Christenson v. Ramaeker

• Decision Date: 17 April 1985
• Docket Number: No. 83-1358,83-1358
• Citation: 366 N.W.2d 905
• Parties: Robert B. CHRISTENSON, Appellant, v. Daniel J. RAMAEKER, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 905

366 N.W.2d 905

Robert B. CHRISTENSON, Appellant, v. Daniel J. RAMAEKER, Appellee.

No. 83-1358.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 17, 1985.

David A. Scott of Cornwall, Avery, Bjornstad & Scott, Spencer, for appellant.

Michael L. Zenor of Zenor & Carr, Spencer, for appellee.

Considered by UHLENHOPP, P.J., and HARRIS, LARSON, CARTER, and WOLLE, JJ.

WOLLE, Justice.

In this action for damages based on 42 U.S.C. section 1983, plaintiff Robert D. Christenson contends that defendant David J. Ramaeker, a criminal investigator for the state, violated his constitutional rights by causing him to be arrested for a burglary he did not commit. Plaintiff alleged that defendant negligently failed to conduct an adequate investigation and was improperly motivated when he sought and obtained issuance of the warrant for his arrest. Defendant moved for summary judgment on two grounds: (1) plaintiff "was properly arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by a duly appointed and acting [state] magistrate," and (2) "probable cause existed for the arrest of the defendant." The trial court granted summary judgment on the second ground, but we affirm on the first ground because no genuine issue of material fact surfaced concerning the validity of the facially-valid arrest warrant.

We review the facts in this summary judgment record in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Iowa R.Civ.P. 237; Tasco, Inc. v. Winkel, 281 N.W.2d 280, 282 (Iowa 1979) (even if the evidence in the record is not contradicted, summary judgment is not appropriate if reasonable minds may draw different inferences from the evidence); Daboll v. Hoden, 222 N.W.2d 727, 736 (Iowa 1974) (summary judgment court is not bound to accept evidence in the record as true even though it is uncontradicted).

The facts summarized in that light show that the burglary which gave rise to plaintiff's arrest occurred on August 4, 1979. The burglary victim, Michael M. Nicolai, was a paid police informant who had been instrumental in obtaining convictions of several persons for drug-related crimes. Nicolai had maintained a working relationship with defendant in connection with his work as a special agent for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. At the time he was burglarized, Nicolai was concerned about his own well-being because his activity as an informant had become widely known, resulting in threats against him.

In reporting to the police and then to defendant on what occurred during the burglary, Nicolai said that he heard people coming up the stairs to his apartment in Milford, Iowa. The people left without announcing their presence but returned a few moments later and knocked on his door. Nicolai said that when he inquired one of the individuals identified himself as Kenny Ahrens and the other as Bob Christenson. Nicolai related that when he refused entry to the persons at his door they proceeded to break into his apartment. Nicolai fled through an adjoining door to the police station and returned with officers who discovered that his apartment had indeed been burglarized.

Defendant undertook to investigate the burglary, working under the direction of the Dickinson County Attorney. He received most of his information from visiting directly with Nicolai. On May 16, 1980, after consulting with the county attorney, defendant signed and filed a complaint and affidavit charging both Ahrens and Christenson with burglary in the first degree. Defendant's affidavit provided that "the following facts known by me or told to me by other reliable persons formed the basis for my belief that the [defendants] committed this crime," then stated:

That on Aug. 4th, 1979 Kenny Ahrens and Robert Christenson burglarized the residence at 9:15 Okoboji Ave. in Milford, Ia. Taken was $40.00 and valium for which the victim had a prescription.

On the basis of the information contained in the complaint and affidavit, a district associate judge determined that defendant had established probable cause to make the arrests of both Ahrens and Christenson. The judge issued arrest warrants, and both men were arrested by local police officers.

