Opinion ID: 3010828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: fourth amendment reasonableness vs. the

Text: STATE LAW REASONABLE PERSON STANDARD Finally, we will reverse the district court's ruling insofar _________________________________________________________________ 9. Although the plaintiffs waived their jury trial rights, we nevertheless note that the district court misapplied our statement in Bolden when it concluded that there were no factual issues for the jury to decide. The fact that reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is a legal issue does not make all issues under the Fourth Amendment legal in nature. For example, in Dykes v. SEPTA, 68 F.3d 1564, 1568 (3d Cir. 1995), we addressed a claim that SEPTA had violated its own drug-testing policy by testing the plaintiff without reasonable suspicion. Reiterating our statement in Bolden, we held that the specific question of whether SEPTA had reasonable suspicion to test the plaintiff (i.e. evidence that he might be using drugs) was factual. See 68 F.3d at 1567. Thus, our statement in Bolden applied only to the ultimate determination of whether SODAT's drug testing procedure qualified as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, not to any determination of the factual elements of that procedure. 21 as it equated the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard with the much different common law reasonable person standard. Invasion of privacy is a tort claim under state law. Delaware adopted the Restatement of Tort's definition of this claim in Barbieri v. News-Journal Co., 189
plaintiffs can prove a common law invasion of privacy if they show that defendants intentionally intruded on the firefighters' physical solitude or private affairs or concerns in such a manner that a reasonable person wouldfind highly offensive. (Restatement (Second) of Torts, S 652B (1977)). See also Barker v. Huang, 610 A.2d 1341, 1350 (Del. 1992). The district court concluded that since it had ruled against plaintiffs on their constitutional claim, it could not possibly find in their favor on their state law invasion of privacy claim. Even assuming that the monitors intruded upon the firefighters' solitude, the Court has determined that the collection procedures used by SODAT were reasonable under constitutional principles. Wilcher, 924 F.Supp. at 619. The district court's assumption that reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is analogous to a reasonable person standard under state common law is erroneous. A state may provide its citizens with greater protection of their individual rights than does the federal constitution. For example, in Kelley v. Schlumberger Technology Corp., 849 F.2d 41 (1st Cir. 1988), the court struck down a drug testing procedure because it violated the state constitution. Moreover, it is beyond argument that a district court cannot, a fortiori, apply a federal standard of law to a cause of action grounded in the common law of the state in which it sits. See Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938). Hence, the trial court incorrectly concluded, as a matter of law, that a reasonable Delawarean could not find the drug testing procedure highly offensive, simply because the test might have passed muster under the Fourth Amendment.10 We will therefore remand this issue _________________________________________________________________ 10. The district court also dismissed the plaintiffs' invasion of privacy claims because, the `intrusion into physical solitude' claimed by the 22 to the district court to determine whether the reasonable person standard under Delaware common law wouldfind the practices employed by SODAT highly offensive.11