Nahal has presented on appeal:  namely, his contention that the district court

erred in concluding that summary judgment was warranted as to his property‐

based Fourth Amendment claim.   Assuming, arguendo, that the TLC‐mandated

installation and use of TTS devices in taxicabs in New York City may constitute a

search as to those with sufficient property‐based interests in a taxicab, we

conclude that the district court nevertheless properly granted summary

judgment because there is no evidence in the record as to an essential element of

El‐Nahal’s claim on which he bears the burden of proof:   namely, that he had

such a property interest in a taxicab at the time a TTS was installed.3    

                                                                                                                                                                                               

individual’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.”    Id. at 360 (Harlan, J.,

concurring); see Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 (1979) (“Consistently with

Katz, this Court uniformly has held that the application of the Fourth

Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a

‘justifiable,’ a ‘reasonable,’ or a ‘legitimate expectation of privacy’ that has been

invaded by government action.” (citing cases)).   

3 We thus affirm on an alternative ground and do not consider the district

court’s conclusions:    (1) that Defendants’ actions “did not constitute a search

within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . . . under . . . the Jones physical‐

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Jones itself demonstrates that a plaintiff such as El‐Nahal must establish

such a property‐based interest.  In Jones, the Supreme Court made clear that the

reasonable‐expectation‐of‐privacy test did not supplant, but merely

supplemented the earlier, property‐based approach to defining the

circumstances in which a “search,” for Fourth Amendment purposes, has

occurred.    132 S. Ct. at 949–50.   There, the Government placed a GPS tracking

device on the undercarriage of a Jeep that was, as the Government

acknowledged, exclusively driven by Jones.4    Id. at 948–49 & n.2.    The

Government then tracked the Jeep’s movements for 28 days, using information

gleaned from the tracking in Jones’s prosecution for several drug offenses.  Id. at

948–49.    The Jones Court instructed that pursuant to the property‐based

approach, a Fourth Amendment search “undoubtedly occur[s]” when the

Government acts to “obtain[] information by physically intruding on a

                                                                                                                                                                                               

trespass analysis;” and (2) that assuming, arguendo, that a search occurred, “that

search was reasonable under the special‐needs analysis of the Fourth

Amendment.”  El‐Nahal, 993 F. Supp. 2d at 468–69.   

4 Because the Government conceded that Jones was “the exclusive driver”

of the Jeep, Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949 n.2 (quoting United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d

544, 555 n.* (D.C. Cir. 2010), aff’d on other grounds sub nom. United States v. Jones,

132 S. Ct. 945 (2012)), even if Jones was “not the owner” of the Jeep, the Supreme

Court noted, he “had at least the property rights of a bailee,” id.   

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constitutionally protected area,” id. at 950 n.3 — that is, on individuals’ “persons,

houses, papers, and effects,” as enumerated in the Fourth Amendment’s text,

U.S. Const. Amend. IV.5     

Because Government agents had physically intruded on Jones’s Jeep,

which was “beyond dispute . . . an ‘effect’ as that term is used in the [Fourth]

Amendment,” Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949, to plant and employ a tracking device, the

Supreme Court concluded that it need not consider the reasonable‐expectation‐

of‐privacy approach in determining whether Jones was subject to a search, see id.

at 950–53.    Applying the property‐based approach, the Court held “that the

Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of

that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search.’”  Id. at 949.  

Thus, Jones was subject to a search because the Government installed a GPS

device on his vehicle in order to obtain information — on a vehicle that, while

registered to his wife, he exclusively drove and in which (as the Court took pains

to note) he “had at least the property rights of a bailee” at the time the

Government installed the tracking device.  Id. at 949 n.2.  

                                                            

5 The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part that “[t]he right of the

people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against

unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  U.S. Const. Amend.

IV.   

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The centrality of some property interest to a property‐based Fourth

Amendment claim is also evident in the manner in which the Jones Court

distinguished United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983), and United States v. Karo,

468 U.S. 705 (1984).  In Knotts and Karo, the Government had installed beepers —

“radio transmitter[s], usually battery operated, which emit[] periodic signals that

can be picked up by a radio receiver,” Knotts, 460 U.S. at 277 — into containers of

chemicals that were thereafter tracked, and that the Government suspected

would be used in connection with the manufacture of illegal drugs, see id. at 278–

79; see also Karo, 468 U.S. at 708–09.  The Government argued in Jones that Knotts

and Karo “foreclose[d] the conclusion that what occurred [to Jones] constituted a

search” because in these earlier cases, the Court, employing the reasonable‐

expectation‐of‐privacy approach, had determined that using a beeper to track the

movement of the containers on public roads did not constitute a search.  132 S.

