Court Opinion

ID: 9499247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:42:16.956513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:10.120082
License: Public Domain

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Today’s decision, in my view, departs from a long and well-established body of law under the Fifth Amendment and drastically changes important substantive and procedural aspects of federal inverse condemnation actions. As I explain below, permitting Presley to pursue her claim under the Fourth Amendment results in nothing less than the application of a new standard of liability, the creation of a new spectrum of damages, and the elimination of procedural prerequisites for pursuing an inverse condemnation claim in federal court.
According to Presley’s complaint, the City “seized” a strip of her land for a public use — to establish a section of a public hiking trail along the Rivanna River. She does not want her land used by the public, however, and sued to stop the City from representing to the public that her *492property is open for public use as part of the Rivanna trail system. Instead of raising a Fifth Amendment claim that the City is taking her property without just compensation, Presley asserts only that she suffered an unreasonable seizure of her property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. My belief is that Presley’s allegations present a quintessential takings claim under the Fifth Amendment and that to allow her to pursue relief under the Fourth Amendment here would undercut well-established Fifth Amendment takings jurisprudence.1
At first glance, the Fourth Amendment may appear to apply in this situation. There was a seizure of her property,2 and an easy argument can be made that the seizure was unreasonable. In my judgment, however, the fact that the City seized her real property for permanent public use puts this matter under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment exclusively.3 See Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 488 U.S. 825, 832, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987) (explaining that a Fifth Amendment taking by physical occupation occurs “where individuals are given a permanent and continuous right to pass to and fro, so that the real property may continuously be traversed, even though no particular individual is permitted to station himself permanently upon the premises”). The Supreme Court’s Fifth Amendment case law establishes both procedural requirements and remedies tailored to circumstances involving landowners who are informally dispossessed of all or a portion of their real property by the government for an ongoing public use. As explained below, permitting Presley to invoke the Fourth Amendment here would allow her to make an end-run around this well-established body of law. And, just as significantly, I believe that application of Fourth Amendment reasonableness standards to Presley’s claim would ultimately prove to be unworkable.
First, to say the City’s actions may fall within the definition of a seizure does not necessarily mean Presley’s claim arises under the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, a “seizure” as defined in Fourth Amendment cases occurs in every case where there is a *493taking by physical occupation as opposed to a regulatory taking. - But the application of the Fourth Amendment to cases like this one would upset the well-established and clear procedure for raising constitutional challenges to this type of taking by the government, requiring the plaintiff first to seek in state court compensation for the taking and permitting the plaintiff to proceed to federal court only if just compensation is denied. See Williamson County Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 194-95, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985). Allowing a plaintiff to bring a Fourth Amendment claim any time a state government physically seizes real property for public use, as Presley contends we must, would severely undermine the process contemplated by the Supreme Court in Williamson.4
Moreover, permitting plaintiffs like Presley to proceed under the Fourth Amendment would expose governments to a radically different measure of damages than would be available in a traditional inverse condemnation action where the plaintiff’s damages are generally limited to the fair market value of the property taken. See Kirby Forest Indus., Inc. v. United States, 467 U.S. 1, 10, 104 S.Ct. 2187, 81 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984) (“ ‘Just compensation’... means in most cases the fair market value of the property on the date it is appropriated.”). A plaintiff asserting a Fourth Amendment violation, however, would be entitled to recover the full measure of damages typically available in a § 1983 action, including damages for the emotional distress caused by the government’s unreasonable conduct, and even punitive damages in the proper case. See Memphis Cmty. Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 305-06, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986) (“We have repeatedly noted that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 creates a species of tort liability in favor of persons who are deprived of rights, privileges, or immunities secured to them by the Constitution. Accordingly, when § 1983 plaintiffs seek damages for violations of constitutional rights, the level of damages is ordinarily determined according to principles derived from the common law of torts.”) (footnote, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted); Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 56, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983) (“[A] jury may be permitted to assess punitive damages in an action under § 1983 when the defendant’s conduct is shown to be motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or- callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others.”). To allow a plaintiffs characterization of her claim to effect such a radical difference in the government’s potential liability seems unwise, to say the least.
