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

Heading: Deprivation of Fourteenth Amendment Rights

Text: 42 Defendants also dispute the district court's holding that the non-judicial eviction constituted a denial of Plaintiffs' rights to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that [n]o State shall deprive... any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend XIV. Procedural due process claims are examined under a two-part analysis. First, the court must determine whether the interest at stake is a protected liberty or property right under the Fourteenth Amendment. Only after identifying such a right do we continue to consider whether the deprivation of that interest contravened notions of due process. See Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570-71, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972); Kentucky Dep't of Corrs. v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 332, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976); Ferencz v. Hairston, 119 F.3d 1244, 1247 (6th Cir.1997); Tony L. v. Childers, 71 F.3d 1182 (6th Cir.1995). Property interests are not created by the Constitution. Cleveland v. Bd. of Educ. of Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985). Instead, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.... Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701; see also Verba v. Ohio Cas. Ins. Co., 851 F.2d 811, 813 (6th Cir.1988). Under Kentucky law, tenants holding leasehold estates have a recognized property interest. See K.R.S. § 383.590. Thus, Plaintiffs have a recognized property interest for Fourteenth Amendment purposes. 43
44 It is well-established that possessory interests in property invoke procedural due process protections. See Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 87, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972). Due process generally requires notice and a hearing prior to eviction. 10 Id. at 82, 92 S.Ct. 1983; Leary v. Daeschner, 228 F.3d 729, 742 (6th Cir.2000) (When a plaintiff has a protected property interest, a predeprivation hearing of some sort is generally required to satisfy the dictates of due process.); see also United States v. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. 43, 53, 114 S.Ct. 492, 126 L.Ed.2d 490 (1993) (The right to prior notice and a hearing is central to the Constitution's command of due process.). 45 The Supreme Court has recognized, however, that extraordinary situations, where a valid governmental interest exists, may justify postponement of such a hearing until after eviction. Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 80-81, 92 S.Ct. 1983. A prior hearing is not constitutionally required where there is a special need for very prompt action to secure an important public interest and where a governmental official is responsible for determining, under the standards of a narrowly drawn statute, that it was necessary and justified in a particular instance. Flatford, 17 F.3d at 167 (citing Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 91, 92 S.Ct. 1983). In Flatford, we rejected a due process claim alleging a lack of predeprivation process in connection with the emergency evacuation of tenants. We held that, although an emergency eviction from one's home is a significant intrusion, where the need to protect lives is the basis for such an intrusion, government officials should not be made to hesitate in performing their duties, particularly where postdeprivation remedies can immediately correct any errors in judgment. Flatford, 17 F.3d at 168. However, we emphasized that tenants are generally entitled to pre-eviction judicial oversight in the absence of emergency circumstances. Id. at 170. 46 In the case at bar, Defendants have neither claimed, nor have they pointed to any evidence that would tend to prove, that exigent circumstances existed to justify Plaintiffs' eviction. Yet, the officers unceremoniously dispossessed Plaintiffs of their place of residence without affording them an opportunity to be heard at any type of predeprivation hearing. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 62, 113 S.Ct. 538. It is extraordinary here that the plaintiffs were put to such an indignity utterly without cause or reason, and [D]efendants have not even attempted to suggest a governmental or private interest amounting to `exigent circumstances.' Sallie v. Tax Sale Investors, Inc., 998 F.Supp. 612, 619-20 (D.Md. 1998). Thus, it seems that Plaintiffs' rights to procedural due process have been violated. See Richmond Tenants Org., Inc. v. Kemp, 956 F.2d 1300, 1307 (4th Cir.1992) (holding that, absent exigent circumstances, no-notice evictions violate due process). However, Defendants dispute this result for several reasons, each of which we find meritless. 47 Defendants contend that Good Real Prop. and Flatford are inapplicable to the instant case because in those cases, the government was attempting to assert its own interest in property via civil forfeiture and condemnation proceedings, while in the instant case the shelter manager was asserting the shelter's right to control its property. Yet, they cite no reason why this Court should analyze the instant context any differently. Defendants also argue that, as government actors, they were neither bound by Kentucky's prohibition on self-help evictions, nor were they authorized under that statute to resolve the dispute through predeprivation judicial process. However, this does not mean that the officers could have done through means of government authority what Laura Zinious could not have done absent a judicial eviction order. Officers should at least be expected to refrain from actively participating in breaking the law. See Abbott v. Latshaw, 164 F.3d 141, 146 (3d Cir.1998) (holding that a plaintiff had a valid procedural due process claim under similar circumstances). 48
49 Defendants also claim that Plaintiffs' claims should not be considered under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, and that our attention should be focused on what Defendants term the more specific Fourth Amendment standards. Defendants argue that they merely exercised a type of discretion akin to a determination of probable cause and not a decision to interfere with Plaintiffs' possessory interests in property. They note that had Plaintiffs been arrested for trespass, the issue for consideration would be whether there was probable cause to effectuate such an arrest. Therefore, they contend that only Plaintiffs' rights against an unreasonable seizure are implicated. We find no merit to this argument. 50 The Supreme Court has rejected the notion that the applicability of one constitutional amendment preempts the guarantees of another. Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 49, 114 S.Ct. 492. In Soldal, the Supreme Court recognized that [c]ertain wrongs affect more than a single right and, accordingly, can implicate more than one of the Constitution's commands. Where such multiple violations are alleged, we are not in the habit of identifying as a preliminary matter the claim's `dominant' character. Rather, we examine each constitutional provision in turn. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 70, 113 S.Ct. 538; Bonds, 20 F.3d at 702. 