Court Opinion

ID: 9462351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:39:17.687591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:33.482819
License: Public Domain

ELY, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the result reached by Judge Weigel in his carefully studied opinion. Since I cannot agree, however, with all that Judge Weigel has written, see infra n. 5, I have concluded that I should separately state my views.
Acting under the authority conferred by Arizona’s innkeeper’s lien statutes, Alice Leland seized clothing, food, medicines, and stereo equipment that belonged to her renters, the Culbertsons, in order to satisfy rent claimed by Leland to be unpaid. Leland owned no security interest in the seized items, nor did she possess any other form of contractual right thereto. Rather, after informing the Culbertsons that they were evicted from the $20 per week room in which they had been living, she indiscriminately seized and held all of the belongings that remained in the room. By summarily depriving the Culbertsons of their property, without their consent, in order to satisfy an alleged debt, Leland performed a function that, in my view, belongs only to the state. *433The facts here presented are virtually identical to those in Hall v. Garson, 430 F.2d 430 (5th Cir. 1970), in which a landlady, acting pursuant to the Texas landlord’s lien statute, seized a television set from a tenant’s apartment in order to satisfy the landlady’s claim for unpaid rent. Reasoning that the landlady had performed a function indistinguishable from that of executing a judgment, a function that has normally and traditionally been reserved for governmental officers, the Fifth Circuit held that the landlady’s action constituted state action. 430 F.2d at 438-40.
In Adams v. Southern California First National Bank, 492 F.2d 324 (9th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1006, 95 S.Ct. 325, 42 L.Ed.2d 282 (1974), our court held that a creditor’s repossession of an automobile pursuant to the self-help provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code is not state action. In Adams, we expressly distinguished the different facts of Hall. We noted that the landlady in Hall had seized property in which she owned no interest, while in Adams, creditors had repossessed vehicles in which they held a security interest or ownership rights pursuant to an installment sales contract. Further, we observed that repossession of property by a creditor or conditional seller has long been accepted as a private remedy,1 while, on the other hand, the outright seizure of property unrelated to any alleged debt, which was at issue in Hall, had been a function traditionally reserved to the state. 492 F.2d at 335-37.
Since our decision in Adams, the Fifth Circuit has had an opportunity to reexamine Hall in the context of facts similar to those considered by us in Adams. That opportunity arose in James v. Pinnix, 495 F.2d 206 (5th Cir. 1974). There, an automobile dealer repossessed a vehicle from a customer to whom he had sold the machine on an installment contract basis. Agreeing with our Adams decision, the Fifth Circuit held that such self-help repossession does not constitute state action. The court distinguished Hall in much the same way as was done by us in Adams, writing that
[t]he Hall state function concept does not carry over to the present case with sufficient force to compel a finding of state action. In Hall the landlady seized goods to satisfy a debt arising out of an agreement having nothing to do with the goods. Such a taking closely resembles a seizure in satisfaction of a judgment — a function traditionally performed by a sheriff or other state agent. In the present case, by contrast, the appellant-creditor possessed and claimed no roving commission to extract appellee’s goods to satisfy a separate debt. Rather, he had a specific purchase money security interest in a particular item, and he seized only that item.
495 F.2d at 208. See also Calderon v. United Furniture Co., 505 F.2d 950 (5th Cir. 1974) (per curiam) (finding the self-help repossession of a washing machine in which the creditor held a security interest to be governed by James, rather than Hall).
In my view, the principle that has emerged from Hall is unquestionably sound. The state has, and must retain, a monopoly over the power to exercise a “roving commission to extract [a debt- or’s] goods to satisfy a separate debt.” James v. Pinnix, supra at 208. As held in Hall and recognized in Adams, such a power has traditionally reposed only in the officers of the state. Furthermore, I hold the firm conviction that the exercise of such a power is so fraught with dangers that it must be retained in the state so that it can be circumscribed by due process protections.2 Significant *434perils necessarily attend the arbitrary seizure, even by disinterested state officers, of an alleged debtor’s personal belongings. The asserted debt may not be valid, and the seizure may therefore be wholly unjustified. Resistance from the debtor, with concomitant violence, may occur. The property seized may have a value that greatly exceeds the debt, or, on the other hand, the property seized may be essential to the satisfaction of the basic human needs of the alleged debtor and his family. Cf. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 80-81, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972). These perils are not diminished but are undeniably magnified when the state delegates power to conduct such a seizure to the person to whom the debt is allegedly owed.3 Cf. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 71, 92 S.Ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972).
There is substantial support in Supreme Court precedent for the application of a public function test, like that applied in Hall, to determine whether certain acts of a private party constitute state action. In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974), the Court held that a state regulated, but privately owned, electric utility corporation did not act as the state when it terminated a customer’s service because the customer allegedly had not paid her bills. Noting that the State of Pennsylvania, wherein the incident occurred, had no obligation to provide its citizens with electric power, the Court rejected the argument that the utility’s action was state action because the utility was performing a public function. The Court left open the possibility, however, that the utility’s action could be state action if the utility engaged in functions that were truly those of the state. The Court noted:
We have, of course, found state action present in the exercise by private entity of powers traditionally exclusively reserved to the State. See, e. g., Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73 [, 52 S.Ct. 484, 76 L.Ed. 984] (1932) (election); Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 [, 73 S.Ct. 809, 97 L.Ed. 1152] (1953) (election); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 [, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265] (1946) (company town); Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296 [, 86 S.Ct. 486, 15 L.Ed.2d 373] (1966) (municipal park). If we were dealing with the exercise by Metropolitan of some power delegated to it by the State which is traditionally associated with sovereignty, such as eminent domain, our case would be quite a different one.
419 U.S. 352-53, 95 S.Ct. 454.4
Believing that the case at hand falls squarely within the rationale of Hall, I *435concur in Judge Weigel’s conclusion that Leland’s seizure of the Culbertsons’ property pursuant to the Arizona innkeeper’s lien statutes constituted action by the state.5

