Novak v. Federspiel
| Decision Date | 23 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | 1:21-cv-12008 |
| Parties | GERALD NOVAK and ADAM WENZEL, Plaintiffs, v. SHERIFF WILLIAM L. FEDERSPIEL, in his official and personal capacities, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
After a domestic dispute at a “deer-hunting cabin” in 2017, Saginaw County Sheriff's deputies seized 14 firearms from Benjamin Heinrich.
Attempting to retrieve the firearms from the “Saginaw County Sheriff's Office,” Heinrich's relatives brought unsuccessful claim-and-delivery actions in two Saginaw County courts. In the first case, the Saginaw County Circuit Court also denied Plaintiff leave to add “futile” § 1983 claims. The second case, which Plaintiffs filed in the Saginaw County District Court, is on appeal.
Frustrated with their progress in Saginaw County, Heinrich's relatives brought a third claim-and-delivery action in this Court, adding § 1983 claims alleging violations of (1) the Fourth Amendment, (2) the Takings Clause, (3) procedural due process, and (4) substantive due process. See ECF No. 1 at PageID.6-13.
Because the pending state-law case would resolve both possession and ownership of the firearms, this Court stayed the case under Colorado River abstention. Plaintiffs appealed, and the Sixth Circuit reversed, noting that Plaintiff's federal complaint sought not only the firearms but also punitive damages and attorney's fees. Novak v Federspiel, No. 21-1722, 2022 WL 3046973, at *3 (6th Cir. Aug. 2, 2022). Even though “[b]oth cases indisputably rest on the banks of the same facts,” the Sixth Circuit held that the “claims and requests for relief vary between the state and federal actions so much so that” Colorado River abstention was not warranted. Id. Yet, it added, this does “not diminish the district court's inherent power to manage its docket and stay the resolution of discrete claims until after the state court's proceedings have come to a close.” Id.
On remand, the parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment on Plaintiffs' claim-and-delivery action. While factually disputing whether the Saginaw County Sheriff's Office is lawfully detaining 14 firearms it seized from Heinrich, the parties are de facto disputing the interplay between Michigan's forfeiture statutes on the one hand and a civil action for claim and delivery on the other. The question becomes “May a purportedly innocent owner of personal property that was lawfully seized from another person, later convicted, seek the property through a civil action for claim and delivery without initiating forfeiture proceedings in the criminal court?”
The case will be stayed under Pullman abstention Burford abstention, and this Court's inherent authority so that the parties can certify gateway questions of Michigan's forfeiture statutes to the Michigan Supreme Court. And the parties will be directed to show cause for why they have not initiated forfeiture proceedings.
On October 24, 2017, while drunk and frustrated with his crying daughter, Benjamin Joseph Heinrich marched into his bedroom, opened an unlocked gun cabinet less than two feet from his bed, pulled out a shotgun, and forced “H,” Heinrich's daughter's mother, to “leave by gunpoint.” ECF Nos. 2-2 at PageID.48-49; 10-9 at PageID.429. H fled, then Heinrich “put the gun back in the [cabinet] and walked out of the room.” ECF No. 2-2 at PageID.49. H called the police and gave them a cell-phone video of the assault. Id. at PageID.50. Officers from the Saginaw County Sheriff's Office and Chesaning Police Department arrested Heinrich for felonious assault, MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.82 (2004), and domestic violence, MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.81(2) (2016). ECF Nos. 2-2 at PageID.48; 2-4 at PageID.57; see also People v. Heinrich, No. 17-006720-FY (Mich. 70th Dist. Ct. Saginaw Cnty. filed Oct. 25, 2017).
