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

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued July 8, 2010

Decided August 13, 2010

Before

 WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

 KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge 

 MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 09-3238

ERNESTINE WALDON and VERGIE

SMALL,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

DONNA WILKINS, M.D., Health

Officer, Delaware County, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Southern District of Indiana,

Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:07-cv-01329-LJM-DML

Larry J. McKinney, 

Judge.

ORDER

This civil rights action arises from the court-ordered demolition of property owned

by Ernestine Waldon and Vergie Small. Waldon and Small claim that county officials

demolished the property without giving proper notice. They claim that the defendants

wrongly served notice by mail to the demolition site when they knew that such service was

unlikely to reach them. They further allege that the subsequent removal of their personal

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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belongings was an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and an

uncompensated taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The district court dismissed

the case for lack of jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Although Rooker-Feldman

is inapplicable, we conclude that the district court judgment can be affirmed on the

alternative ground that Waldon and Small failed to state a claim. 

We accept as true all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint, construing

ambiguities in favor of the plaintiff. Kim v. Carter’s Inc., 598 F.3d 362, 363 (7th Cir. 2010). 

Small and Waldon owned an overgrown, debris-littered tract of land in Galston, Indiana.

There was a mobile home on the property, along with a barn, a trailer, and several motor

vehicles. The Delaware County health department deemed the property unfit for habitation

and ordered it vacated. The county gave Small and Waldon two weeks to abate the

offending conditions—to remove the debris, sanitize the mobile home, and mow the

unkempt lot. When they failed to respond, the county sued in state court to have the

property be declared a public nuisance and authorize the health department to “take

whatever means necessary to bring the property into compliance.” Copies of the complaint,

the summons, and an order setting a date for an emergency hearing were delivered to the

property. Shortly before the hearing, Waldon sought a continuance but was denied. 

The state-court hearing went forward without Waldon or Small in attendance. 

Health department employee Joshua Williams testified to the unlawful conditions on the

Galston property, which as of that morning had not been abated. The court entered

judgment for the county, determining that the property violated the county’s health codes

and the county’s junk-car ordinance. The court ordered the property owners to remove any

property of value within ten days, after which the health department would be authorized

to remove the mobile home and any personal property located on the tract of land. Waldon

and Small were to reimburse the county for attorneys’ fees and costs of removal. County

attorney Donald Dunnuck arranged for a copy of the order to be mailed to Small and

Waldon at the property. Neither individual, however, received notice. 

The plaintiffs maintain that Dunnuck and Williams knew the mailing was unlikely to

reach them. Dunnuck and Williams allegedly knew that the property was vacated and that

the plaintiffs were living elsewhere. Indeed, Williams testified to that much at the hearing,

even providing the address of their residence in Redke, Indiana; Dunnuck, for his part,

assured the court he would see to it that the plaintiffs received notice. 

The county began demolition eleven days after the entry of the court order. To help

with the demolition, Williams brought on Rodney Barber, who in turn hired his brother

Carl, a Galston police officer. Waldon arrived at the site during the demolition team’s

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second day of work. By this point the mobile home had been razed, and the defendants had

begun to remove plaintiffs’ personal property. 

 Waldon tried to retrieve her belongings and met stern opposition. A uniformed Carl

Barber threatened to arrest her if she interfered with the removal. Waldon protested that

she never received notice of the demolition, but Williams responded that he did not “give a

God damn and that if she pissed him off he would have her arrested.” When she persisted

and demanded her property’s return, Rodney Barber warned her that “the madder she

made him the greater his bill for the demolition would be.” Precisely what was lost or

recovered is not clear from the complaint. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants

impounded four motor vehicles, for which Waldon paid $430 to retrieve, and damaged

others. They further allege that the demolition team packed furniture and other personal

property into a trailer, which they refused to return. 

After the denial of post-judgment motions they had filed to set aside the demolition

order, plaintiffs appealed the order to the state appellate court. The Indiana Court of

Appeals affirmed, concluding that the plaintiffs’ due process rights in the proceedings had

not been violated and that any misconduct on the county’s part had no bearing on the

validity of the demolition order. However, with regard to the manner in which the order

was executed (and their personal property handled), the court determined that any such

claims needed to be brought in a separate lawsuit against the individuals and entities

involved in executing the order. Waldon v. Wilkins, 859 N.E.2d 395, 2006 WL 3833526 (Ind.

