Opinion ID: 1459439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Entry and Search of Club Retro

Text: Based on the allegations of the amended complaint, we conclude that defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity for their entry and search of Club Retro because the unreasonable scope and manner of Operation Retro-Fit violated Club Retro, L.L.C.'s clearly established constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. [6]
As alleged in the amended complaint, the entry and search of Club Retro violated Club Retro, L.L.C.'s Fourth Amendment right to operate its commercial property free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment ensures that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause. The Supreme Court long ago recognized that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is applicable to commercial premises. New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 699, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987). Absent a warrant, consent, or other exigent circumstances, law enforcement officers act unreasonably and thus unconstitutionally when they enter a commercial property to conduct a search for contraband or evidence of a crime. Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 598 n. 6, 101 S.Ct. 2534, 69 L.Ed.2d 262 (1981) (citing G.M. Leasing Corp., 429 U.S. at 352-59, 97 S.Ct. 619). Defendants do not argue that they acted pursuant to a warrant, probable cause, or exigent circumstances; instead, they base the reasonableness of their entry and search of Club Retro on two alternative theories: (1) that they had the same right to enter the club as any other patron, and (2) that they conducted a permissible administrative inspection. Neither theory renders Operation Retro-Fit a reasonable search, and precedent existing at the time of the searches shows that it was unreasonable.
We are not convinced by defendants' argument that they had the same right to enter the club as any other patron. Although defendants would have been free to accept the open public invitation that Club Retro gives to every patron, enter Club Retro, and observe the club and persons therein, defendants' entry and search of Club Retro and its owners, employees, and patrons far exceeded the scope of any public invitation. In Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966), the Supreme Court held that [a] government agent, in the same manner as a private person, may accept an invitation to do business and may enter upon the premises for the very purposes contemplated by the occupant. Id. at 211, 87 S.Ct. 424. This is not an unbounded grant of authority, however: this does not mean that, whenever entry is obtained by invitation and the locus is characterized as a place of business, an agent is authorized to conduct a general search for incriminating materials .... Id. (citing Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. 298, 41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647 (1921)); accord State v. Lund, 409 So.2d 569, 570 (La.1982) (upholding an arrest where officers entered a club and only then became inadvertent witnesses to criminal conduct). The principal case relied on by defendants, State v. Dobard, 824 So.2d 1127 (La.2002), describes some boundaries and supports our conclusion. In Dobard, police officers entered a bar wearing plainclothes for the purpose of conducting a vice check. Id. at 1129. After announcing their presence and approaching a patron, that patron acted suspiciously by visibly discarding an object in his possession and retreating from the officers. Id. The officers seized the patron and retrieved the object, which they later confirmed to be crack cocaine. Id. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the resulting arrest: the officers had specific, articulable facts justifying the seizure of the defendant. Id. at 1133. As permitted by Lewis, the officers' presence in the bar was constitutional: a police officer may accept a bar's invitation to the public and enter for any reason or no reason. Dobard, 824 So.2d at 1132. [T]he officers were in a place they had a right to be and possessed the same right as any citizen to approach an individual and engage him in conversation. Id. The Louisiana court, however, narrowly limited the scope of this holding. It held that the officers had no authority whatsoever to enter a bar and search its patrons for narcotics. Id. at 1131. Had the officers been searching defendant's person for narcotics based solely on the fact it [sic] was conducting a so-called `vice check,' then any contraband recovered would clearly be inadmissible in a subsequent prosecution. Id. It also noted that the officers had not drawn their weapons, physically contacted defendant, ordered or signaled him to stop, or otherwise asserted any official authority over him when he panicked and discarded the contraband. Id. at 1132-33 (citations omitted). Thus, accepting a public invitation is permissible, but, absent cause, does not justify searches once inside the commercial establishment. It is clear from these qualifications that defendants in this case could not reasonably rely on Dobard to justify the scope of Operation Retro-Fit. Taking plaintiffs' factual allegations as true, defendants did not enter Club Retro as would a typical patron; instead, they chose to project official authority by entering with weapons drawn in a S.W.A.T. team raid. They lacked any particularized suspicion or probable cause when they subsequently searched Club Retro, its attic, and the separate apartment and seized and searched all of its patrons and employees. Thus, defendants' entry and search was not a reasonable acceptance of Club Retro's invitation to the public. Any other conclusion would be an invitation for S.W.A.T. team raids by law enforcement officers of any business that is open to the public and would severely undermine the Fourth Amendment protections afforded to owners of commercial premises.
