Opinion ID: 779203
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Deprivation of Fourth Amendment Rights

Text: 14 The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, provides in pertinent part that the 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. This right applies with equal force in both the civil and criminal contexts. Camara v. Mun. Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 539, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967). In United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984), the Supreme Court explained that the first clause of the Fourth Amendment protects two types of expectations, one involving searches, the other seizures. According to Jacobsen, a search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider is infringed, whereas a seizure of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property. Id. In Jacobsen, the Court further explained: While the concept of a `seizure' of property is not much discussed in our cases, this definition follows from our oft-repeated definition of the `seizure' of a person within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment — meaningful interference, however brief, with an individual's freedom of movement. Id. at 114 n. 5, 104 S.Ct. 1652. This expansive definition is necessary because a seizure threatens an individual's distinct interest in retaining possession of his or her property. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 747-48, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring). 15 1. Soldal v. Cook County, Illinois, 506 U.S. 56, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992) 16 The Supreme Court has also recognized that the participation of a police officer in an improper eviction constitutes a seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The controlling case in this regard is Soldal v. Cook County, Illinois, 506 U.S. 56, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992), where the Supreme Court, reversing an en banc opinion written by Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit, addressed whether mobile home owners had their mobile home seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when deputy sheriffs assisted the owner and manager of the trailer park in physically tearing the mobile home from its foundation and towing it to another lot. As the Court noted in Soldal, the Seventh Circuit, while acknowledging that there was a `seizure' in the literal sense, found no Fourth Amendment violation because it was not made in the course of public law enforcement and because it did not invade the Soldals' privacy. Id. at 60, 113 S.Ct. 538. In Soldal, the U.S. Supreme Court remarked on the reasoning of the Seventh Circuit as follows: 17 This conclusion followed from a narrow reading of the Amendment, which the court construed to safeguard only privacy and liberty interests while leaving unprotected possessory interests where neither privacy nor liberty was at stake. Otherwise, the court said, 18 a constitutional provision enacted two centuries ago [would] make every repossession and eviction with police assistance actionable under — of all things — the Fourth Amendment[, which] would trivialize the amendment and gratuitously shift a large body of routine commercial litigation from the state courts to the federal courts. That trivializing, this shift, can be prevented by recognizing the difference between possessory and privacy interests. 19 Because the officers had not entered Soldal's house, rummaged through his possessions, or, in the Court of Appeals' view, interfered with his liberty in the course of the eviction, the Fourth Amendment offered no protection against the grave deprivation of property that had occurred. 20 Soldal, 506 U.S. at 60, 113 S.Ct. 538 (citations omitted). 21 In rejecting the Seventh Circuit's interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court held that the Amendment protects property as well as privacy. Id. Responding to the argument that, after Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967) and Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974), the Fourth Amendment is only marginally concerned with property rights, the Court stated that the message of those cases is that property rights are not the sole measure of Fourth Amendment violations. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 64, 113 S.Ct. 538. 6 Moreover, the Court rejected the claim that any of the Court's prior cases supports the view that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures of property only where privacy or liberty is also implicated. Id. at 65, 113 S.Ct. 538. The Court also rejected the view that the Fourth Amendment protects only against seizures that are the outcome of a search, holding that seizures of property are subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny even though no search within the meaning of the Amendment has taken place. Id. at 68, 113 S.Ct. 538. Putting forth a rather expansive interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, the Court in Soldal declared that its purpose was to protect the people from governmental interference: 22 In our view, the reason why an officer might enter a house or effectuate a seizure is wholly irrelevant to the threshold question whether the Amendment applies. What matters is the intrusion on the people's security from governmental interference. Therefore, the right against unreasonable seizures would be no less transgressed if the seizure of the house was undertaken to ... effect an eviction by the police. ... 23 Id. at 69, 113 S.Ct. 538 (emphasis added). 24 Applying this broad interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, the Court found that the action that dispossessed the Soldals of their trailer home by physically tearing it from its foundation and towing it to another lot implicated the interests of the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected the Seventh Circuit's view that because the Soldals' claim was more akin to a challenge against the deprivation of property without due process of law than against an unreasonable seizure ... they should not be allowed to bring their suit under the guise of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 70, 113 S.Ct. 538. Rather, the Court, citing Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), found no basis for doling out constitutional protections in such fashion and that [c]ertain wrongs affect more than a single right and accordingly, can implicate more than one of the Constitution's commands. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 70, 113 S.Ct. 538. 