Opinion ID: 799829
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Warrantless Search Claims of Stol, Ray, and Werksma

Text: The Stols, Ray, and Werksma claim that their consent allowing Bartok and White into their homes to inspect their water meters was involuntary, resulting in an illegal search prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. Defendants claim their actions are protected by qualified immunity. The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials `from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). The Supreme Court has laid out a two-step inquiry to determine if qualified immunity protects an official's actions: (1) whether, [t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, ... the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right[], and (2) whether that right was clearly established. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), overruled on other grounds by Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808. Courts may exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808.
The right at issue is the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. Amend. IV. [A] search conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is `per se unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.' Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973) (omission in original) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)). One of these specifically established exceptions is a search pursuant to consent, which must be voluntarily given. Id. [W]hether a consent to a search was in fact `voluntary' or was the product of duress or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances. Id. at 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041. This includes considering the characteristics of the individual giving consent, such as age, intelligence, and education; whether the questioner engaged in coercive or punishing conduct; and the presence of more subtle forms of coercion that might flaw an individual's judgment. United States v. Beauchamp, 659 F.3d 560, 572 (6th Cir. 2011) (alteration, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted). The government bears the burden of proving, through clear and positive testimony[,] that the consent to search was given voluntarily. Id. at 571 (internal quotation marks omitted). Plaintiff Werksma has failed to state a Fourth Amendment claim. Werksma himself stated that he voluntarily let Bartok and White into his home. Though Werksma also testified that he felt anxious because he believed the city was eliminating jobs, he did not act under any threats or other coercive tactics. He has shown nothing more than that he acted voluntarily in a manner least likely to endanger his job. As the Supreme Court has noted, the question is not whether the [individual] acted in her ultimate self-interest, but whether she acted voluntarily. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 559, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). The Stols and Ray, however, claim to have consented only after Bartok threatened their employment. Karen Stol testified that she refused Bartok and White entry a couple times and let them in only upon being informed that the matter would affect her husband's job. Ray testified that he let Bartok and White in because he was given a direct order. The Stols and Ray argue that such threats to their jobs create an issue of fact as to whether consent was voluntary. We do not express an opinion on whether the alleged action constitutes coercion within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and decide the issue on grounds that the law was not clearly established.
For a right to be clearly established, [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). It is important to emphasize that this inquiry `must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition.' Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198, 125 S.Ct. 596, 160 L.Ed.2d 583 (2004) (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151). The general proposition, for example, that an unreasonable search or seizure violates the Fourth Amendment is of little help in determining whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2084, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (citing Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201-02, 121 S.Ct. 2151). Thus, [t]he relevant, dispositive inquiry ... is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (citing Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999)). We look first to the decisions of the Supreme Court, and then to the case law of this circuit in determining whether the right claimed was clearly established when the action complained of occurred. Gragg v. Ky. Cabinet for Workforce Dev., 289 F.3d 958, 964 (6th Cir. 2002) (citing Black v. Parke, 4 F.3d 442, 445 (6th Cir. 1993)). [T]he case law must `dictate, that is, truly compel (not just suggest or allow or raise a question about), the conclusion for every like-situated, reasonable government agent that what defendant is doing violates federal law in the circumstances. ' Id. (quoting Saylor v. Bd. of Educ. of Harlan Cnty., 118 F.3d 507, 515 (6th Cir. 1997)). Plaintiffs bear the burden of showing the claimed right was clearly established. Everson v. Leis, 556 F.3d 484, 494 (6th Cir. 2009). Plaintiffs cite to Uniformed Sanitation Men Ass'n, Inc., v. Commissioner of Sanitation of the City of New York, 392 U.S. 280, 88 S.Ct. 1917, 20 L.Ed.2d 1089 (1968) as the clearly established law that controls this case. There, the New York Commissioner of Investigation looked into allegations that employees of the Department of Sanitation were charging improper fees to use certain city facilities and pocketing the proceeds. The petitioners were 15 sanitation employees who were summoned before the Commissioner, and each was advised that pursuant to § 1123 of the New York City Charter, [4] if he refused to testify with respect to his official conduct or that of any other city employee on the grounds of self-incrimination, his employment and eligibility for other city employment would terminate. 