Lavan v. City of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 23 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. CV 11–2874 PSG (AJWx).,CV 11–2874 PSG (AJWx).
• Citation: 797 F.Supp.2d 1005
• Parties: Tony LAVAN, et al. v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California

797 F.Supp.2d 1005

Tony LAVAN, et al.

v.CITY OF LOS ANGELES, et al.

No. CV 11–2874 PSG (AJWx).

United States District Court, C.D. California.

June 23, 2011.

Carol A. Sobel, Law Offices of Carol A. Sobel, Santa Monica, CA, for Tony Lavan, et al.

Surekha A. Pessis, Los Angeles City Attorneys Office, Los Angeles, CA, for City of Los Angeles.

Proceedings: (In Chambers) Order Issuing a Preliminary Injunction

PHILIP S. GUTIERREZ, District Judge.

Pending before the Court is this Court's Order to Show Cause re: Issuance of a Preliminary Injunction. The Court heard argument on the matter on June 20, 2011. After considering all the evidence submitted, the papers filed in support and opposition, and the arguments offered at hearing, the Court ISSUES a preliminary injunction.

I. Background

Plaintiffs Tony Lavan, Caterius Smith, William Vassie, Ernest Seymore, Lamoen Hall, Shamal Ballantine, Byron Reese, and Regina Wilson (“Plaintiffs”) bring this putative civil-rights class action against the City of Los Angeles (the “City” or “Defendant”) asserting claims under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, Article 1 § 7 and Article 1 § 13 of the California Constitution, California Civil Code § 52.1, California Civil Code § 2080, and common law conversion.

Plaintiffs, eight homeless individuals living in the City of Los Angeles's “Skid Row” area, allege that since February 2011, the City, through the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) and Bureau of Street Services, has confiscated and destroyed the personal possessions they temporarily left in public spaces in order to use the restroom, eat a meal, or, among other things, appear in court. See Compl. ¶¶ 1–6. Plaintiffs also allege that the City did this in furtherance of an ongoing practice and policy of ridding the area of its homeless population. Compl. ¶¶ 4, 6, 19, 24.

Plaintiffs expect that the City will “continue these practices of confiscating and immediately destroying the property of homeless individuals from the public streets and sidewalks without a warrant and without notice.” Compl. ¶ 50. On April 22, 2010, this Court issued a temporary restraining order (the “April TRO”) enjoining Defendant's purportedly unconstitutional practices. See Dkt. # 11 (hereinafter “TRO” ). At the same time, the Court ordered the parties to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not issue. Pending before the Court is that Order to Show Cause.

II. Legal Standard

A party seeking a preliminary injunction must make a “clear showing” of each of the following elements: (1) a likelihood of success on the merits, (2) a likelihood of irreparable injury to the plaintiff if injunctive relief is not granted, (3) a balance of hardships favoring the plaintiff, and (4) an advancement of the public interest. See Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 555 U.S. 7, 129 S.Ct. 365, 374, 376, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008) (citation omitted). “The Ninth Circuit recently reaffirmed that within this framework a preliminary injunction also is appropriate when a plaintiff demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits were raised and the balance of the hardships tips sharply in the plaintiff's favor, thereby allowing district courts to preserve the status quo where difficult legal questions require more deliberate investigation,” so long as the other remaining Winter factors are met. Sencion v. Saxon Mortg. Servs., LLC, CV 10–3108 JF, 2011 WL 1364007, at *2 (N.D.Cal. Apr. 11, 2011) (internal quotation omitted); see also Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127, 1134–35 (9th Cir.2011) (allowing for a post- Winter “sliding scale” analysis in preliminary injunction inquiries where “the elements of the preliminary injunction test are balanced, so that a stronger showing of one element may offset a weaker showing of another”).

III. Discussion

This Court granted Plaintiffs' TRO after concluding that Plaintiffs would likely succeed on their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims, and that the balance of equities tipped sharply in Plaintiffs' favor. See TRO at 6–7. With the advantage of additional briefing, the City now claims that Plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success on the merits, that the City's practices do not cause irreparable harm, and that the balance of equities and public interest favors the Government.¹ For the reasons that follow, the Court disagrees and issues a preliminary injunction.

