Opinion ID: 1459439
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Administrative Inspections

Text: 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.