Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01242/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01242-0/pdf.json

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

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 15‐1242

ANTHONY ZIMMERMAN, et al.,

Plaintiffs‐Appellants,

v.

JEFFREY DORAN, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.

No. 3:12‐cv‐50257— Frederick J. Kapala, Judge.

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 24, 2015 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 24, 2015

Before MANION, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge.  Anthony Zimmerman and Premier

Forest Products, Inc. (“Premier”), of which Zimmerman is

president and owner, filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

against defendants Jeffrey Doran, Ryan Kloepping, Kenneth

Sandy, and Michael Rannow, who held the positions

respectively of sheriff, deputy, chief deputy, and detective of

the Carroll County Sheriff’sOffice. The complaint alleged false

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arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment and deprivation

of property without due process in violation of the Fourteenth

Amendment. The parties presented the district court with

cross‐motions for summary judgment, and the court granted

summary judgment for the defendants and denied summary

judgment to the plaintiffs.

Because the parties’ Rule 56.1 submission failed to

succinctly identify the undisputed issues of fact, and instead

includedirrelevantfacts andlegal arguments,thedistrict court

gleaned the facts from the record as a whole. We rely on the

district court’s recitation offacts which are not contested by the

parties on appeal.

On April 20, 2010, Premier entered into a contract with

Raymond Cichon, a landowner in Carroll County, to harvest

trees from Cichon’s property. This agreement was the second

contract between the parties for the harvesting of trees. The

first was in November 2009 forthe harvesting of merchantable

walnut trees on Cichon’s property, and was successfully

concluded by the end of 2009. The April 2010 contract was

titled “Timber Sale Contract and Deed to Timber,” and

provided that Premier “may cut and remove from [Cichon’s]

Lands all the timber marked or designated for removal,” and

further stated that Premier would “harvest all merchantable

Aspen, Elm, Box Elder, Mulberry, Black Locust and all

merchantable storm damaged timber including Oak, Cherry,

Hickory, Ash, Walnut and Basswood.” Toward that end, the

contract granted Premier “access to the timber or other forest

products designated in this contract.” Premier recorded the

contract with the county on May 26, 2010, and began its

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No. 15‐1242 3

logging operations on July 15, 2010. The project was expected

to last one month but was delayed by rain.

In August 2010, the events forming the basis of this case

occurred. According to Cichon, he learned at that time that

Premier had been harvesting trees without regard to fence

lines and thereby removing trees from the property of two of

his neighbors as well as from the township’s right of way.

Cichon also was concerned that Premier was destroying the

ground in its work because the ground was unusually wet at

the time. In response to those concerns, Cichon contacted his

attorney who sent a letter on August 20, 2010, to Richard C.

Zimmerman (who was Zimmerman’s father and the former

owner of Premier) demanding that Premier “cease and desist

from any further cutting of trees, removing of any wood

products, further destruction of the land, and performing any

other activities on the Property.” Although the letter was sent

to his father, Zimmerman acknowledged that he received the

letter on August 24 or 25, but he disregarded it because he

believed thatthe contract could be halted only through a court‐

issued temporary restraining order.

Cichon also contacted the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office in

an attempt to halt the logging operations on his property. On

August 23, 2010, he informed the dispatcher that he had

“retained a logger to do some work on [his] land” but the

logger had “taken more than he was supposed to.” He further

advised the dispatcher that he had retained an attorney and

served a “cease and desist” on the logger,” and that the logger

was “pulling in there right now in the darkness to load up

some trees” and requested that the dispatcher send someone

out to the property. Deputy Hiher, who is not a defendant in

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4 No. 15‐1242

this action,responded to the scene and had the loggers unload

the logs and place them back on the property. Informed of that

development by his employees, Zimmerman vowed to return

to the property the next day. He texted Cichon at 3:10 a.m. on

August 24, 2010, and the two exchanged texts in which Cichon

told Zimmerman that a stop work order had been issued and

that Premier was not to do any work on the property until the

matter was resolved. Cichon also informed Zimmerman that

he would call the sheriff for trespassing if Zimmerman failed

to comply. Zimmerman, however, proceeded to the property

with the trucks that morning and waited as the logs were

loaded and transported to the mill.

At 6:59 that same morning, Cichon again sought help from

the Sheriff’s office and Deputy Kloepping and Chief Deputy

Sandy soon arrived at the property. Zimmerman informed

them that he had never been served with a cease and desist

order and showed them the contract granting him the right to

harvest timber on the property. Kloepping then spoke with

Sheriff Doran and Carroll County State’s Attorney Scott

Brinkmeier on the telephone regarding how to proceed in the

matter. Both Doran and Brinkmeier responded that if Cichon

wanted Zimmerman to leave the property, Zimmerman had to

comply and he could pursue any breach of contract claims in

a civil lawsuit. Brinkmeierfurther declared that if the property

owner wanted someone to leave his property and the person

refused, that was a criminal matter and the person could be

arrested for criminal trespass.