Ahrens eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary and was convicted and sentenced for that offense. Soon after formal charges were filed, however, the county attorney realized that he had inadequate evidence to convict plaintiff. Ahrens denied that plaintiff had been with him on the night of the burglary, and Nicolai subsequently admitted that he did not know plaintiff and had not heard anyone speak his name at the time of the break in. After plaintiff had been held in jail for thirty days in lieu of a $25,000 bond, the burglary charge against him was dismissed and he was released.

On April 5, 1982 plaintiff commenced this section 1983 action alleging that defendant, acting under color of state law, had damaged him by wrongfully causing his arrest in violation of his constitutional liberty interests. The essence of plaintiff's amended petition, read in a light most favorable to him, is that defendant negligently, recklessly, and intentionally included false information in the complaint and affidavit which led to the issuance of the arrest warrant. Plaintiff did not allege that the arrest warrant was invalid on its face or that the complaint and affidavit which led to its issuance were insufficient in form or content. Rather he alleged in his petition that defendant filed the complaint and affidavit "without legal justification, probable cause, or reasonable and prudent investigation of the matter...." He prayed for actual and exemplary damages for the alleged deprivation of his liberty interests and resulting personal injuries.

I. Elements of Plaintiff's Section 1983 Claim.

The civil rights statute on which plaintiff bases his claim, commonly referred to as section 1983, provides in pertinent part:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any state ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1981). To support his claim derived from that statute, plaintiff must show (1) that the defendant deprived him of a right secured by the constitution and laws of the United States, and (2) that defendant acted under color of state law. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1913, 68 L.Ed.2d 420, 428 (1981); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 150, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 1604, 26 L.Ed.2d 142, 150 (1970); see Cunha v. City of Algona, 334 N.W.2d 591, 596 (Iowa 1983) (listing elements of § 1983 claim against municipality). The second major element of this cause of action, requiring that defendant have acted under color of state law, is firmly established in this case because defendant was acting at all pertinent times in his official capacity as a criminal investigator for the state. This appeal concerns only the first element, the claim that defendant violated his constitutional rights.

Initially we must determine what right "secured by the constitution and laws" plaintiff contends was violated by defendant's conduct. Plaintiff's petition alleged only that defendant's conduct violated his "constitutional liberty interests" without identifying what constitutional right was infringed. Both the right to be free from illegal arrest and the right to due process after arrest are liberty interests which enjoy constitutional protection. We first analyze plaintiff's post-arrest due process rights, then his rights arising under the fourth amendment, as incorporated into the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

II. Was Plaintiff's Right to Due Process Violated?

The pertinent text of the fourteenth Amendment provides that a state shall not "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"; plaintiff would have an action for damages against defendant under section 1983 if defendant, acting under color of state law, had denied him due process and thereby deprived him of his liberty. See Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. at 537-38, 101 S.Ct. at 1913-14, 68 L.Ed.2d at 429-30. Any due process claim that we might infer from plaintiff's pleaded facts, however, is plainly without merit by reason of a controlling decision of the United States Supreme Court. In Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), the plaintiff had been arrested on drug charges pursuant to a facially-valid warrant but contended that the sheriff had negligently failed to use identification procedures after arrest which would have revealed that he was not a person who should have been held in custody. The Court held there was no merit in his section 1983 claim against the sheriff based on the claimed violation of the due process clause, stating:

Respondent's innocence of the charge contained in the warrant, while relevant to a tort claim of false imprisonment in most if not all jurisdictions, is largely irrelevant to his claim of deprivation of liberty without due process of law. The Constitution does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested. If it did, section 1983 would provide a cause of action for every defendant acquitted--indeed, for every suspect released.

Id. at 145, 99 S.Ct. at 2695, 61 L.Ed.2d at 442.

The Court suggested in Baker that the plaintiff's section 1983 claim might have a valid due process basis if he had been "detained indefinitely in the face of repeated protests of innocence even though the warrant under which he was arrested and detained met the standards of the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 144, 99 S.Ct. at 2694, 61 L.Ed.2d at 441. That was not the situation in Baker, and neither is that the factual situation in this case. Like the plaintiff in Baker, plaintiff here...