Ct. App. 2006). The Indiana Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court declined

review. Waldon v. Wilkins, 869 N.E.2d 462 (Ind. June 21, 2007); Waldon v. Wilkins, 522 U.S.

1046 (2007). 

In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Waldon and Small alleged that the defendants

violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment (as applied to the states through

the Fourteenth Amendment) when they mailed notice of the demolition order to the Gaston

property knowing it was vacant. They also claim that the subsequent removal of their

personal property violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Fourth

Amendment’s protection against an unreasonable seizure. They named as defendants

Delaware County Health Officer Donna Wilkins, Joshua Williams, Donald Dunnuck, and

Carl and Rodney Barber. 

The Delaware County defendants (Wilkins, Williams, and Dunnuck) responded by

moving to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the district court lacked subject matter

jurisdiction. Invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, see Dist. of Columbia Court of Appeals v.

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust, Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16 (1923),

they argued the complaint was a thinly-veiled attempt to collect damages for injuries

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caused by a state-court judgment. Alternatively they argued that the complaint failed as a

matter of law under the doctrines of res judicata and quasi-judicial immunity. When the

plaintiffs did not respond to the motion, the district court dismissed these defendants under

Rooker-Feldman, explaining that it would be impossible to grant plaintiffs’ requested relief

without disturbing the judgments of the Indiana state courts. 

Plaintiffs sought relief from the judgment on the basis that their failure to respond

was due to the excusable neglect of their attorney. See FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b). The district

court agreed that the failure to respond was excusable but denied the motion anyway, still

convinced the federal claims were not sufficiently independent of the state-court judgment

to avoid application of Rooker-Feldman. The Barber brothers proceeded to file a motion to

dismiss that mirrored the motion filed by the Delaware County defendants, and the court

granted that motion, also on Rooker-Feldman grounds.

Plaintiffs’ primary argument on appeal is that the district court erred in applying the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We agree. Rooker-Feldman precludes lower federal courts from

reviewing claims that seek to challenge state-court judgments. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v.

Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005); Kelley v. Med-1 Solutions, 548 F.3d 600, 603

(7th Cir. 2008); Beth-El All Nations Church v. City of Chicago, 486 F.3d 286, 292 (7th Cir. 2007).

The injuries alleged here arose not from the trial court order authorizing the demolition but

from the willful conduct of the officials charged with carrying it out. Therefore, the statecourt judgment would neither be invalidated nor disturbed if the federal claims proved

successful.

 

Even though we conclude the district court had jurisdiction to hear the case, we

nonetheless affirm the district court’s dismissal because the complaint fails to state a claim

under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). See Brosted v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, 421 F.3d 459, 467

(7th Cir. 2005) (appellate court may affirm on any basis supported in the record). The

complaint alleged violations under the Takings Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the

Fourth Amendment, but none of these allegations states a claim. For instance, plaintiffs

alleged that the defendants violated the Takings Clause when they failed to provide fair

compensation for personal property lost or damaged during the demolition. The

demolition, however, was not an exercise of the county’s takings power but rather its police

power, which is broader than the takings power and generally will not require

compensation for affected property owners. See Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v.

DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470, 481-84 (1987); Casitas Mun. Water Dist. V. United States, 556 F.3d

1329, 1332 n.2 (Fed. Cir. 2009).

 

In any event, a takings claim is unripe because the plaintiffs have not alleged that

they have sought and been denied compensation at the state level. Williamson County Reg’l

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Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson County, 473 U.S. 172, 195 (1985); Muscarello v.

Ogle County Bd. Of Comm’rs, 2010 WL 2541067, at 5 (7th Cir. June 24, 2010); Peters v. Vill. of

Clifton, 498 F.3d 727, 732 (7th Cir. 2007). 