We are likewise not convinced by defendants' second argument that they conducted a permissible administrative inspection. Although Louisiana statutes and Rapides Parish ordinances authorizing administrative inspections may have provided justification for an entry and inspection of Club Retro, no such law permits the scope and manner of the raid that plaintiffs allege occurred here. It is true that a commercial property owner's Fourth Amendment rights are particularly attenuated in commercial property employed in `closely regulated' industries. Burger, 482 U.S. at 700, 107 S.Ct. 2636. The liquor industry has been a closely regulated industry. Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72, 77, 90 S.Ct. 774, 25 L.Ed.2d 60 (1970). The owner of a liquor establishment's attenuated Fourth Amendment interests may, in certain circumstances, be adequately protected by regulatory schemes authorizing warrantless inspections. Donovan, 452 U.S. at 599, 101 S.Ct. 2534; Colonnade Catering Corp., 397 U.S. at 77, 90 S.Ct. 774; see also Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654-55, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979); Bruce, 498 F.3d at 1248 (Under certain limited circumstances, the Constitution permits warrantless administrative searches. It never permits unreasonable ones.). To avoid constitutional infirmity, a regulation providing for warrantless inspections of a pervasively regulated business must meet three criteria: (1) there must be a `substantial' government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made; (2) the warrantless inspections must be `necessary to further [the] regulatory scheme'; and (3) `the statute's inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, [must] provid[e] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.' Burger, 482 U.S. at 702-03, 107 S.Ct. 2636 (alterations in original, citations omitted). Only the third criterion is at issue in this case. To satisfy this third criterion, the regulatory statute must perform the two basic functions of a warrant: it must advise the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting officers. Id. at 703, 107 S.Ct. 2636. To put the owner on proper notice under the first function, the statute must be `sufficiently comprehensive and defined that the owner of commercial property cannot help but be aware that his property will be subject to periodic inspections undertaken for specific purposes.' Id. (quoting Donovan, 452 U.S. at 600, 101 S.Ct. 2534). To limit officer discretion under the second function, the regulation must carefully limit authorized inspections `in time, place, and scope.' Id. (quoting United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 315, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972)); see also United States v. Harris Methodist Ft. Worth, 970 F.2d 94, 101-02 (5th Cir.1992). Even under a valid inspection regime, the administrative search cannot be pretextual. See Burger, 482 U.S. at 724, 107 S.Ct. 2636 (In the law of administrative searches, one principle emerges with unusual clarity and unanimous acceptance: the government may not use an administrative inspection scheme to search for criminal violations.); see also, e.g., City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000); Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217, 226, 80 S.Ct. 683, 4 L.Ed.2d 668 (1960); United States v. Johnson, 994 F.2d 740, 742 (10th Cir.1993) (holding that an administrative inspection is a sham if it is a pretext solely to gather evidence of criminal activity. (emphasis added)). [7] And, in all cases, the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement applies to government officials conducting administrative inspections of private commercial property. See Burger, 482 U.S. at 702, 107 S.Ct. 2636; Donovan, 452 U.S. at 598, 101 S.Ct. 2534. Defendants propose a number of state statutes and local ordinances to justify their entry and search of Club Retro as an administrative inspection: alcohol control laws and ordinances, fire safety codes, and state firearm laws. Louisiana law authorizes sheriffs and other municipal officers to enforce alcohol control laws [8] with respect to retailers. See LA.REV.STAT. ANN. § 26:294. Louisiana statutes and Rapides Parish Ordinances also provide for administrative inspections: [M]unicipal authorities, sheriffs, and other law enforcing officers shall have periodic investigations made of the business of all permittees within their respective jurisdictions. If any violation [of the liquor laws] is observed, such authorities may give the permittee a written warning. If the permittee has been previously warned or if the violation is of a sufficiently serious nature, they shall file an affidavit with the commissioner, setting forth the facts and circumstances of the violation. Thereupon, the commissioner shall summon the permittee to appear and show cause why his permit should not be suspended or revoked. LA.REV.STAT. ANN. § 26:93(B); see also RAPIDES PARISH ORDINANCE 4-27. [9] In addition, separate laws and ordinances permit searches of storage areas (subject to strict warrant requirements for private residences and nonpublic areas) and the inspection of a liquor licensee's books. LA. REV.STAT. ANN. §§ 26:370, 26:371; RAPIDES PARISH ORDINANCE 4-28. [10] Louisiana law similarly authorizes local law enforcement officials to enforce the fire safety codes and the lawful orders of the state fire marshals. LA.REV.STAT. ANN. § 