Opinion ID: 779203
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contemporaneous constitutional claims are permissible

Text: 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