The procedural due process claim is similarly meritless. Plaintiffs alleged that they

never had an opportunity to retrieve their belongings from the Galston property because

Williams and Dunnuck failed to take reasonable measures to apprise them of the

demolition. The plaintiffs’ allegations make clear that their claim is based on “random and

unauthorized” conduct of state actors—Williams and Dunnuck—as opposed to a

deprivation based on established state procedure. For a party alleging such a procedural

due process claim based on “random and unauthorized” conduct, the plaintiff must “either

avail himself of state post-deprivation remedies ‘or demonstrate that the available remedies

are inadequate.’” Leavell v. Illinois Dep’t of Natural Res., 600 F.3d 798, 805 (7th Cir. 2010)

(internal quotation omitted); Doherty v. City of Chicago, 75 F.3d 318, 323 (7th Cir. 1996). But

the plaintiffs have alleged neither that they sought relief nor that the relief available at the

state level was inadequate. Indiana law provides adequate remedies for property

deprivations caused by state officials. See IND. CODE § 34-27-3-1 (state-provided mandamus

action); see also New Burnham Prairie Homes v. Burnham, 910 F.2d 1474, 1480 (7th Cir. 1990)

(holding that mandamus action was an adequate state-law remedy for violations of due

process); Belcher v. Norton, 497 F.3d 742, 751 (7th Cir. 2007). Because plaintiffs have not

alleged that the state’s post-deprivation remedies failed to satisfy due process, they have not

stated a due process violation.

Perhaps the most difficult allegations to assess are those involving the Fourth

Amendment. These allegations are poorly pleaded, but plaintiffs appear to allege that

Williams and the Barber brothers violated the Fourth Amendment when they seized their

personal property and refused to return it and then threatened to arrest Waldon, or even

raise the costs of removal, should she persist in demanding the return of her belongings. 

Conceivably the complaint could be read to allege a less plausible theory: that the seizure

was unreasonable because the defendants carried it out despite knowing that Small and

Waldon were unlikely to have received notice of the demolition order. 

In determining whether a complaint states a claim under the Fourth Amendment,

this court examines whether the defendants’ alleged conduct constituted an unreasonable

seizure. Brokaw v. Mercer County, 235 F.3d 1000, 1010 (7th Cir. 2000). It cannot be disputed

that the physical removal of plaintiffs’ belongings from the demolition site constituted a

“seizure” under the Fourth Amendment. See Soldal v. Cook County, Ill., 506 U.S. 56, 62-63

(1992); Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 460 (7th Cir. 2003); Perry v. Sheahan, 222 F.3d 309,

316 (7th Cir. 2000).

 

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But have plaintiffs alleged that the seizure was unreasonable? That the defendants

acted pursuant to a court order suggests it was reasonable, see Soldal, 506 U.S. at 549; Perry,

222 F.3d at 316, but an authorized seizure is not reasonable if carried out in an unreasonable

manner. See Brokaw, 235 F.3d at 1011. The plaintiffs, however, have not alleged anything

unreasonable about the seizure itself. If Williams and the Barbers showed poor judgment

by threatening to either arrest Waldon or hike up demolition fees, nothing they did or said

took on constitutional proportions. Moreover, we have rejected the notion that an

unreasonable seizure can be continuous, so any Fourth Amendment theory predicated on

the defendants continued possession of the personal property is without merit. See Lee v.

City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 466 (7th Cir. 2003). 

Finally, the defendants’ failure by itself to properly notify the defendants would not

expose them to liability under the Fourth Amendment. For an officer to face liability for

executing a preauthorized seizure, he must have executed it with knowledge that the

authorization was defective. See Dunn v. City of Elgin, 347 F.3d 641, 648-49 (7th Cir. 2003);

Siebert v. Severino, 256 F.3d 648, 656-57 (7th Cir. 2001); Perry, 222 F.3d at 315. But here the

plaintiffs did not allege that the authorization was defective, or that Indiana law would

nullify a demolition order because of improper service of notice. Because they have not

alleged that the defendants ever had reason to doubt their authority to execute the court’s

order, they have not stated a claim under the Fourth Amendment. 

 AFFIRMED. 

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