. Cf. Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U.S. 600, 607-08, 94 S.Ct. 1895, 40 L.Ed.2d 406 (1974) (discussing the special interests of the creditor or conditional seller in the specific goods that serve as his security).

. Cf. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 374-75, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971); Shirley v. State Nat’l Bank, 493 F.2d 739, 745-47 (2d Cir.) (Kaufman, Chief Judge, dissenting), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1009, 95 S.Ct. 329, 42 *434L.Ed.2d 284 (1974). One commentator has observed that Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972), seems to endorse the principle that “. . . the power of the state to interfere physically with the status quo may not be delegated in law or fact to private persons.” Yudof, Reflections on Private Repossession, Public Policy, and the Constitution, 122 U.Pa.L.Rev. 954, 972 (1974). From such a broad view of Fuentes, our court has already carved an exception for self-help repossession by a creditor or conditional seller. Adams v. Southern Cal. First Nat’l Bank, 492 F.2d 324 (9th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1006, 95 S.Ct. 325, 42 L.Ed.2d 282 (1974).

. One can scarcely imagine seizures more egregiously indiscriminate than the one before us now. According to the Culbertsons’ complaint, Helen Culbertson is a diabetic and almost totally blind. Among the items that Leland seized were Helen Culbertson’s specially-processed diabetic food, prescription medicine for her eyes, and other medicine, prescribed by a veterinarian, for her seeing-eye dog. Leland also seized Charles Culbertson’s prescription medicines and special clothing that was required for his job as a cook. None of these items could have had more than minimal resale value; consequently, they could have been of little use to Leland in satisfying the Culbertsons’ alleged debt. But they were of critical and undeniable importance to the Culbertsons. I have no doubt that the items would have been exempt from any execution ordered by a state court.

. The Court’s mention of eminent domain as an example of a power “traditionally associated with sovereignty” is, I think, particularly instructive within the context of this case. Like the power exercised here, the power of eminent domain, when conferred by a state on a private party, would enable that party to seize the property of another for his own purposes.

. The aspect of Judge Weigel’s scholarly opinion with which I cannot agree is that wherein reliance is placed upon a distinction between rights conferred by the common law and those created by later statutory enactment. I think it preferable to follow the approach taken in Hall and suggested in Metropolitan Edison, an approach which focuses upon the power or function being exercised in its relationship to the state, rather than to perpetuate common law distinctions which may have become obsolete. To this extent alone I agree with the First Circuit’s comments in Davis v. Richmond, 512 F.2d 201, 203-04 (1st Cir. 1975). But cf. Adams v. Southern Cal. First Nat’l Bank, supra n. 2. A distinction drawn upon the basis of common law rights vis-a-vis statutory rights creates unfortunate anomalies. This is dramatically illustrated by the fact that, under Judge Weigel’s analysis, the actions of Alice Leland, who operated a small, low rent boarding house, were those of the state while the same actions of the operator of a large, modem hotel, who caters to transient guests, provides food and entertainment, and therefore qualifies as an “innkeeper,” are not. I cannot conscientiously accept such a disparity.