Sammons v. Taylor

• Citation: 967 F.2d 1533
• Decision Date: 10 August 1992
• Docket Number: No. 90-8763,90-8763
• Parties: Michael Lee SAMMONS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Maury TAYLOR, Six Unidentified FBI Agents or Department of Justice Employees United States of America, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1533

967 F.2d 1533

Michael Lee SAMMONS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Maury TAYLOR, Six Unidentified FBI Agents or Department of

Justice Employees United States of America,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 90-8763.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 10, 1992.

Michael Lee Sammons, Jesup, Ga., Lee Ann Jones, Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

Patricia Rebecca Stout, Asst. U.S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before KRAVITCH and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and KAUFMAN ^*, Senior District Judge.

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, Senior District Judge:

Michael Lee Sammons brought this pro se civil rights action, seeking damages seemingly pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), and its progeny, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Rome Division, against FBI agent Maury Taylor and six other unidentified FBI agents, in their individual capacities only, alleging that one or more of those defendants conducted an unconstitutional, pretextual inventory search of his automobile. In connection therewith, Sammons contends that $9,020 in United States currency, belonging to him and confiscated during the automobile search, has been unlawfully taken from him. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment. Before Judge Murphy, sitting in the court below, acted with respect to that motion, Sammons sought to amend his complaint to name additional FBI agents as defendants, apparently in their individual capacities only. Without deciding whether plaintiff would or would not be permitted so to amend, the district court stayed its ruling in that regard, granted the summary judgment motions of defendants and considered the issue of the amendment by plaintiff of his complaint to be moot. In so doing, Judge Murphy concluded that Sammons' challenges to the automobile search, the subsequent seizure of Sammons' property and the forfeiture are all barred by the qualified immunity doctrine. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we remand this case to the court below, and direct that court (a) to permit Sammons to file his amended complaint, (b) to conduct further proceedings with respect to the inventory search issue and (c) to transfer all of the forfeiture claims of plaintiff, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.

I.

Sammons and his wife were traveling south in Georgia on Interstate 59, approximately eight miles from Trenton, Georgia, on June 20, 1988, when their automobile was stopped by FBI Special Agent Taylor and other FBI agents. Sammons alleges that he was arrested by those FBI agents pursuant to a bench warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a result of an August 11, 1987 indictment on narcotics charges filed in that court. Sammons asserts that at the time of his arrest in Georgia, he and his wife requested that Mrs. Sammons be permitted to drive the automobile home, or that the automobile be left where it was--on the shoulder of an access road--until Mrs. Sammons could arrange to have her father take the automobile, but that Agent Taylor disregarded those requests, stating "there's no way you're getting this car"; and that thereafter Agent Taylor apparently took Mrs. Sammons into custody and the FBI impounded the automobile.

In an affidavit filed in the court below, Agent Taylor stated: (1) Mrs. Sammons "was never arrested or otherwise detained" and, at her request, she was driven by FBI agents to her father's residence; (2) the automobile could not be released to Mrs. Sammons because she was too upset to drive and because the Sheriff's Officers on the scene determined that she did not have a valid driver's license, and (3) "[f]or those reasons alone, the car was impounded, and subsequently searched in accordance with standard FBI inventory procedures."

In his original, pro se reply brief filed in this Court, Sammons appended portions of a transcript of Agent Taylor's testimony at Sammons' sentencing hearing in the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga in connection with the criminal case arising out of the aforementioned indictment. During that hearing, Taylor testified that Mrs. Sammons was taken back to the FBI office in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to be asked some questions and that he did not allow Mrs. Sammons to drive the automobile away because "we thought she may have been aiding and abetting" her husband. The Government, in its supplemental responsive brief filed in this Court, acknowledges that Mrs. Sammons was transported to the FBI office in Chattanooga for questioning and then released that same evening. At oral argument in this Court, however, government counsel for the first time argued that the portions of the transcript of the sentencing in the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga are not properly before this Court in this appeal because they had not been presented to the Georgia district court before the latter granted the summary judgment from which this appeal was taken.

