In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 00-4207

Robert Anthony Johnson,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

City of Evanston, Illinois, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 00 C 4659--William J. Hibbler, Judge.

Submitted April 23, 2001--Decided May 11, 2001

 Before Easterbrook, Manion, and Diane P.

Wood, Circuit Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Robert

Johnson took his car to Doc Able’s Auto

Clinic in Evanston to check a leak. On

being told that costly repairs were

necessary, he instructed the Clinic not

to do the work and set off to retrieve

his car. When he arrived, however, the

Clinic told him that the work had been

done anyway and that the bill was more

than $950. Johnson refused to pay, and

the Clinic allowed him to drive home

after the parties agreed to resolve their

dispute in court. Five days later,

however, the Clinic had someone steal

Johnson’s car. (We use the word "steal"

advisedly. Illinois does not permit auto

mechanics to "repossess" cars, as secured

lenders may do under the Uniform

Commercial Code. See Leavitt v. Charles

R. Hearn, Inc., 19 Ill. App. 3d 980, 312

N.E.2d 806 (1st Dist. 1974).) With the

vehicle in its possession, the Clinic

phoned Johnson and demanded $1,937 for

repairs and "storage fees" as the price

of its return.

 Hopping mad, Johnson called the police--

who took the Clinic’s side. They refused

to prosecute the Clinic or any of its

employees, refused to accept Johnson’s

written complaint, and, to top it off,

forbade the Clinic to return Johnson’s
car. After the Clinic’s owner came to

doubt his legal authority to retain the

car, and offered to hand it back to

Johnson pending judicial resolution of

the dispute about the bill, Officer Susan

Trigourea told Johnson that he could not

remove his car from the Clinic’s

premises. With the support of her

superior, Sergeant Clarence Fulce,

Trigourea told both Johnson and the

Clinic that the police department was

itself taking custody of the car, which

it would leave with the Clinic for

safekeeping. Trigourea and Fulce also

prohibited Johnson from removing his

belongings from the car, even though the

Clinic could not possibly have a lien on

the baby stroller, work uniforms, and

military documents in the vehicle. There

matters have stood since July 2000: the

Clinic holds the car as the agent of the

Evanston Police Department.

 So, at least, the complaint in this

action under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 contends,

and we must assume that all of its

allegations are factual. The City, the

Clinic, and both officers are named as

defendants, and Johnson wants his car

back plus damages for loss of its use.

But the district court dismissed the

complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

The only analysis in the court’s order

reads: "[E]ven if [the police] in fact

seized the car, they seized it from [the

Clinic], not from [Johnson]. Plaintiff

has failed to state a Federal cause of

action against any of the Defendants."

The court added that the amount in

controversy is less than $75,000 so that

federal jurisdiction is lacking--though

there is no amount-in-controversy

requirement for litigation under sec.1983

(see 28 U.S.C. secs. 1331, 1343(a)(3))

and Johnson did not seek to invoke the

diversity jurisdiction. Whether any

state-law claims come within the

supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

sec. 1367 is a subject we need not

address, for on appeal Johnson has

abandoned his claim against the Clinic.

The only question now on the table is

whether the complaint states a claim

under sec.1983 against the City and the

two officers--which it does.

 Johnson alleges that the police have

seized his property without probable

cause, indeed without a scintilla of jus

tification. That someone else had stolen
his property before the police glommed

onto it hardly justifies its perpetual

loss. If the police were using the car as

evidence in a prosecution of whoever

stole it (or to prosecute the Clinic for

being the recipient of stolen property),

then Johnson might have to wait a while.

But if the facts are as the complaint

alleges, then the police have simply

replaced the thief as the holder of

stolen property, without any colorable

claim of authority, and thus have

violated Johnson’s rights--by seizing his

property unreasonably, and by retaining

it without due process of law. The police

do not contend that Johnson has a remedy

under state law, for the state courts

might supply whatever process is due for

wrongful detention of property. See Lujan

v. G&G Fire Sprinklers, Inc., No. 00-152

(U.S. Apr. 17, 2001); Parratt v. Taylor,

451 U.S. 527 (1981). Instead the police

and the City contend that Johnson has no

remedy, period. That just makes Johnson’s

constitutional point. The Constitution’s

requirements are as applicable to the

police when they choose sides in a

dispute among citizens as when they seize

evidence for use in criminal

prosecutions. See, e.g., Soldal v. Cook

County, 506 U.S. 56 (1992); Guzell v.

Hiller, 223 F.3d 518 (7th Cir. 2000).

 Many steps in Johnson’s narration entail

no federal claim. For example, the

Clinic’s acquisition of his car from the

public streets may violate Illinois law,

but the Clinic did not act under color of

state law and so cannot be liable for

this deed under sec.1983. See Flagg

Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149

(1978). The police are state actors

(everything they did or did not do was

official business), but Johnson lacks

standing to complain about their refusal

to prosecute the Clinic. See Linda R.S.

v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614 (1973); Leeke

v. Timmerman, 454 U.S. 83 (1981); Allen

v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984). More

generally, any failure by the police to

protect Johnson from the Clinic, perhaps

by ordering the Clinic to release his

car, raises issues under state rather

than federal law; as a rule, the

Constitution does not require states to

protect citizens from each other. See

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department

of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989);

Archie v. Racine, 847 F.2d 1211 (7th Cir.

1988) (en banc). (Johnson does not
contend that the police gave him less

protection than persons of another race

or sex; to the contrary, he alleges that

the police implemented a policy of

Evanston to back up merchants’ claims

without regard to the facts.) According

to Johnson’s complaint, however, the

police did not remain passive; they

intervened and took control of his car.

That seizure had to be reasonable under

the fourth amendment, and a condition to

the exercise of continuing public

dominion over private property is the

offer of a hearing to determine who is in

the right.

 It is not dispositive that the police

seized the car from the Clinic rather

than Johnson. This would be plain enough

if the police had seized the swag from a

bank robber; they could not defeat a

claim by the bank for the return of its

money by observing that the thief laid

hands on the cash first. Likewise

Evanston’s police may not detain a person

indefinitely just because Chicago’s

police made the arrest and turned the

suspect over. Each day, indeed each hour,

of additional detention must be

reasonable, and within 48 hours of any

arrest the suspect is entitled to a

hearing to determine whether that

condition is satisfied. Riverside County

v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 57 (1991);

Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103 (1975).

What is true of persons is true of

property too, although the timetable need

not be so abbreviated. Indefinite public

detention of funds can violate the

Constitution when it deprives the owner

of interest on the money. See Webb’s

Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith,

449 U.S. 155 (1980). Just as interest

represents the time value of money, so

the cost of alternative transportation

represents the time value of an

automobile. Deprived of his own car,

Johnson had to obtain transportation from

another source. The expense of doing

this, whether by renting a car or by

buying a new one (in the expectation of

reselling it when the first is returned),

is the value of the lost use, the

implicit rental value of the vehicle.

Evanston’s police force could deprive

Johnson of that value only if the

deprivation was reasonable at the outset

and process was available to test the

length of (and continued justification

for) the deprivation. So far as Johnson’s
complaint reveals, however, neither the

reasonableness requirement nor the dueprocess requirement has been satisfied.

 Because Johnson alleges that the

officers carried out Evanston’s policy,

the City is not entitled to dismissal

under Monell v. New York Department of

Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). How

much of the claim can survive a motion

for summary judgment remains to be seen,

for discovery lies ahead. The judgment is

reversed, and the case is remanded for

further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.