Campbell v. City of Spencer

• Decision Date: 16 December 2014
• Docket Number: No. 14–6015.,14–6015.
• Citation: 777 F.3d 1073
• Parties: Ann Elaine CAMPBELL, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CITY OF SPENCER, an Oklahoma municipality; Town of Forest Park, an Oklahoma municipality; and Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, Defendants–Appellees,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

777 F.3d 1073

Ann Elaine CAMPBELL, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.CITY OF SPENCER, an Oklahoma municipality; Town of Forest Park, an Oklahoma municipality; and Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, Defendants–Appellees,

No. 14–6015.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Dec. 16, 2014.

Larry E. Finn (H. Craig Pitts and Daniel G. Couch on the briefs), Rubenstein & Pitts, P.L.L.C., Edmond, OK, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

W. Brett Behenna (David W. Lee and Emily B. Fagan, Lee Law Center, P.C., and Philip W. Anderson, Collins Zorn & Wagner and Eddie Wayne Jackson, Oklahoma City, OK on the brief), for Defendants–Appellees.

Before TYMKOVICH, EBEL, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge.

The City of Spencer (“Spencer”), the Town of Forest Park (“Forest Park”), and Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue (“Blaze”) ¹ (collectively the “Municipalities”), acting under a search warrant, seized 44 horses from Ann Campbell's properties. After a forfeiture hearing, a state district court in Oklahoma issued an order granting Spencer and Forest Park's joint forfeiture petition. Campbell later sued the Municipalities in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court dismissed Campbell's complaint, applying both claim and issue preclusion to prevent relitigation of matters common to the state court forfeiture proceeding. Campbell appeals.

The district court properly dismissed Campbell's § 1983 claims against the Municipalities. Because Campbell could have raised her constitutional claims in the forfeiture proceeding but did not do so, and because our allowing her to raise these claims now would impair the Municipalities' rights established in that proceeding, we hold that the district court properly concluded that claim preclusion disallowed Campbell from pursuing her constitutional claims now. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the district court.

I.

Campbell kept horses on parcels of land she owns in two Oklahoma municipalities, Spencer and Forest Park. In response to citizens' complaints, Spencer Police Chief Bill Ward and Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office Deputy John Cothran went to 9912 NE 43rd St. in Spencer, where they saw ten horses in an “extremely malnourished and grossly emaciated” condition. Appellant's App'x at 106–07. The officers saw no food or water for the horses. Chief Ward and Deputy Cothran also went to 4303 North Douglas Blvd. in Spencer where they saw twelve horses that appeared malnourished, emaciated, and in need of medical attention. Finally, Chief Ward, Deputy Cothran, and Officer John LeMasters went to 23 Oakwood Drive in Forest Park, where they saw eight more horses, two appearing malnourished. Upon her arrival, Campbell spoke to Deputy Cothran and Chief Ward and consented to a welfare check of her horses kept on her 23 Oakwood Drive property. During this check, they saw seventeen more horses in a barn, six in “totally emaciated conditions.” Id. at 107.

Based on this first-hand knowledge, Deputy Cothran submitted a search-warrant affidavit to the Oklahoma County District Court, seeking permission to search Campbell's property at 23 Oakwood Drive in Forest Park and to seize any abused or neglected horses found there. The state district court issued the warrant.

Acting under the warrant, law enforcement officers, accompanied by Blaze employees, went onto three separate parcels of Campbell's property—only one of which was listed in the search warrant—and seized 44 horses. Blaze took physical possession of the horses.

On August 6, 2007, Spencer and Forest Park filed a joint petition in Oklahoma County District Court, seeking to forfeit the horses under an Oklahoma statute that allows for that remedy in animal abuse cases. Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 1680.4(C)(1). The state court held a hearing on the petition and found that “after hearing the testimony of the parties and after reviewing the exhibits and evidence ... probable cause exists that the 44 horses were in an abusive and neglected situation.” Appellant's App'x at 123. The court granted the forfeiture petition. Campbell appealed the forfeiture, but the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court denied certiorari. ² Never in the state court proceedings did Campbell raise any Fourth Amendment issues about the search warrant or the scope of its execution.