Ct. at 951.  The Jones Court disagreed, concluding that the outcomes in Knotts and

Karo were “perfectly consistent” with its property‐based approach to the Fourth

Amendment’s scope.  Id. at 952.   

As Jones explained, the Government in Knotts had installed the beeper in

the container at issue “before it came into Knotts’[s] possession, with the consent of

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the then‐owner” of the container.    Id. (emphasis added).    Knotts did not

challenge the installation, and the Court “specifically declined to consider its

effect.”  Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 952.  Similarly, the Jones court explained that in Karo,

“[a]s in Knotts, . . . [t]he Government . . . came into physical contact with the

container only before it belonged to the defendant Karo” and with the consent of its

then‐owner:  “Karo accepted the container as it came to him, beeper and all, and

was therefore not entitled to object to the beeper’s presence, even though it was

used to monitor the container’s location.”    Id. (emphasis added).    Jones,

meanwhile, was on “much different footing” than Knotts or Karo:  he “possessed

the Jeep at the time the Government trespassorily inserted the information‐gathering

device.”    Id. (emphasis added); see also Wayne R. LaFave, Search & Seizure: A

Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 2.7(f) (5th ed. 2012) (noting that “the date of

the requisite trespass” rather than the “period of surveillance” is critical to

assessing whether a search has occurred pursuant to Jones’s property‐based

approach).  Because the physical intrusion was upon a constitutionally protected

area and was undertaken for the purpose of obtaining information, the

Government’s conduct amounted to the type of property‐based search that the

Fourth Amendment protects against.  Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949.   

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To be clear, because there was no dispute in Jones that the defendant

lawfully possessed the Jeep at the time it was trespassed upon, nor did the

Government challenge the D.C. Circuit’s determination “that the vehicle’s

registration did not affect [Jones’s] ability to make a Fourth Amendment

objection,” the Jones Court had no occasion fully to consider the nature of the

property interest that is sufficient to make out a property‐based Fourth

Amendment claim.  Id. at 949 n.2.  Neither need we do so here.  Because we can

discern no evidence at all that El‐Nahal had any interest in a particular taxicab at

the time of an alleged trespass or physical intrusion, we find no genuine issue of

material fact warranting a trial.  Summary judgment in favor of Defendants was

therefore wholly proper.   

During the proceedings that led to summary judgment in favor of

Defendants, Defendants repeatedly stated that the property‐based approach in

Jones was predicated upon physical intrusion on property, and emphasized how

Jones differed from Knotts and Karo.    For instance, Defendants’ opening

memorandum of law explained that, unlike the defendant in Jones, there was no

physical occupation of El‐Nahal’s property for the purpose of obtaining

information because, as in Knotts and Karo, “the initial placement of the monitor

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was not at issue.”   Defs.’ Mem. of L. in Supp. at 11, El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F.

Supp. 2d 460 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 13.    Since the

“physical placement of the GPS device” was not at issue, Defendants continued,

Jones had “little relevance in Plaintiff’s claim.”6  Id.  It logically followed from that

statement that if Jones was to have any relevance, El‐Nahal had to put the

placement of the GPS device at issue — a point he implicitly acknowledged in his

own papers in opposition to Defendants’ motion and in support of his cross

motion for summary judgment by stating that “[t]he Court’s decision [in Jones]

was based on a traditional understanding of the Fourth Amendment tied to

common law trespass” and “the physical attachment of the device,” Pl.’s Mem. of

L. in Supp. at 15‐16, El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No.

13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 22, and that Jones “focused on the [G]overnment’s

trespass on Jones’[s] vehicle,” id. at 19 (emphasis added).

                                                            

6 Defendants reiterated this crucial aspect of Jones in their opposition to El‐

Nahal’s cross‐motion for summary judgment on the search claim.  Defs.’ Mem. of

L. in Opp. at 12, El‐Nahal v. Yassky, 993 F. Supp. 2d 460, 469–70 (S.D.N.Y. 2014)

(No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 30.    They did so yet again in their reply

memorandum in support of their own motion for summary judgment, devoting

an entire section of their brief specifically to the a that “[t]here [w]as [n]o

[t]respass on Plaintiff’s [p]erson or [p]roperty [c]onstituting a [s]earch.”   Defs.’