392 U.S. at 282, 88 S.Ct. 1917. Twelve of the petitioners nonetheless asserted their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify, upon which they were dismissed on the explicit ground ... that they had refused to testify. Id. Three of the petitioners subjected themselves to questioning and denied the charges. They were suspended and subsequently summoned before a grand jury and asked to sign waivers of immunity, which they refused. After an administrative hearing, they were dismissed on the sole ground that they had violated § 1123 of the City Charter by refusing to sign waivers of immunity. Id. at 282-83, 88 S.Ct. 1917. The United States Supreme Court held that New York could not force the petitioners to choose between surrendering their constitutional rights or their jobs and concluded they had been wrongfully dismissed. Id. at 284-85, 88 S.Ct. 1917. Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. 273, 88 S.Ct. 1913, 20 L.Ed.2d 1082 (1968), the companion case to Uniformed Sanitation Men, involved similar facts and came to a similar conclusion. There, a police officer was summoned to testify before a grand jury and was asked to sign a waiver of immunity after being told he would be fired if he did not sign one. He refused, was given an administrative hearing, and was discharged solely for this refusal. Gardner, 392 U.S. at 274-75, 88 S.Ct. 1913. Though the Court acknowledged that one's privilege against self-incrimination can be knowingly and voluntarily waived, it concluded that the mandate of the great privilege against self-incrimination does not tolerate the attempt, regardless of its ultimate effectiveness, to coerce a waiver of the immunity it confers on penalty of the loss of employment. Id. at 279, 88 S.Ct. 1913. One more case bears mention. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 (1967), a counterpart to the aforementioned Supreme Court cases, involved police officers under investigation who were informed they could claim their privilege against self-incrimination but that refusal to answer a question would subject them to termination. The appellant officers did not claim the privilege and answered the questions, which answers then led to their criminal prosecutions and convictions. The Garrity Court held that the officers' statements were products of coercion obtained in violation of due process: The choice given petitioners was either to forfeit their jobs or to incriminate themselves. The option to lose their means of livelihood or to pay the penalty of self-incrimination is the antithesis of free choice to speak out or remain silent. That practice ... is likely to exert such pressure on an individual as to disable him from making a free and rational choice. We think the statements were infected by the coercion inherent in this scheme of questioning and cannot be sustained as voluntary under our prior decisions. 385 U.S. at 497-98, 87 S.Ct. 616 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Though Uniformed Sanitation Men and its ilk involved the Fifth Amendment rather than the Fourth, the cases may stand for the broader proposition that public employees cannot be given a stark choice between asserting a constitutional right and keeping their jobs. See Uniformed Sanitation Men, 392 U.S. at 284, 88 S.Ct. 1917 (finding that the offensive aspect of the proceedings against petitioners was that they present[ed] them with a choice between surrendering their constitutional rights or their jobs). As Garrity explained, the presentment of such a choice is coercive. [5] 385 U.S. at 497-98, 87 S.Ct. 616. The Sixth Circuit cases on this issue fall well within the clearly established law, upholding employer actions where the employees were not required to give up constitutional protections in order to keep their employment. See Wood v. Summit Cnty. Fiscal Office, 377 Fed. Appx. 512, 515 (6th Cir. 2010) (finding no Fifth Amendment violation where plaintiff was terminated after he declined to attend a disciplinary hearing even though he had been informed he would not be required to waive his Fifth Amendment privilege); Lingler v. Fechko, 312 F.3d 237, 239-40 (6th Cir. 2002) (finding no Fifth Amendment violation where police chief exacted statements from officers because there was no evidence police officers had been required to waive privilege against self-incrimination). Plaintiffs contend that Duchane and Bartok did exactly what was clearly disallowed by Uniformed Sanitation Men and Gardner: forced Plaintiffs to surrender either their constitutional rights or their jobs. However, what actually