7 The Court also found exaggerated the concern that its expanded interpretation of the Fourth Amendment would federalize areas of law traditionally the concern of the States. Id. at 71, 113 S.Ct. 538. Noting that `reasonableness is still the ultimate standard' under the Fourth Amendment, the Court observed that had the ejection in this case properly awaited the state court's judgment it is quite unlikely that the federal court would have been bothered with a § 1983 action alleging a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. Accordingly, the Court believed that reaffirmance of Fourth Amendment principles should not foment a wave of new litigation in the federal courts. Id. at 72, 113 S.Ct. 538. 25 2. Plaintiffs were deprived of clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment 26 The question before us is whether the Supreme Court in Jacobsen and Soldal clearly established that a seizure of property within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment occurs when governmental agents enforce an illegal eviction by forcing a tenant to vacate his or her residence, but otherwise do not assist in physically taking over or moving the premises? When a governmental agent carries out an eviction without a court order and in the absence of any colorable legal authority, this question must be answered affirmatively. As the Court stated in Jacobsen, there is some meaningful interference with a tenant's possessory interest in his or her property, however brief, when a governmental agent removes a tenant from his or her residence, whether a home or apartment. Soldal reiterated this point. Simply put, Soldal does not require that the meaningful interference by governmental agents actually involve the physical seizure of the property in question; rather, to constitute a seizure of property within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, it is enough that the governmental agent's action amounted to meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Escorting tenants from their residences in the course of effectuating an eviction, as in this case, satisfies the requirement of meaningful interference with their leasehold interest so as to amount to a seizure of their property. In this regard, the lack of physical force is not terribly germane inasmuch as the police effectuated the eviction by the very apparent and not too subtle threat of physical force and dire legal consequences should the tenants not comply with the officers' instructions to vacate the property. Under the facts of this case, Plaintiffs therefore had a clearly established right to be free from such unconstitutional seizures. Haverstick Enters., Inc. v. Fin. Federal Credit, Inc., 32 F.3d 989, 994 (6th Cir.1994). 27 Defendants attempt to distinguish the instant case from Soldal by arguing that they only helped to resolve a garden-variety landlord-tenant dispute, which would not constitute a seizure. However, Defendants have cited out of context the following language in the conclusion to Justice White's opinion in Soldal: 28 The complaint here alleges that respondents, acting under color of state law, dispossessed the Soldals of their trailer home by physically tearing it from its foundation and towing it to another lot. Taking these allegations as true, this was no garden-variety landlord-tenant or commercial dispute. The facts alleged suffice to constitute a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, for they plainly implicate the interests protected by that provision. 29 506 U.S. at 72, 113 S.Ct. 538. This closing passage is merely intended to highlight the egregious violation in that case; it does not stand for the proposition that an act must embody physical displacement of property in order to constitute a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. As we have previously recognized, 30 [w]hile the [ Soldal ] Court was not creating new substantive Fourth Amendment law, it stated in no uncertain terms that the right against unreasonable seizures is transgressed if the seizure of the house was undertaken to collect evidence, verify compliance with a housing regulation, effect an eviction by the police, or on a whim, for no reason at all. 31 Flatford v. City of Monroe, 17 F.3d 162, 170 n. 8 (6th Cir.1994) (emphasis added) (quoting Soldal, 506 U.S. at 69, 113 S.Ct. 538). Thus, it is apparent that the Supreme Court foresaw a spectrum of potential deprivations of possessory interests in property. 32 Moreover, the method of interference need not be factually on all fours with Soldal in order for a seizure to have occurred. 8 As the Anderson Court made clear, it is not necessary that the very action in question has been previously held unlawful. 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034. Rather, what is required is only that [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Id. 33 Forcible eviction of tenants, even if in a more peaceful or traditional manner than in Soldal, is by its very nature a meaningful interference with their possessory interests and is therefore no less a deprivation of their constitutional rights when carried out by law enforcement officers in the absence of a legal basis for doing so. The Soldal Court emphasized that `at the very core' of the Fourth Amendment `stands the right of a [person] to retreat into [her] own home,' id. at 61, 113 S.Ct. 538 (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)), thereby giving us every reason to regard the deprivation of Plaintiffs' possessory interests in their residence as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. To hold otherwise in the context now presented would constitute a departure from precedent. Indeed, we have previously found that mere damage to property inside a home may constitute a meaningful interference with possessory rights. See, e.g., Bonds v. Cox, 20 F.3d 697, 701-02 (6th Cir.1994) (holding that, under Soldal, damage to a house, including broken doors, mutilated vinyl siding, broken desks, and holes in walls, rises to the level of meaningful interference with one's possessory interests). 34 Finally, the seizure of Plaintiffs' possessory interest in their residence implicates the interests of privacy, security and liberty underlying the Fourth Amendment. See Thomas K. Clancy, What Does The Fourth Amendment Protect: Property, Privacy, or Security, 33 Wake Forest L. Rev 307 (1998); Morgan Cloud, The Fourth Amendment During the Lochner Era: Privacy, Property and Liberty in Constitutional Theory, 48 Stan. L. Rev. 555 (1996); William C. Heffernan, Property, Privacy, and The Fourth Amendment, 60 Brook. L. Rev. 633 (1994). First, a tenant has a privacy interest at stake in his or her leasehold. As the Court has stated, the legitimation of expectations of privacy must have a source outside the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978). Because the right to exclude others is one of the main rights attaching to property, tenants in lawful possession of a home or apartment generally have a legitimate expectation of privacy by virtue of having a property interest in a specific piece of real estate. 