51 As both the district court and Plaintiffs correctly note, Defendants seem to misconstrue the distinction between procedural and substantive due process analyses. While procedural due process ensures that citizens have procedural safeguards prior to deprivation of rights, substantive due process limits the impingement of certain fundamental rights regardless of process. Bartell v. Lohiser, 215 F.3d 550, 557 (6th Cir.2000). Courts generally favor analyses of allegedly unconstitutional governmental acts under a specific textual right rather than under the amorphous substantive due process standard. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989); accord Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 388 (6th Cir.1999). However, because the seizure in the case at bar implicates two explicit textual sources of constitutional protection, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, the proper question is not which Amendment controls but whether either Amendment [has been] violated. Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 50, 114 S.Ct. 492. 52 Defendants do not dispute that Plaintiffs, presumed to be tenants, have rights recognized by state law. Yet, they claim that under this Court's opinion in Pyles v. Raisor, 60 F.3d 1211 (6th Cir.1995), a violation of a right conferred by state law, which is not grounded in the federal constitution, does not, by itself, state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants' Br. at 18. However, Pyles is totally inapposite. In that case we held that an arrestee could not recover under § 1983 for an arrest which violated Kentucky law, but which was supported by probable cause, because such an arrest did not implicate any federal constitutional right. But, inasmuch as an interference with Plaintiffs' state-recognized leasehold property interests constitutes a violation of their rights to procedural due process and freedom from unreasonable seizures, a federal constitutional right is clearly implicated in the instant case. 11
53 Defendants further contend that the existence of postdeprivation remedies for eviction under Kentucky law satisfies the requirements of due process and a lack of predeprivation process is therefore not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this argument, Defendants point to the Eighth Circuit's decision in Reese v. Kennedy, 865 F.2d 186 (8th Cir.1989). In Reese, an unmarried couple shared a home for two years. The couple shared bills, but the deed to the house was in the male defendant's name, and he made the mortgage payments. At some point, Reese, his female companion, agreed to move out as soon as she was financially able. But before she could do so, the defendant, who was out of town at the time, called police officers to remove her from the home. Two officers spoke to the couple's neighbors and then asked Reese to leave. The officers prevented her from retrieving any of her belongings. Reese filed a § 1983 action against the officers and others. The district court rejected Reese's procedural due process claim and the court of appeals affirmed, holding that because the state provided adequate postdeprivation remedies for wrongful eviction, no due process violation had occurred. Reese, 865 F.2d at 187. 54 On appeal, Defendants rely upon Reese for the proposition that a § 1983 action may not lie under a procedural due process theory. Needless to say, we are not bound by a decision from another circuit. See In re Ann Arbor R.R. Co., 623 F.2d 480, 482 (6th Cir.1980). In addition, subsequent cases lead us to a different conclusion than the one Defendants advocate. First, Reese was decided prior to Soldal, Good Real Prop. and Flatford. Its continuing relevance is therefore doubtful. Furthermore, in deciding Reese, the Eighth Circuit relied upon an outdated interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). In Parratt, a prisoner sued a state employee who negligently lost materials the prisoner had ordered by mail. Although finding that the prisoner had suffered a deprivation of property interests within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court held that all the process due for such random and unauthorized conduct was provided under state tort law. In Reese, the Eighth Circuit held that an extrajudicial police eviction was the type of random conduct at issue in Parratt. However, this reading of Parratt has since been called into question. In Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 136, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990), the Supreme Court declined to extend the random and unauthorized conduct standard to situations where a deprivation of rights is predictable. Instead, the Court recognized that Parratt presented a special case ... in which postdeprivation tort remedies are all the process that is due, simply because they are the only remedies the State could be expected to provide. 55 Based upon the reasoning in Zinermon, we recognized in Flatford that a citizen has no cause of action under § 1983 for due process violations where state tort law furnishes all appropriate process, or where the deprivation cannot be predicted. Flatford, 17 F.3d at 168. However, we determined in that case that postdeprivation state tort remedies are neither timely nor sufficiently remedial for emergency evacuees because [f]undamental fairness expects more than mere tort remedies where [the] government dispossesses its citizens from their homes. Id at 169. It would therefore stand to reason that state tort remedies are likewise insufficient in situations where, as here, there is no emergency. 56 To be sure, in Flatford we did not require predeprivation process; rather we held that the state was required to provide an immediate and meaningful postdeprivation administrative process, including notice of the right to an administrative hearing and direction as to the procedure for administrative review. However, we reached this result only because the existence of exigent circumstances made predeprivation process impractical. Our holding was based upon the rationale that  emergency evacuations ... are not so rare that city officials cannot prepare for advising emergency evacuees of their right to an administrative hearing as similarly provided to landlords. Id. at 168 (emphasis added). Conversely, in the instant case no exigent circumstances were present. Furthermore, Kentucky law provides for judicial predeprivation process prior to evictions. Therefore, the instant case is factually distinguishable from situations such as those in Parratt in which the deprivation is unpredictable and predeprivation process is impractical. 57 The Supreme Court has recognized that the right to maintain control over [one's] home, and to be free from governmental interference, is a private interest of historic and continuing importance. Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 44, 114 S.Ct. 492. The government's interest in enforcing a landlord's unauthorized directives pales in comparison to the importance of Plaintiffs' interest in maintaining possessory rights to their place of residence. Therefore, postdeprivation remedies of any sort would be inadequate. Instead, we believe that given the magnitude of the indignity and the loss of personalty attendant to an eviction without notice, it is indisputable that [P]laintiffs are entitled to insist upon a genuine effort to provide notice having a substantial degree of effectiveness at a meaningful time prior to eviction. Sallie, 998 F.Supp. at 620.