transpiredtaking Plaintiffs' version of the facts as we mustis a step removed. In order to gain access to the water meters, Bartok and White acted pursuant to a sliding scale: (1) they asked permission to inspect the meter, (2) they informed the occupant that a city ordinance gave the city the right to inspect the meter, and (3) Bartok gave a direct order as Plaintiffs' supervisor to show them the meter. Where the employee continued to refuse access, as Clemente and Dailey did, Bartok and White respected his Fourth Amendment rights and left. What is clearly established is only that public employers may not coerce their employees to abdicate their constitutional rights on pain of dismissal, and that is not what happened here. Plaintiffs cite to an Eighth Circuit case, Lesher v. Reed, 12 F.3d 148 (8th Cir. 1994), which neither is controlling nor would clearly establish the law even were it from this Circuit because it falls squarely within Uniformed Sanitation Men. There, a police officer who had a possessory interest in a dog refused to give the dog to the police department until threatened that he would be relieved of duty if he did not do so. The Eighth Circuit found that this was a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Though the court remanded for a determination on whether the warrantless seizure was justified by an exception, it noted, citing to Uniformed Sanitation Men, that the State may not coerce [public employees] into relinquishing a constitutional guarantee under threat of losing their employment. Lesher, 12 F.3d at 150. Defendants' actual conduct highlights the blurriness of the Fourth Amendment's contours in the context of an employer-employee relationship. Bartok and White acted on a gradient, applying more pressure at each step to obtain consent (simply asking, then citing to a city ordinance, then giving a direct order as supervisor), but never forced Plaintiffs to choose between letting them in or losing their jobs. Though we do not decide the issue, we note that a supervisor's direct order may be coercive in some situations, as it may be reasonable for an employee to believe that disobeying it will result in termination. The question, however, is not whether such conduct could possibly constitute a Fourth Amendment violation but whether, according to settled Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit precedent at the time, such conduct was so clearly violative of the Fourth Amendment that it is beyond debate. See al- Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2083 (We do not require a case directly on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.). Short of threatening termination, what public employers could do to obtain an employee's consent to conduct an inspection was not clearly established. Duchane and Bartok are thus entitled to qualified immunity. A Ninth Circuit decision came to the same conclusion in a somewhat analogous factual scenario. Delia v. City of Rialto, 621 F.3d 1069, 1071 (9th Cir. 2010), rev'd on other grounds, Filarsky v. Delia, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 1657, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2012), involved a firefighter, Delia, who obtained several off-duty work orders for medical reasons. The city became suspicious of Delia's frequent off-work status and retained a private attorney to investigate. At an administrative interview, the attorney asked Delia if he was undertaking any home construction projects, and Delia responded that he had purchased some rolls of insulation which were sitting, still bagged, in his house. To verify that Delia was telling the truth, the attorney tried to obtain Delia's consent to allow a battalion chief to search his home for the rolls of insulation. Id. at 1072. Delia refused. The attorney next asked if Delia would go home and bring out the rolls of insulation himself for inspection. Again, Delia refused. The attorney ultimately obtained a written order from the fire chief ordering Delia to produce the insulation for inspection, to which Delia complied. Id. at 1072-73. Delia subsequently filed a § 1983 suit claiming violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. The Ninth Circuit held that this compelled search of Delia's own home was a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. at 1075. However, the court went on to note that this case does not fit neatly into any previous category of Fourth Amendment law and decided that the right at issue was not clearly established. Id. at 1078. After reviewing the Supreme Court's decisions in Uniformed Sanitation Men and Gardner, the court concluded: Neither case involved the legality of a search under the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, neither Gardner nor Uniformed Sanitation Men would have put defendants on notice that [the fire chief's] order to Delia, with no attendant threat to his employment, constituted a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 1079. Accordingly, the fire chief who ordered Delia to comply with the inspection and the firefighters who carried it out were granted qualified immunity. Similarly, Uniformed Sanitation Men and Gardner were not sufficient to put Duchane and Bartok on notice that their progressive series of questions and orders, with no attendant threat of termination, rose to the level of a Fourth Amendment violation.