I also believe that permitting Presley to pursue a Fourth Amendment claim under the facts of this case is inconsistent with existing Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Most Fourth Amendment seizure *494cases involve relatively brief and completed seizures, such as traffic stops and arrests. But where the seizure is ongoing and indefinite, courts typically reject arguments that a “continuing seizure” can be challenged under the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 460-66 (7th Cir.2003) (rejecting Fourth Amendment claim in case where police refused to return an impounded car, concluding that such a “continuing seizure” must be analyzed under the Due Process Clause); Fox v. Van Oosterum, 176 F.3d 342, 351 (6th Cir.1999) (explaining that “[ojnce the act of taking the property is complete, the seizure has ended and the Fourth Amendment no longer applies”); cf. Riley v. Dorton, 115 F.3d 1159, 1163-64 (4th Cir.1997) (en banc) (rejecting concept of a Fourth Amendment “continuing seizure” and concluding that the Fourth Amendment governed only those claims of excessive force occurring at the time of arrest; claim that excessive force was used later, when plaintiff was being interviewed at the police station, is governed by the Fourteenth Amendment standard applicable to pre-trial detainees). Since the seizure at issue in this case is a continuing one, the cases rejecting the “continuing seizure” concept and placing a temporal restriction on Fourth Amendment claims would seem to foreclose Presley’s claim that she may proceed under the Fourth Amendment.
Even assuming, however, that the continuing nature of the seizure was not an insuperable obstacle to Presley’s Fourth Amendment claim, application of the general Fourth Amendment standard would simply be unworkable in cases like this one. Reasonableness is the overarching standard in Fourth Amendment inquiries. I cannot envision a case where a government taking of private property for a public purpose without just compensation, which is what Presley alleges happened in this case, would be anything but unreasonable per se. To accept Presley’s characterization of her claim as arising under the Fourth Amendment would thus create an entire class of constitutional tort claims where liability on the part of the government would be virtually automatic and where the government would be exposed to the full panoply of common-law damages.
Presley relies almost exclusively on the Supreme Court’s opinion in Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992). In Soldal, police officers facilitated the improper repossession of a mobile home by private parties. The owner of the mobile home brought an action under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 alleging that the police officers violated the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Seventh Circuit rejected the plaintiffs efforts to bring a Fourth Amendment claim against the officers, concluding that the claim was properly viewed as alleging, at most, a due process claim. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that “[c]er-tain wrongs affect more than a single right and, accordingly, can implicate more than one of the Constitution’s commands.” Id. at 70, 113 S.Ct. 538. The Court noted that the Fourth Amendment is not limited in its application to cases arising in a criminal context and that the Fourth Amendment protects private property interests as well as privacy interests. See id. at 69, 113 S.Ct. 538. Because the actions alleged by the plaintiff implicated those interests, the Court concluded that the complaint alleged a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and that the plaintiff must be permitted to proceed with that claim. See id. at 72, 113 S.Ct. 538.
While the Soldal Court concluded that a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment had occurred in that case, *495nothing in Soldal indicates that every claim involving a seizure gives rise to a Fourth Amendment claim. A “seizure” as defined in Fourth Amendment cases occurs in every case where the government physically takes private property for use by members of the general public. I am aware of no case, however, where the Supreme Court has permitted a plaintiff to challenge a physical taking of property for public use by arguing that the government’s actions were unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Thus, the consequences of a conclusion that Presley may maintain her claim under the Fourth Amendment are substantial, and I do not believe that Soldal compels the conclusion Presley asserts. Unlike the case at bar, there was no element of public use at issue in Soldal; the police in Soldal used their authority to help a private party carry out a re-possession for purely private purposes. In my view, the presence of a public use is a critical fact that distinguishes this case from Soldal and makes it unwise to apply the Soldal analysis to the facts of this case. It is worth noting again that every physical taking of property for public use involves a seizure as that term is defined in Soldal and other Fourth Amendment cases. I am unwilling to conclude that Soldal’s rather unremarkable holdings — that a given set of facts can sometimes support more than one constitutional claim and that a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment occurred when state actors facilitated the forceful wrenching of a mobile home from its moorings and the moving of the mobile home to a different site — silently worked a sea change in the law of eminent domain.
Accordingly, I would hold that although the district court erred by concluding that no seizure occurred in this case, the dismissal of Presley’s complaint was nonetheless proper. See, e.g., Cochran v. Morris, 73 F.3d 1310, 1315 (4th Cir.1996) (en banc) (noting “the well-recognized authority of courts of appeals to uphold judgments of district courts on alternate grounds”). Although Presley might be unhappy with the City’s apparent decision to place a public trail across her property, the exercise of eminent domain does not require the consent of the affected landowner. Her remedy is to initiate an inverse condemnation action in state court and seek just compensation for the public easement that the City created over a portion of her property. See Williamson, 473 U.S. at 194-96, 105 S.Ct. 3108. At that point, the City would be required to decide how to proceed. If the City believes that the public is best served by the trail continuing to cross Presley’s property, then it would be required to pay her just compensation for the permanent easement across her land. If the City were instead to decide that the trail could be relocated so that it did not cross Presley’s property, then it would be required to compensate her only for the time that easement was in place. If Presley does not receive just compensation through the state proceedings, her Fifth Amendment claim would then be ripe. But until then, Presley’s constitutional claim based on the taking of her property for a public purpose is premature and she cannot circumvent the ripeness hurdle by couching her claim in Fourth Amendment terms. Thus, I believe the district court properly dismissed this claim.
In sum, I concur in Parts I, III, and IV of the majority opinion but respectfully dissent from Part II.