40:1591. Specifically, § 40:1575 [11] permits the fire marshal to inspect structures for fire code violations; when an inspector uncovers a violation, he orders the violation remedied pursuant to service and summons procedures, see id. §§ 40:1576, 40:1591. The owner of the property may appeal any such order within three days. See id. § 40:1577. Finally, Louisiana firearm laws outlaw patrons, but not owners or employees, from possessing firearms in bars, see LA. REV.STAT. ANN. § 14:95.5, and thus permit limited, presumed-consent, searches for guns of individuals who enter alcohol retailers, see LA.REV.STAT. ANN. § 14:95.4(A). Section 14:95.4(A) establishes: Any person entering an alcoholic beverage outlet as defined herein, by the fact of such entering, shall be deemed to have consented to a reasonable search of his person for any firearm by a law enforcement officer or other person vested with police power, without the necessity of a warrant. The owner of a bar must post a sign near the entranceway stating that entry constitutes consent to such a search. Id. § 14:95.4(E). These alcohol control, fire safety, and firearm laws do not authorize the entry and search alleged to have occurred during Operation Retro-Fit. Instead, these statutes and ordinances authorize and put property owners on notice of periodic inspections for compliance with the fire safety and alcohol control laws and patrons on notice of reasonable firearm searches. The administrative inspection regimes limit law enforcement authority to periodic inspections of public places and limit the inspectors' authority through defined procedures, such as various warning, petition, affidavit, summons, and warrant provisions. See, e.g., id. §§ 26:93, 26:371(B). The inspection statutes and ordinances do not grant law enforcement officers unfettered discretion to conduct searches of business premises through any means of their choosing and do not provide notice to bar owners that their business, employees, and patrons are subject to armed S.W.A.T. team raids, physical assault, threats at gunpoint, and prolonged detention. [12] Defendants conducted a S.W.A.T. team raid, blocked the exits, and engaged in a massive show of force. They physically assaulted plaintiffs, who had weapons pointed at their faces by men in ski masks and were detained for many hours without being permitted access to the restrooms. As alleged in the amended complaint, the nature of the raid's execution led employees to believe that they were being robbed by armed gunmen and not that law enforcement authorities were inspecting Club Retro for compliance with state and local ordinances. Defendants' search of Club Retro extended into the attic and a private apartment located in the building. A deputy sheriff broke down the door to that separate apartment, and the children in the room were removed to the bar to be photographed. Property in the bar was destroyed. In contrast, on at least two prior occasions, deputy sheriffs were able to inspect Club Retro without drawing their weapons and, at those times, press Lyle and Dar to close the club at 2 a.m. Those prior inspections belie the need for a S.W.A.T. team raid to effectuate the inspection statutes and ordinances. During oral argument, defendants did not attempt to justify the scope and manner of the raids as reasonable, admitting instead that reasonableness is a fact-based question for which they must defer to the allegations of the amended complaint at this stage of the litigation. Administrative inspections, by their very nature, require more limited, less intrusive conduct than is alleged to have occurred here. We thus conclude that defendants' S.W.A.T. team entries and extensive searches, as described in the amended complaint, unreasonably exceeded the scope of Louisiana and Rapides Parish administrative inspection laws. [13] Any other conclusion would allow the administrative inspection exception to swallow the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement for searches of private property. Our conclusion is supported by case law holding that an administrative inspection regime cannot support armed raids, broad searches, and extended detentions. In Swint v. City of Wadley, 51 F.3d 988 (11th Cir.1995), the Eleventh Circuit relied on existing Supreme Court precedent to reject qualified immunity as a defense for officers who conducted two raids of a nightclub that were comparable in relevant respects to the raid here. There, a S.W.A.T. team of thirty to forty officers, wearing ski masks, swarmed a club after receiving a signal from an undercover officer who had probable cause to arrest one patron for an illegal drug transaction. Id. at 993. The officers pointed their weapons at many of the club's patrons and employees; prohibited the owners, employees, and patrons from moving or leaving; searched all individuals; refused patrons' and employees' requests to use the restrooms; searched the club, its cash registers, and door receipts; and maintained control of the premises and persons for between one and one and one-half hours. Id. The court concluded that the officers could point to no authority that even suggests that the search and seizure of one suspect in a public place can be bootstrapped into probable cause for a broad-based search of the business establishment and its patrons. Id. at 997 (citing Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 100 S.Ct. 338, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979)). It