9 Further, tenants, like all people, enjoy the Fourth Amendment right ... to be secure in their ... houses. The personal security of tenants is thus threatened when they cannot control their possessions free from unreasonable governmental inference, whether or not these possessions are characterized as real or personal property. Finally, the liberty interest of tenants in controlling their possessions and in being left alone in their own homes would be severely compromised if people were not free from unreasonable governmental interference. 35 Therefore, assuming that Plaintiffs in the instant case were residents of the Augusta House, it is clear that their possessory interests in their place of residence were meaningfully interfered with when the officers deprived Plaintiffs of their place of residence, thus effectuating a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 3. The seizure was objectively unreasonable 36 However, this finding does not end our inquiry. In order to be actionable, a seizure must also be objectively unreasonable. See Soldal, 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. 538 (noting that `reasonableness is still the ultimate standard' under the Fourth Amendment) (quoting Camara, 387 U.S. at 539, 87 S.Ct. 1727). A determination of reasonableness requires a careful balancing of governmental and private interests. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. 538 (citing New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 341, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985)). Under this standard, most eviction-type seizures will not be found unconstitutional. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. 538. But upon reviewing the series of events that transpired in the case at bar, we find that Defendants' actions cannot be deemed objectively reasonable. Instead, it seems that the officers executed a seizure in the absence of objectively reasonable grounds for doing so. Id. at 72, 113 S.Ct. 538. 37 Zinious, the Augusta House director, called the police to the scene complaining of problems with Plaintiffs. She told the officers that the Augusta House was a transitional shelter and that Plaintiffs were residents at the shelter who did not pay rent. She also claimed that Plaintiffs had violated the Augusta House rules by possessing contraband and physically threatening other residents. Zinious further represented that she had asked Plaintiffs to leave for the previous two weeks but that they had refused to do so and that an eviction under these circumstances was standard procedure. Defendants claim that it was reasonable for them to rely on Zinious' representations and carry out the eviction. But this assertion is implausible. The officers did not undertake any effort to determine whether Plaintiffs were indeed residents who paid rent and had a right to be on the premises. They never asked Zinious if she had any legal authority to evict Plaintiffs and they knew that she did not have a court order. Despite efforts by at least one Plaintiff to provide documentation supporting their legal right to reside at the Augusta House, the officers ignored Plaintiffs' pleas and escorted them from the premises. 38 The Supreme Court recognized in Soldal that a showing of unreasonableness where officers act pursuant to a judicial order would be a laborious task indeed. 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. 538. In addition, we have previously held that a police officer's mere presence as a civil standby to observe and maintain the peace at a lawful statutory repossession entitles a defendant to qualified immunity. Haverstick Enterprises, Inc. v. Financial Federal Credit, Inc., 32 F.3d 989 (6th Cir.1994); see also Apostol v. Landau, 957 F.2d 339 (7th Cir.1992); but cf. Quinones v. Tentler, No. 00-C-5294, 2001 WL 681274 (N.D.Ill.2001) (holding that police officers who threatened a tenant with arrest at the request of an evicting landlord had perpetrated a seizure of property in violation of the Fourth Amendment). However, in the instant case, Defendants' involvement was neither brief nor passive; rather, they actively participated in the illegal seizure. The officers acted without a warrant or other court order legitimating their conduct and blindly carried out Zinious' wishes by forcing Plaintiffs to leave their place of residence. See Open Inns, Ltd. v. Chester County Sheriff's Dep't, 24 F.Supp.2d 410 (E.D.Pa.1998). In addition, Defendants admit that the local sheriff's department, not Louisville police officers, are charged with the task of enforcing judicial eviction orders. Furthermore, Defendants do not claim that exigent circumstances existed that would have justified the eviction. At any rate, despite Zinious' allegations of physical threats, there is no evidence that Plaintiffs posed an immediate harm to themselves or to others such as would warrant their removal from the premises. Cf. Flatford, 17 F.3d at 170-71 (holding that police officers who assisted in evicting tenants were entitled to qualified immunity because they reasonably presumed the validity of a building inspector's determination that exigent circumstances existed which posed a danger to tenants). 39 From the standpoint of objective legal reasonableness, then, Defendants are not entitled to the protection of qualified immunity providing them with immunity from this lawsuit. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727). Here, Defendants were informed that Plaintiffs were legal residents of the house, having keys to the premises and paying rent for their individual rooms. Further, Defendants were provided with documentation establishing that Plaintiffs were tenants under Kentucky law. Defendants also knew or should have known that a court order is needed to perform an eviction. Further, Defendants were aware that the Sheriff's Department, not the police, carried out court-ordered evictions in Louisville. Moreover, there were no emergency or exigent circumstances. Based upon the foregoing facts, Defendants could not have had a reasonable belief that they could legally evict Plaintiffs from the Augusta House. 40 Finally, a balancing of the governmental and private interests at stake makes the unreasonableness of the seizure plain. I agree with the district court that, absent a court order or exigency, the government's interest in evicting Plaintiffs from their home was minimal at best, especially in comparison to Plaintiffs' private interest in retaining possessory rights to their place of residence. The officers therefore subjected Plaintiffs to an unreasonable seizure in deprivation of their Fourth Amendment rights. 41