While, in his affidavit submitted to the court below, Agent Taylor did not address Sammons' request that Mrs. Sammons' father be permitted to take custody of the automobile or his reasons for not honoring that request, government counsel has asserted, in a brief filed with this Court, that no such request was ever made. Agent Taylor has also stated in his affidavit submitted in the court below that the search was conducted "by another FBI special agent and several Dade County (Georgia) Sheriff's Officers." According to Agent Taylor's affidavit, that search revealed $9,020 "secreted in a 12 can Coca-Cola container...." However, in another affidavit filed by the government in the court below, FBI Special Agent Sam Allen has stated that only $4,020 of the currency was found in the Coca-Cola container and that the remaining $5,000 was found underneath some clothes in a clothes bag. In addition, although Agent Taylor asserts in his affidavit filed in the Court below that the search was carried out in accordance with standard FBI inventory practices, government counsel in the proceedings in the court below and in a supplemental responsive brief submitted to this Court concerning the issue of liability, makes much of the fact that Agent Taylor was not involved with the search in any way.

On August 18, 1988, while Sammons was incarcerated in the Hamilton County Jail, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the FBI field office in Knoxville sent to him a notice of forfeiture of the $9,020 in currency which was seized as a result of the inventory search at issue in this case. ¹ The notice informed Sammons that he could contest the forfeiture of the property and/or "petition to the FBI and request a pardon of the forfeited property." The notice stated that Sammons could file a claim and cost bond by September 26, 1988 if he wished to contest the forfeiture. The notice also set forth an address to which Sammons could send all documents. The notice was signed by Paul V. King, Jr. Sammons received the forfeiture notice on August 22, 1988, and on September 6, 1988, sent a letter to Mr. King, at the address provided in the forfeiture notice, asking for the appropriate forms with which to contest the forfeiture and with which to request a waiver of the bond. Sammons also asked to be provided with copies of the relevant statutes which had been referenced in the forfeiture notice. Sammons' letter was returned to him on September 17, 1988, marked "returned to sender, attempted, not known." On September 18, 1988, Sammons remailed the letter, this time addressed to the FBI, at the same address, and marked to the attention of Paul King, Jr. According to Mr. Allen's affidavit, the FBI received Sammons' September 18 letter and because there was

no mention in this correspondence of any intent by Sammons to contest the forfeiture[,] I advised the Forfeiture Analyst to disregard the letter on the basis that (1) the FBI was under no obligation to provide a potential claimant with copies of legal publications; (2) there is no "form" for a claim of ownership, and the Notice of Forfeiture letter clearly stated the procedures to be followed; and (3) there is no "form" for a waiver of a bond.

Thus, the FBI received Sammons' letter on September 22, 1988--prior to the September 26, 1988 deadline for contesting the forfeiture--and decided to disregard it. The FBI did not advise Sammons why Mr. Allen believed that the FBI was not under an obligation to provide Sammons with the requested information; indeed, the FBI apparently did not respond to the letter at all.

Subsequently, on September 25, 1988, having heard nothing further from the FBI and fearing the September 18 letter may not have been received, Sammons sent what he termed an "insurance" letter to the same address, stating: "I will be litigating the seizure of the $9,020 since it did not derive from any illegal source." The FBI received that letter on September 30, 1988. In a responsive letter dated October 5, 1988, the FBI advised Sammons that his September 25 letter was not received by the FBI until after the prescribed date of September 26, 1988, and therefore the FBI considered the time period for contesting the forfeiture to have expired. In that letter, the FBI advised Sammons that he could request "the remission (pardon) of the forfeiture" and advised him to submit a Petition for Remission within 30 days of the date of the letter. Sammons was instructed to "[f]ollow the guidelines of Title 28, CFR, Sections 9.2-9.7 (1987)." Although it is not entirely clear from the record, Sammons apparently filed a letter with the FBI on December 15, 1988, which was treated...