United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted February 1, 2018*

Decided March 13, 2018

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 17-1535

NATASHA ADAMS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF PEORIA, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 14-1415

Michael M. Mihm,

Judge.

O R D E R

Natasha Adams was living for about two months in a house in Peoria, Illinois,

that she thought was abandoned. Eventually the putative homeowner, Nicole Sanchez,

returned and told Adams to leave. A week after Adams refused, Sanchez removed 

Adams’s possessions from the home, and the police did not stop the removal. In this 

suit against the police under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Adams contends that the police violated 

the Fourth Amendment and denied her due process by not preventing Sanchez from 

taking her personal property. The district court entered summary judgment for the 

 

* We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 17-1535 Page 2

defendants. Because the police do not violate the Constitution by not preventing 

unlawful conduct of a private party, we affirm.

We review the entry of summary judgment de novo and recount the facts in the 

light most favorable to Adams. See Chaib v. GEO Grp., Inc., 819 F.3d 337, 340 (7th Cir. 

2016). Adams moved into an empty house in Peoria in July 2014. About two months 

later Nicole Sanchez came to the house and told Adams that Sanchez owned it and 

wanted Adams to leave. Adams refused to vacate without an eviction notice, so 

Sanchez summoned Officer Matt Legaspi, a friend of hers and the main defendant here. 

Officer Legaspi told Adams that he knew Sanchez owned the house and that he would 

return in about a week to ensure that Adams had vacated. He did not accept Adams’s 

claim, for which she said she had supporting papers, that she lawfully occupied the 

house. And at some point in the chronology, Adams asserts, Officer Legaspi told 

Sanchez that she could “do whatever she wanted with” Adams’s possessions.

One week later, Sanchez returned with moving vehicles and with friends to help 

her move Adams’s possessions out of the house. When they arrived, Adams tried

unsuccessfully to convince Sanchez that she could stay in the house. Sanchez offered 

that Adams could take time that day to remove her possessions on her own and that 

Sanchez would even help pay for storage. But Adams insisted on staying put, so 

Sanchez and her friends started loading Adams’s possessions in their vehicles. 

Adams tried to stop the seizure by calling the police. She spoke to a lieutenant 

who sent an officer to the house. This officer, whom Adams has not sued and was not 

Officer Legaspi, “was the only one there” when Sanchez was removing the property.

He did not stop Sanchez. It apparently took Sanchez more than one day to remove all of 

Adams’s possessions, and at some point Adams was arrested for trespassing. Soon after 

the arrest, Sanchez and her friends drove away with the last of Adams’s possessions. 

Adams believes that Sanchez has kept or destroyed her property. Adams later filed a 

complaint with the police department, but another lieutenant told her that the police 

officers acted properly.

After the court denied a motion to dismiss, discovery followed and the 

defendants moved for summary judgment. The principal issue was whether Officer 

Legaspi, the two lieutenants, and the City of Peoria violated Adams’s constitutional 

rights when Sanchez seized her possessions. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district judge 

entered summary judgment for the defendants. He decided that Adams’s claim against 

the City and the officers “sounds in due process.” But that claim failed, the judge said, 

because Adams had not shown that the defendants were present when Sanchez took 
No. 17-1535 Page 3

her property and, in any case, she had a meaningful post-deprivation remedy. He also 

ruled that the City was not liable solely for employing the officers. 

Adams asserts that in entering summary judgment, the district judge failed to 

recognize that in her complaint she raised a claim that Officer Legaspi violated the 

Fourth Amendment by allowing Sanchez to take Adams’s property. We agree. District 

courts must liberally construe pro se complaints, see Parker v. Four Seasons Hotels, Ltd., 

845 F.3d 807, 811 (7th Cir. 2017). Adams alleged that Officer Legaspi “allowed Ms. 

Sanchez to seize our possessions.” This is the language of Fourth Amendment cases.

See Soldal v. Cook Cty., 506 U.S. 56 (1992); Pepper v. Vill. of Oak Park, 430 F.3d 805 (7th Cir. 

2005). The district judge even recognized this when, in denying part of the defendants’ 

motion to dismiss, he discussed a Fourth Amendment claim. On appeal Adams 

expressly refers to the Fourth Amendment and cites Soldal. The defendants do not 

contend Adams has forfeited this theory. Thus in reviewing the entry of summary 

judgment, we consider the Fourth Amendment.

The principal issue is whether the record contains a sufficient basis for a 

factfinder to conclude that Officer Legaspi violated the Fourth Amendment by enabling 

Sanchez to seize and remove Adams’s possessions. An officer violates the Fourth 

Amendment by personally seizing property unreasonably. See Illinois v. McArthur, 

531 U.S. 326, 330–33 (2001); Bell v. City of Chicago, 835 F.3d 736, 739 (7th Cir. 2016). That 

did not occur here. An officer also violates the Fourth Amendment when a private party 

seizes a person’s possessions if the officer enables that seizure despite knowing that it 

violates the law. See Soldal, 506 U.S. at 60 n.6, 71–72. But an officer who simply fails to 

stop a legal violation by a private party does not offend the Constitution. See Town of 

Castle Rock, Colo. v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005). 

Adams has not supplied evidence sufficient to persuade a reasonable trier of fact 

that Officer Legaspi knew of an impending legal violation, let alone enabled it. 

See Wilson v. Warren Cty., Ill., 830 F.3d 464, 469 & n.2 (7th Cir. 2016); Pepper, 430 F.3d 

at 809–10. To begin, no evidence in the record suggests that Officer Legaspi was present 

when Sanchez removed Adams’s property. To the contrary, Adams swore that the 

officer dispatched to the house after she called the police—whom she has not 

sued—“was the only one there.” And the statement that Adams attributes to Officer 

Legaspi—that Sanchez could “do whatever she wanted” with Adams’s property—is 

also insufficient to impute liability. That statement does not suggest that Officer Legaspi 

knew that Sanchez would take and keep Adams’s possessions unlawfully, much less 

that he helped her do so. See Gentry v. Duckworth, 65 F.3d 555, 561 (7th Cir. 1995) 
No. 17-1535 Page 4

(liability requires evidence that defendant directed or knew and consented to 

constitutional violation). And for the same reasons, unlike the record in Soldal, 506 U.S. 

at 60 n.6, the record in this case does not permit an inference of a conspiracy between 

Sanchez and the police to take Adams’s property. See Pepper, 430 F.3d at 810–11.

The rulings on the remaining claims also are correct. Adams argues that, by not 

stopping Sanchez from taking her property, Officer Legaspi violated her right to due 

process. But Sanchez points to no state or local policy that required Officer Legaspi to let 

Sanchez take Adams’s property. If, as Adams contends, Officer Legaspi let Sanchez take 

the property, he did so on his own. And because Illinois offers an adequate

post-deprivation remedy—conversion—for the taken property, no violation of due 

process occurred. See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 533 (1984); Tucker v. Williams, 

682 F.3d 654, 661 (7th Cir. 2012); Easter House v. Felder, 910 F.2d 1387, 1396, 1406 (7th Cir. 

1990) (en banc). 

Summary judgment also was properly entered for the other defendants. The City 

cannot be held liable under § 1983 merely for employing the officers who allegedly 

violated Adams’s constitutional rights. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New 

York, 436 U.S. 658, 694–95 (1978); Estate of Perry v. Wenzel, 872 F.3d 439, 460–61 (7th Cir. 

2017). And in any case no underlying violation occurred.

AFFIRMED