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

(S.D.N.Y. 2014) (No. 13‐cv‐3690 (KBF)), ECF No. 36.   

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Defendants thus “point[ed] out to the district court . . . that there [was] an

absence of evidence,” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 325, to support “an essential element”

of El‐Nahal’s Jones claim, id. at 323.   It then fell to El‐Nahal to “come forward

with specific evidence demonstrating the existence of a genuine dispute of

material fact” as to that element of his Fourth Amendment claim.  Brown v. Eli

Lilly & Co., 654 F.3d 347, 358 (2d Cir. 2011) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,

477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986)); see also Tovar v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, No. 98 Civ.

5178(LAP), 2000 WL 1273841, at *5–6 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 6, 2000) (in converting

defendants’ motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment, noting that

defendants may satisfy their burden by “point[ing] to an absence of evidence to

support an essential element of the nonmoving party’s claim,” at which point the

burden “shifts to the [plaintiff] to come forward with ‘specific facts showing that

there is a genuine issue for trial’” (quoting Goenaga, 51 F.3d at 18; Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(e))).  Yet, El‐Nahal adduced no evidence as to the circumstances surrounding

any alleged trespass or physical intrusion on a taxicab in which he had a

property‐based interest.   

Here, El‐Nahal emphasizes that he drives a taxicab and that the TLC

mandated the physical placement of a TTS in all privately owned cabs.  But this

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is not enough to show that the physical placement of a TTS intruded on a

constitutionally protected area of El‐Nahal.  Even if El‐Nahal at some point drove

a taxicab installed with a TTS, this fact, standing alone, is no more relevant than

the fact that Knotts and Karo at some point possessed containers installed with

beepers.    As Jones makes plain, the possibility that the Government may have

trespassed or physically intruded on someone’s property does not necessarily

entitle someone else who later acquires an interest in that property to claim that the

Government trespassed or physically intruded on her property.     

El‐Nahal provided no evidence describing his interest in a taxi at the time

of an alleged trespass or physical intrusion.  Beyond stating that he has been a

taxicab driver for more than 20 years, El‐Nahal leaves it a mystery whether he

owns a taxicab medallion (and it is the owners of such medallions that TLC

regulations require to equip their taxicabs with a TTS, N.Y.C., N.Y., Rules tit. 35,

§ 1‐11(f)–(g) (2010)), rents a taxi from a corporate owner on a daily or weekly

basis, or alternates driving shifts with another driver who rents a cab.  Moreover,

he has said nothing at all as to what interest he had in a particular taxi (if any) at

the time it was installed with a TTS.  Thus, so far as the record here discloses, El‐

Nahal may have rented a taxi after its owner contracted with a third‐party

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provider to install a TTS, fully cognizant of the presence of the TTS in the cab,

and even taking custody of the cab on the condition that he properly maintain

the TTS while operating the taxi.  Cf. Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 961 (Alito, J., concurring)

(noting that “the [Jones] theory would provide no protection” if “the Federal

Government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS

tracking device in every car”).    Jones leaves no doubt that in such a case, a

property‐based search claim would be lacking.    

That the parameters of the property‐based search theory outlined in Jones

were not fully explicated in that case makes it all the more remarkable that El‐

Nahal has failed to adduce evidence on one aspect of Jones that is clear:  to claim

that the Government trespassed or physically intruded upon one’s

constitutionally protected area for the purposes of gathering information, a

plaintiff must establish a property interest in a constitutionally protected area at

the time of the intrusion.  Here, El‐Nahal has provided no evidence tending to

show that he had an interest in any taxi at the time of an alleged trespass or

physical invasion — an element that, whether dependent on or divergent from

common‐law tort principles, we have described as “the touchstone for the

analysis in Jones.”    See United States v. Aguiar, 737 F.3d 251, 261 (2d Cir. 2013)

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(Pooler, J.).    No reasonable jury could find for El‐Nahal on his claim that the

Government’s conduct constituted a search under Jones, and there is nothing for

us to do but to affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

Defendants.  Accordingly, finding no genuine issue of material fact warranting a

trial, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.     

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