Campbell then filed an action under § 1983 against the Municipalities in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. ³ She claimed that the Municipalities, including Blaze acting as a state actor, had violated the Fourth Amendment in two ways. First, she said that the officers had withheld material information from Deputy Cothran that should have been included in his search warrant application. In particular, Campbell claimed that she and the officers had agreed to a “plan to reduce the number of horses to manage the situation.” Appellant's Br. at 18. Second, she asserted that the Municipalities had exceeded the scope of the search warrant when they searched locations apart from the 23 Oakwood Drive property.⁴

Spencer and Forest Park each filed motions to dismiss the § 1983 claims on preclusion grounds. The court granted the motions, concluding that the doctrines of issue and claim preclusion barred the relitigation of Campbell's alleged Fourth Amendment violations underlying her § 1983 claims. Blaze then filed a motion for summary judgment opposing the Fourth Amendment claims; the district court also granted that motion on preclusion grounds.

Campbell appeals to this court, arguing that neither issue nor claim preclusion bars her § 1983 claims. The Municipalities disagree and ask that we affirm the district court's order on issue and claim preclusion grounds or, alternatively, on the ground that Campbell has failed to state a claim for relief under § 1983.

We review de novo the district court's grant of the Municipalities' motion to dismiss on issue and claim preclusion grounds. See Wilkes v. Wyo. Dep't of Emp't Div. of Labor Standards, 314 F.3d 501, 503 (10th Cir.2002). In reviewing the district court's grant of summary judgment for Blaze, we review de novo that decision and apply the same standard used by the district court. See Bohn v. Park City Grp., Inc., 94 F.3d 1457, 1460 (10th Cir.1996). We must view the factual record and make reasonable inferences from it in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. Id. We will uphold the district court's grant of summary judgment only if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).

II.

“To succeed in a § 1983 claim against a municipality, a plaintiff must show two elements: ‘(1) a municipal employee committed a constitutional violation, and (2) a municipal policy or custom was the moving force behind the constitutional deprivation.’ ” Cordova v. Aragon, 569 F.3d 1183, 1193 (10th Cir.2009) (quoting Walker v. City of Orem, 451 F.3d 1139, 1152 (10th Cir.2006)). “[I]t is a Fourth Amendment violation to ‘knowingly or recklessly omit from the [search warrant] affidavit information [that], if included, would have vitiated probable cause.’ ” Taylor v. Meacham, 82 F.3d 1556, 1562 (10th Cir.1996) (quoting Wolford v. Lasater, 78 F.3d 484, 489 (10th Cir.1996)). Furthermore, the Fourth Amendment requires that warrants particularly describe the place to be searched and prohibits officers executing the warrant from exceeding the warrant's scope. See United States v. Angelos, 433 F.3d 738, 745–46 (10th Cir.2006).

All of the constitutional violations that Campbell has alleged stem from the Municipalities' search of her properties and the seizure of her horses, all occurring before the forfeiture proceeding. During the forfeiture proceeding, the state district court relied in part on evidence obtained from the searches of Campbell's property and the seizure of her horses to establish probable cause that Campbell's horses had been neglected. Campbell now argues that this evidence was illegally obtained. In response, the Municipalities have raised claim preclusion, also known as res judicata, as an affirmative defense to Campbell's § 1983 claims. They argue that Campbell's failure to raise her constitutional claims in the forfeiture proceeding defeats her ability to do so now. Under claim preclusion, “a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in the prior action.” Wilkes, 314 F.3d at 503–04 (emphasis in original) (quoting Satsky v. Paramount Commc'ns, Inc., 7 F.3d 1464, 1467 (10th Cir.1993)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Black's Law Dictionary 1504 (10th ed.2014) (defining res judicata).

Federal courts must give a state court judgment the same preclusive effect as would its originating state. Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S.Ct. 892, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984); Fox v. Maulding, 112 F.3d 453, 456 (10th Cir.1997). Oklahoma's claim-preclusion doctrine bars a claim when (1) the party asserting the claim could have raised it as a defense in the first case, and (2) success on the later claim would nullify the first judgment or impair the rights established in it. Fox, 112 F.3d at 457–58; see also Copeman v. Ballard, 214 Fed.Appx. 739, 741 (10th Cir.2007) (unpublished).

Parties can seek to exclude evidence in civil proceedings in Oklahoma if the evidence was obtained unconstitutionally. Turner v. City of Lawton, 733 P.2d 375, 379–80 (Okla.1986); Brumfield v. Oklahoma, 155 P.3d 826, 833 (Okla.Crim.App.2007) (“In Turner v. City of Lawton, the Oklahoma Supreme Court, in a civil case, traced the development of the exclusionary rule for illegally obtained evidence, both in Oklahoma and under the U.S. Constitution, and concluded that ... the Oklahoma Supreme Court had incorporated the exclusionary rule...