Starzenski v. City of Elkhart
| Citation | 87 F.3d 872 |
| Decision Date | 25 June 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-1766,95-1766 |
| Parties | Sophie STARZENSKI, Kazmer Starzenski, and Gennie Starzenski, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF ELKHART, Elkhart Health and Sanitation Department, Leroy Robinson, Director of Health and Sanitation Department, Ray Minegar, Health Enforcement Officer, Fran Curry, Health Enforcement Officer, Richard L. Moore, Street Commissioner, and Larry Kasa, Elkhart City Police Officer, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Thomas S. Wilson, Jr. (argued), Elkhart, IN, William J. Cohen, Elkhart, IN, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Robert T. Sanders, III, Matthew A. Yeakey (argued), Elkhart, IN, Paul D. Eash (argued), Elkhart, IN, for Defendants-Appellees City of Elkhart, Larry Kasa.
Paul D. Eash (argued), Elkhart, IN, for Defendants-Appellees Elkhart Health and Sanitation Department, Leroy Robinson, Ray Minegar, Fran Curry and Richard L. Moore.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, COFFEY, Circuit Judge, and SKINNER, District Judge. *
Sophie Starzenski, Kazmer Starzenski, and Gennie Starzenski filed a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the defendants violated their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by entering onto real property that they owned and seizing their personal property without a warrant. Additionally, Sophie Starzenski claimed that the Elkhart Police Sergeant Ernie Hill arrested her without probable cause and used excessive force to effect the arrest. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of all the defendants. The plaintiffs appeal; we affirm.
Sophie, Kazmer, and Gennie Starzenski own a residence at 1015 W. Garfield, Elkhart, Indiana. In the summer of 1991, city employees had observed extensive trash and debris both inside and outside the Starzenski's residence.
In July 1991, the City of Elkhart held a hearing and ordered Sophie Starzenski to clean the exterior of her property. Thereafter, in September 1992, the city determined that Starzenski had failed to comply with this order, triggering a response by the building commissioner, Leroy Robinson. The commissioner executed a "notice order to take action" and mailed it to the plaintiffs. 1 On October 29, 1992, a hearing was conducted before City of Elkhart Hearing Officer Lee Roy Berry, Jr., pursuant to the Indiana Unsafe Building Act, Ind. Code § 36-7-9, et seq. At the conclusion of the hearing, Officer Berry ordered the plaintiffs to remove debris from both inside and outside the house within fifteen days, and further, if the trash was not removed within that time limit, the city had the authority to go onto the premises, enter the residence, and remove the trash and debris.
In December 1992, volunteers led by an Elkhart police officer attempted to clean the plaintiffs' premises. However, city officials determined that these efforts failed to satisfactorily clean the property. On February 3, 1993, the Elkhart Health and Sanitation Department voted unanimously to clean the plaintiffs' property on February 8, 1993. Plaintiff Sophie Starzenski received notice of this decision on Friday February 5, 1993.
Sophie Starzenski alleged that when she received notice of the planned clean-up, she attempted to contact city officials. However, the city offices had closed for the weekend. On Monday, February 8, 1993, defendant Richard Moore, the Street Commissioner, called defendant Captain Larry Kasa of the Elkhart Police Department and, although not requesting that a law enforcement officer be present, informed him of the intended clean-up at the plaintiffs' property. Kasa told Lieutenant Paul Petgen, of the Elkhart Police Department, about the clean-up. In his deposition, Kasa testified that he did not instruct Petgen to send an officer to the clean-up site.
Petgen informed Sergeant Hill about the clean-up. Hill went to the site at approximately 8:00 A.M. and observed that workers were in the process of removing the trash and debris from the grounds. Plaintiff Sophie Starzenski was at the premises and in Hill's presence voiced her objections to the clean-up. Sophie Starzenski left the site to confer with her attorney.
Sometime thereafter, Sophie Starzenski returned and continued to protest the clean-up. Sergeant Hill called Captain Kasa and requested that he come to the residence to assist. Upon arriving, Kasa told Sophie that she should either stand back and watch, or leave. She left the premises, but returned. At that point, according to Hill's arrest report, Sophie shouted at the workers "get off my property you thieving bastards." When Hill advised her to quiet down, Sophie repeated the above statement and Hill arrested her for disorderly conduct.