also held that the raids were not administrative searches: The facts viewed favorably to plaintiffs simply will not support an administrative search theory. Administrative inspections conducted on the [c]lub and its predecessor establishment both before and after the two raids at issue in this case were accomplished without the massive show of force and excessive intrusion witnessed in the [two] raids. Moreover, during the two raids the officers did not simply search for violations of the liquor laws by the establishment; instead, a number of people were searched for evidence of their violation of drug laws, searches to which they did not consent as part of any regulatory scheme. Id. at 998. [14] In an unpublished opinion, the Sixth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in Russo v. Massullo, No. 90-3240, 1991 WL 27420 (6th Cir. Nov. 5, 1991). In Russo, the officers conducted a warrantless, armed raid of a restaurant and lounge to serve notices of noncompliance with liquor control laws and to seize two allegedly illegal video-poker gambling machines. The officers entered the lounge with shotguns and pistols drawn, pointed them at various persons, and ordered everyone to raise their hands. They then conducted pat-down searches of everyone in the lounge, after which patrons were allowed to leave. Id. at . The lounge owner and an employee were detained and forbidden from using the restroom without the accompaniment of an officer. Id. The entire incident lasted approximately two hours. Id. The court concluded that [a]lthough we agree with the defendants that they had a right to conduct an administrative inspection based on the presumptive constitutionality of the statute, we do not agree that the statute was enough to clothe in qualified immunity those actions which went beyond those specifically authorized by the statute. Id. at . Based on the facts as alleged by plaintiffs in this case, Operation Retro-Fit was broader in scope and more extreme in manner than the administrative inspection laws permit. Swint, Bruce, and Russo all concluded that similar, arguably less extreme, searches were unconstitutional under existing Supreme Court precedent. The search of Club Retro deserves to be called what it wasa raid to discover evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Such raids are not the sort of conduct that was approved by the Supreme Court in Burger.  Bruce, 498 F.3d at 1245. Operation Retro-Fit was therefore a violation of Club Retro, L.L.C.'s Fourth Amendment rights.
The Fourth Amendment rights at issue in this case were clearly established at the time of defendants' entry and search of Club Retro such that a reasonable person would have known that Operation Retro-Fit violated those rights. The Supreme Court long ago recognized that the Fourth Amendment protects the owner of a commercial establishment, even a heavily regulated one, from unreasonable intrusions onto his property by agents of the government. Donovan, 452 U.S. at 599, 101 S.Ct. 2534 (emphasis in original). This court has stood by that principle for decades. See, e.g., Harris Methodist Ft. Worth, 970 F.2d at 100-02. Existing Supreme Court precedent guided other courts of appeals to conclude that violations of clearly established rights had occurred in Swint and Russo, long before the events in this case. No reasonable deputy sheriff in defendants' positions could believe that the law permitting an official to accept a public invitation to enter a commercial establishment as would a typical citizen justifies a S.W.A.T. team assault by forty armed officers with weapons drawn and a full search without a warrant that is supported by probable cause. Similarly, no reasonable deputy sheriff in defendants' positions could have concluded that such a raidin which they, e.g., threatened individuals with weapons, threw employees to the ground, searched the attic and trashed the cash registers, broke down the door to a closed apartment, and blocked the exists to a club they believed to be overcrowded [15] was a lawful, warrantless administrative search to check for underage alcohol consumption or fire code violations. See Bruce, 498 F.3d at 1249-50 (Both Burger and Edmond, decided before the instant search, made clear that administrative searches are governed by the Fourth Amendment's requirement for reasonableness.); Showers v. Spangler, 182 F.3d 165, 173 (3d Cir. 1999) (holding that the officer's planning and execution of an exhaustive search of plaintiff's business had all the hallmarks of a purely criminal investigation that violated the law barring random and extensive administrative searches [that] had been clearly established since at least the Burger case in 1987); Swint, 51 F.3d at 998 (No reasonable officer in the defendants' position could have believed that these were lawful, warrantless administrative searches.); Russo, 1991 WL 27420, at  ([A]t the time of the search, it was clearly established that even where a legislative body provides for an administrative inspection of a liquor establishment without consent, but has `made no rules governing the procedure that inspectors must follow, the Fourth Amendment and its restrictive rules apply.' (quoting Colonnade Catering Corp., 397 U.S. at 77, 90 S.Ct. 774)). Thus, we affirm the district court's order denying qualified immunity for defendants' planning, approval, and execution of Operation Retro-Fit as it respects the entry into and search of Club Retro.