Kloepping relayed that information to Sandy, who then

advised Zimmerman that he needed to exit the property

because the owner did not want him there and that if he

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No. 15‐1242 5

returned he would be arrested for criminal trespass.

Zimmerman agreed to leave for the day. He then investigated

whether a temporary restraining order had been filed against

him and discovered that nothing had been filed. In the

meantime, Kloepping also inquired further into the situation,

requesting a copy of the cease and desist order from Cichon,

who faxed it to him. Kloepping noticed that the cease and

desist order did not show service and spoke with Cichon’s

attorney the next day who informed him that he had not yet

received a return receipt showing delivery of the cease and

desist letter. Cichon’s attorney also notified Kloepping that

they were in the process of filing a federal lawsuit against

Premier and maintained that Premier had taken numerous

trees that it did not have permission to harvest and that the

contract was fraudulent. Cichon’s attorney further indicated

that Zimmerman should be arrested if he returned to the

property.

On the morning of August 25, Sandy spoke with

Zimmerman and Zimmerman informed him that he was back

on the property and was cutting wood. Zimmerman

maintained that since there was no cease and desist orderfiled,

he had the right to fulfill his contract and that the matter was

a civil not criminal concern. Sandy alerted Zimmerman that he

would be arrested fortrespass if he was found on the property.

Accordingly, Deputies Sandy, Kloepping and Rannow

proceeded to the property and discovered Zimmerman

removing trees from the ground on Cichon’s property using a

“large motorized construction machine.” After allowing

Zimmerman to drive the machine off the property and park it,

they arrested him.

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Zimmerman alleges that the defendants violated his

constitutionalrights in arresting him for criminal trespass. The

district court granted summary judgment for the defendants,

concluding that the defendants possessed probable cause for

the arrest and alternatively that the defendants were entitled

to qualified immunity fortheir actions. The appellants provide

only a generalized, cursory argument that the district court

erred in finding qualified immunity, and as that is dispositive

we confine our analysis to that issue.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment

based on qualified immunity de novo, accepting all facts and

inferences in the light most favorable to the non‐moving party.

Hardaway v. Meyerhoff, 734 F.3d 740, 743 (7th Cir. 2013). Under

the doctrine of qualified immunity, officials are shielded from

civil liability “‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly

established statutory or constitutional rights of which a

reasonable person would have known.’” Pearson v. Callahan,

555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009), quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S.

800, 818 (1982). A right is clearly established if it is sufficiently

clear that any reasonable official would understand that his or

her actions violate that right, meaning that existing precedent

must have placed the statutory or constitutional question

beyond debate. Mullenix v. Luna, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 305,

308 (2015); Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 801 F.3d 828, 832 (7th Cir.

2015). “Put simply, qualified immunity protects ‘all but the

plainly incompetent orthose who knowingly violate the law.’”

Mullenix, 136 S. Ct. at 308, quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S.

335, 341 (1986).

The Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned against

defining clearly established law at a high level of generality.

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No. 15‐1242 7

Id.; City and County of San Francisco, Calif. v. Sheehan, ___ U.S.

___, 135 S. Ct. 1765, 1775‐76 (2015).

The dispositive question is “whether the

violative nature of particular conduct is clearly

established. ... This inquiry “‘must be

undertaken in light of the specific context of the

case, not as a broad general proposition.’” ...

Such specificity is especially important in the

Fourth Amendment context, where the Court

has recognized that “[i]t is sometimes difficult

for an officer to determine how the relevant

legal doctrine ... will apply to the factual

situation the officer confronts.”

[citations omitted] Mullenix, 136 S. Ct. at 308; see also Brosseau

v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198‐200 (2004); Sheehan, 135 S. Ct. at

1775‐76.

Zimmerman has failedto identify any factually similar case

that would have alerted the defendants that they lacked

probable cause to arrest him fortrespass.Instead,Zimmerman

relies on generalized assertions of law, arguing that it was

clearly established that absent probable cause, the officers

could not arrest him for trespass. The Supreme Court has

consistently rejected formulations of qualifiedimmunity in the

FourthAmendment contextthat are basedon such generalized

assertions. For instance, the Court held that the required

degree of specificity was lacking where the clearly established

right was defined as the “right to be free from warrantless

searches of one’s home unless the searching officers have

probable cause and there are exigent circumstances.” Anderson

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8 No. 15‐1242

v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987); Mullenix, 136 S. Ct. at 308‐

10. That formulation, rejected in Anderson, is materially

indistinguishable from the formulation set forth by

Zimmerman. It is not enough to simply assert that it was

clearly established law that officers need probable cause to

arrest a person.Zimmerman needed to demonstrate thatit was

clearly established that probable cause was lacking in the

circumstances presented here.

Zimmerman provides no caselaw setting forth the relative

rights of a property owner and the possessor of a timber deed.