Later on the same day (February 8, 1993), the plaintiffs' lawyer obtained a temporary restraining order from the Elkhart Superior Court. The order directed the city to stop the clean-up at 1015 W. Garfield pending a hearing for a preliminary injunction. On February 17, 1993, the Elkhart Superior Court conducted a hearing at Sophie Starzenski's request for a preliminary injunction. On May 4, 1993, the Elkhart Superior Court ruled that neither Indiana Law nor the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution required the issuance of a warrant or judicial order before the commencement of the clean-up of the plaintiffs' property, but reserved its final ruling until after the a full evidentiary hearing on the reasonableness of the city's action and whether the city complied with the Indiana Unsafe Building Statute.
Before the state court had rendered final judgment, the plaintiffs filed their federal complaint in the Northern District of Indiana, commencing the litigation that is the subject of the present appeal. In Count I of the complaint, the plaintiffs asserted that the City of Elkhart, the Elkhart Health and Sanitation Commission, and city employees violated the plaintiffs' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by commencing the clean-up without having obtained a judicial warrant. In the Count II, the plaintiff Sophie Starzenski claimed that the defendants violated her Fourth Amendment rights alleging she was arrested without probable cause and with excessive force. She also asserted that employees of the Elkhart Health and Street Department conspired with the Elkhart Police department to have her arrested without probable cause, and that defendant Captain Larry Kasa without probable cause ordered Officer Hill to arrest her. The defendants moved for federal court abstention, pending final judgment in the state court proceedings; the district court declined the request to stay the federal action.
In November 1994, the Elkhart Superior Court entered final judgment concluding that the city did not violate the United States Constitution or Indiana law in removing the trash on February 8, 1993. The Starzenskis appealed the state court decision to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The plaintiffs filed a motion in district court to stay the federal proceedings pending an appeal of the state court decision. The district court denied the motion and in February 1995 the court granted the defendants summary judgment, finding that the state court decision barred Count I of the plaintiffs' complaint under the doctrine of claim preclusion. The court also granted summary judgment to the defendants on Sophie Starzenski's unlawful arrest claim because the arresting officer, Sergeant Hill, had since deceased and thus had been dismissed from the case by a higher authority. Plaintiffs appeal.
The plaintiffs' claim in Count I of the federal complaint was that City Officials had violated the Fourth Amendment in entering their property without a warrant in order to remove the trash and debris from the premises. The state court (after a hearing to determine the propriety of an injunction to prevent the clean-up) ruled that neither the United States Constitution nor Indiana law had been violated as a result of the clean-up. The district court found that the state judgment barred the federal suit.
On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that the district court, instead of dismissing the case, should have stayed the proceedings pending the plaintiffs' appeal of the state court judgment, in case the state judgment was reversed by an Indiana Appellate Court (or the Supreme Court of the United States). 2
The parties' dispute thus centers upon how a federal district court should dispose of a case after a parallel state proceeding has reached judgment in a court of original jurisdiction, and the parties to date have not exhausted all their appellate opportunities.
Title 28 U.S.C. § 1738 provides that "[state] judicial proceedings ... shall have the same full faith and credit [in United States courts] as they have by law or usage in the courts of [the] State ... from which they are taken." Thus, under section 1738, we turn to Indiana law to determine the preclusive effect of its own judgments. See Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 380-81, 105 S.Ct. 1327, 1331-32, 84 L.Ed.2d 274 (1985); Lolling v. Patterson, 966 F.2d 230, 235 (7th Cir.1992).
Indiana Law provides two separate doctrines under which a prior judgment bars litigation in a subsequent case: claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Watson Rural Water Co. v. Indiana Cities Water Corp., 540 N.E.2d 131, 135 (Ind.Ct.App.1989). 3 Claim preclusion bars "a subsequent action on the same claim between the same parties or those in privity with them." In Re Marriage of Moser, 469 N.E.2d 762, 765 (Ind.Ct.App.1984) (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).
Issue preclusion bars the relitigation of "a particular issue, which was adjudicated in [a] prior action." Moser, 469 N.E.2d at 765 (emphasis added). For issue preclusion to apply, however, the issue in the subsequent case must have been "actually litigated and determined" in the prior...
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