. The complaint alleges that the City engaged in a conspiracy with the Rivanna Trails Foundation to deprive Presley of her exclusive ownership rights. The conspiracy allegations, however, do not change the relevant constitutional analysis here.

. A Fourth Amendment seizure occurs whenever "there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). In this case, the City significantly interfered with perhaps the most important aspect of real property ownership — the right to exclude others from one's property. See Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 179-80, 100 S.Ct. 383, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979) ("[T]he 'right to exclude,’ so universally held to be a fundamental element of the property right, falls within this category of interests that the Government cannot take without compensation.”) (footnote omitted); Hendler v. United States, 952 F.2d 1364, 1374 (Fed.Cir.1991) ("In the bundle of rights we call property, one of the most valued is the right to sole and exclusive possession — the right to exclude strangers, or for that matter friends, but especially the Government.”). Although I would ultimately affirm the district court’s dismissal of Presley’s Fourth Amendment claim, I would not do so based on the district court's reasoning that no seizure occurred for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The facts alleged by Presley are sufficient to satisfy the technical definition of "seizure” for purposes of a motion to dismiss.

.Although Presley's complaint does not contain the phrase “public use,” the only reasonable inference from the facts alleged in the complaint' — that the City turned part of her property into a riverside hiking trail open to the public — is that Presley's property has been put to public use.

. There is some question about whether a plaintiff who contends that a taking was unconstitutional because the land was not taken for a public purpose must resort to state remedies before seeking relief in federal court. Compare Montgomery v. Carter County, Tenn., 226 F.3d 758, 768 (6th Cir.2000) (concluding that plaintiff who challenges a taking on private-purpose grounds need not first avail himself of state remedies), and Armendariz v. Penman, 75 F.3d 1311, 1320-21 & n. 5 (9th Cir.1996) (en banc) (same), and Samaad v. City of Dallas, 940 F.2d 925, 936-37 (5th Cir.1991) (same), with Covington Court, Ltd. v. Village of Oak Brook, 77 F.3d 177, 179 (7th Cir.1996) (concluding that a plaintiff who contends taking was improper because it was done for a private purpose must exhaust state remedies before bringing suit in federal court). As I noted previously, however, the facts alleged do not reasonably permit Presley to challenge the City's action on the grounds that the taking was for a private use.