Under Illinois law, the criminal offense of trespass is

committed when a person “... enters upon the land of another,

afterreceiving, prior to entry, notice from the owner... that the

entry is forbidden” or “remains upon the land of another, after

receiving notice from the owner ... to depart.” 720 ILCS 5/21‐

3(a). It is undisputed that Zimmerman received notice to

depart the property, both from the owner in the cease and

desist letter and in texts, and from the officers relaying the

information to him directly. He chose to remain on the

property against the owner’s wishes and therefore falls within

the plain language of the criminal statute. Moreover, before

arrestingZimmerman,thedefendants attemptedto sort outthe

relative legal rights, including contacting the state’s attorney

for advice as to whether the actions constituted criminal

trespass. We have held that “‘[c]onsulting a prosecutor may

not give an officer absolute immunity from being sued forfalse

arrest, but it goes far to establish qualified immunity.

Otherwise the incentive for officers to consult prosecutors—a

valuable screen against false arrest—would be greatly

diminished.’” Fleming v. Livingston Cnty., Ill., 674 F.3d 874, 881

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No. 15‐1242 9

(7th Cir. 2012), quoting Kijonka v. Seitzinger, 363 F.3d 645, 648

(7th Cir. 2004).

Zimmerman’s claimthatno reasonable officer couldbelieve

that there was probable cause to believe he was trespassing is

based on his theory that the timber deed rendered him the

“owner” of the property. He further faults the defendants for

failing to read the timber deed which he asserts would have

established his right to remain on the property.

Zimmerman, however, provides no caselaw that would

have indicated to the defendants that a timber deed granted

such rights to the recipient. The timber deed itself transfers to

him only ownership of the specified timber and grants a right

of access to harvest the timber. It does not provide that the

right of access is unbounded and cannot be restricted in time

or manner by the property owner. In addition, Cichon had

informed the defendants that Premier was harvesting timber

beyond that allowed in the agreement, and if the actions were

outside the terms of that agreement then that agreement could

not be a source of his relative rights.

Zimmerman provides only citations to two cases

establishing that a possessor of a timber deed has a legal right

to be on the land under the contract, Matthews v. Brown, 62

N.C. App. 559, 561 (1983) and Mitchell v. Broadway, 177 N.C.

App. 430, 434‐35 (2006), but that is insufficient. As an initial

matter, the cases are from courts in North Carolina and do not

even address Illinois law, which controls here. Under Illinois

law, an individual can be guilty of criminal trespass even if the

initial entry was lawful if the person refuses to leave the

property afterreceiving notice from the ownertodepart.People

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v. Kraft, 660 N.E.2d 114, 117 (Ill. App. 1 Dist. 1995). Therefore,

the legality of his initial entry is not dispositive. As the district

court noted, Zimmerman failed to provide any caselaw

establishing the legal impact of a timber deed in Illinois or

indicating that Zimmerman thereby possessed an ownership

interest that trumped the property owner’s right to exclude

others from his property, particularly where, as here, the

owner had indicated that the exclusion was temporary until

the situation could be worked out between them. In fact, at

least in the context of civil trespass, a number of courts

addressing claims that a person was harvesting timber

inconsistent with the provisions of a timber deed have

recognized that the person on the property pursuant to the

timber deed can nevertheless commit trespass. Dugal Logging

Inc., v. Arkansas Pulpwood Co., 988 S.W.2d 25, 32‐33 (Ark. App.

Ct. 1999); Boswell v. Roy O. Martin Lumber Co.,Inc., 355 So.2d 33,

36 (La. App. Ct. 1978) rev’d on other grounds Boswell v. Roy O.

Martin Lumber Co., Inc., 363 So. 2d 506 (La. S. Ct. 1978); Morgan

v. Fuller, 441 So.2d 290 (La. App. Ct. 1983). Because

Zimmerman has not identified clearly established law that

would alert the officers that a person on land pursuant to a

timber deed cannot commit trespass, the district court did not

err in granting summary judgment to the defendants on the

ground of qualified immunity.

Thedistrict court similarlydidnot errin granting summary

judgment to defendants on the plaintiffs’ claim under the

Fourteenth Amendment that the actions of the defendants

shocked the conscience. In light of the repeated warnings from

the officers that the property owner wanted Zimmerman to

leave the property and that he would be arrested for trespass

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No. 15‐1242 11

if he refused to do so, and his ultimate decision to nevertheless

remain on the property, the plaintiffs have not demonstrated

that the defendants engaged in arbitrary conduct unjustifiable

by any government interest. See Remer v. Burlington Area Sch.

District, 286 F.3d 1007, 1013 (7th Cir. 2002) (recognizing that an

abuse of power is arbitrary if it shocks the conscience and the

plaintiff demonstrates that the official conduct is unjustifiable

by any governmental interest); Steen v. Myers, 486 F.3d 1017,

1023 (7th Cir. 2007).

The decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

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