A. Likelihood of Success on the Merits

Briefly stated, the Complaint alleges that the City, until the Court issued the TRO, was seizing and destroying Plaintiffs' property in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Plaintiffs submitted declarations indicating that the City has taken and destroyed personal property that was never abandoned, but only left unattended temporarily. See, e.g., Lavan Decl. ¶ 5 (“I then walked ... to take a shower at the Union Rescue Mission. I was gone a total of approximately 20 to 25 minutes at the most. As I was walking back ... I ran into [Plaintiff Smith] ... [who] told me that the police were there and that the [property] was being taken and crushed. I ran back ... [m]y [property] was already destroyed.”). This conduct is the same type of conduct that was enjoined in earlier lawsuits against the City for confiscation and destruction of homeless individuals' property. See Justin v. City of Los Angeles, CV 00–12352 LGB AIJ, 2000 WL 1808426, at *13 (C.D.Cal. Dec. 5, 2000) (granting a temporary restraining order to stop, among other things, “confiscating the personal property of the homeless when it has not been abandoned and destroying it without notice”).

1. The Fourth Amendment

The City makes a number of arguments in an attempt to show that Plaintiffs will not prevail on the merits of this case. First, the City insists that the “seizure of items in a public place does not violate the Fourth Amendment or Article I, Section 13 of the California Constitution where there is objective evidence of abandonment or probable cause for the property's seizure.” Response 4:3–6. In addition, the City claims that “property in a public place that is evidence of criminality may be seized under the plain view exception to the Fourth Amendment,” and that the property here was evidence of a violation of Los Angeles Municipal Code §§ 56.11 and 41.45(b)-(c). Response 12:19–13:5. Both general propositions of law are not necessarily incorrect, but neither aids the City in its attempt to defeat Plaintiffs' efforts to secure a preliminary injunction.

As explained in the April TRO, Plaintiffs have a legitimate expectation of privacy in their property and the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures applies. See Lehr v. City of Sacramento, 624 F.Supp.2d 1218, 1235 (E.D.Cal.2009) (citing Justin v. City of Los Angeles, CV 00–12352 LGB AIJ, 2000 WL 1808426, at *9 (C.D.Cal. Dec. 5, 2000)); Kincaid v. City of Fresno, CV 06–1445 OWW SMS, 2006 WL 3542732, at *35–37 (E.D.Cal.2006) (issuing a preliminary injunction after holding that “[t]he City's seizure of homeless people's personal property without probable cause and the immediate and permanent destruction of such property without a method to reclaim or to assert the owner's right, title, and interest to recovery such personal property violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I § 13 of the California Constitution”). This conclusion is not necessarily altered by the fact that the City may have found the property in a public place. See, e.g., Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 68, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992) (“an officer who happens to come across an individual's property in a public area could seize it only if Fourth Amendment standards are satisfied—for example, if the items are evidence of a crime or contraband.”).

Despite this, the City maintains that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to Plaintiffs' property because “[i]t is well established that individuals who leave items in public places do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in them.” See Response, 8:21–22. In doing so, the City attempts to distinguish the Lehr, Kincaid and Justin cases cited by the Court in the April TRO. The Court is troubled by the City's straight-faced misstatement of the law, especially in light of abundant authority to the contrary. See, e.g., Soldal, 506 U.S. at 68, 113 S.Ct. 538. In support of its proposition that there can be no expectation of privacy for any item left in a public place, the City cites to, inter alia, the Supreme Court's 1960 decision in Abel v. United States, the Ninth Circuit 1969 decision in United States v. Knight, and the District of Columbia Circuit's decision in United States v. Wider. The City offers no explanation as to why those abandoned-property cases stand for such a sweeping proposition of law. In order to prevent further reliance on inapplicable cases, the Court explains why those cases do not support the City's legal position despite the City's failure to do the same.

In Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217, 240–41, 80 S.Ct. 683, 4 L.Ed.2d 668 (1960), the United States Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision to admit two pieces of “abandoned” evidence found in an empty hotel room “immediately after petitioner had paid his bill and vacated his room,” because at the time the evidence was found, “the hotel then had the exclusive right to its possession, and the hotel management freely gave its consent that the search be made.” Similarly inapplicable is the Ninth Circuit's brief, twelve-sentence decision in United States v. Knight, 412 F.2d 292 (9th Cir.1969), in which the Ninth Circuit simply held that a defendant did not have standing to “protest the seizure of abandoned property.” Finally, in United States v. Wider, 951 F.2d 1283, 1285–86 (D.C.Cir.1991), the Court...