From Heinrich's gun cabinet, the officers seized the shotgun and 13 other firearms. ECF No. 2-2 at PageID.48-49. The police report contains an inventory list of the 14 firearms that the Sheriffs seized. See id. at PageID.50-55. The firearm Heinrich used was a New England Firearms Pardner Model .410 GA shotgun (SN: NB218049). See id. at PageID.53. According to the police report, nine of the remaining firearms have serial numbers, but four do not. See id. at PageID.50-55. The firearms without a serial number are a “Dumoulin & Co” shotgun, a “Kodiak 260” rifle, a .22 caliber “Silver Remington Revolver pistol,” and a “Remington 572” rifle. See id. The remaining nine firearms are a Remington 7600 rifle (SN: 8333002), a Remington 870 shotgun (SN: T123283V), a Remington 710 rifle (SN: 71116295), a Colman 781 air-soft rifle (SN: 489501837), a Winchester 94 rile (SN: 1806102), a Marlin 60 rifle (SN: 00231057), a Remington 1100 rifle (SN: 104238X), a Savage 2204 rifle (SN: 410), and a Gamemaster 760 rifle (SN: A7080267). Id. The firearms without serial numbers are presumptively contraband, see MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.230 (2004), but might be exempt as “antique firearms,” see MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.231a(2) (2012).
The parties dispute the legal authority for the seizures but not their lawfulness. The police report inconsistently provides that “14 guns were placed into evidence, 13 were for safe keeping.”
ECF No. 2-2 at PageID.50. Yet only three of the firearms in the police report have a “status” of “Held for Safe Keeping.” See id. at PageID.50-55. At the state circuit court, Plaintiffs argued the 14 firearms were seized “for whatever reasons.” ECF No. 11-13 at PageID.1120. But during discovery, Defendant answered that “the [14] firearms were seized incident to the arrest of a criminal Defendant who has not claimed ownership nor requested return.” ECF No. 11-6 at PageID.973. At the state district court, Plaintiffs argued “the [14] firearms were not ‘seized' by the Sheriff's Office as that term means under MCL 600.4702 but instead were taken into custody merely for ‘safekeeping.'” ECF No. 2-11 at PageID.94. There, Defendant maintained the position that all 14 firearms were seized “incident to the arrest of Joseph Heinrich.” ECF No. 11-21 at PageID.1220, 31. Plaintiffs' federal complaint shifts gears again, alleging that “[t]he 13 were taken to Defendant's office for ‘safekeeping;' the fourteenth was seized as evidence.” ECF Nos. 1 at PageID.2, 4-5; 2 at PageID.35.
On November 30, 2017, Heinrich pleaded guilty to domestic violence under § 750.81(2). See ECF No. 2-4 at PageID.58. Convicted of domestic violence, Heinrich could not legally possess firearms under federal or state law. ECF No. 20 at PageID.1542 ; see also id. at PageID.1556.
Defendant's internal email reflects that sometime “soon after” the incident, but no later than June 1, 2018, two of Heinrich's relatives-Plaintiffs Gerald Novak and Adam Wenzel[1]- started “calling and asking for the guns back.” See ECF No. 2-5 at PageID.60-61. Plaintiffs, however, maintain that “they sought the return of the firearms” in “early 2019.” ECF No. 2 at PageID.37. Although Plaintiffs made “numerous calls to [Defendant], it refuses to return the 14 firearms.” ECF No. 11-2 at PageID.910; see also ECF No. 2-5 at PageID.61 (statement of Detective Jeffrey Kruszka) (“I replied too bad, no proof of ownership, and the one who had last custody of the guns was a violent drunk.”).
In December 2017, Judge A.T. Frank of the Seventieth District Court of Saginaw County sentenced Heinrich to one year of probation. ECF No. 2-4 at PageID.59. Heinrich began probation in January 2018, id., completed it in December 2018, ECF No. 11-2 at PageID.921, and was discharged from it in January 2019, ECF No. 2-4 at PageID.59.
Three months after Heinrich's probation ended, Plaintiffs sought the firearms in a claim-and-delivery action in the Tenth Circuit Court of Saginaw County. See Novak v. Saginaw Cnty. Sheriff's Off., No. 19-039371-PD (Mich. 10th Cir. Ct. Saginaw Cnty. filed May 13, 2019). In March 2020, Heinrich disclaimed ownership of the firearms-for the first time-bolstering Plaintiffs' claims. See ECF No. 11-26 at PageID.1291-92.
In an August 2020 order granting in part Plaintiffs' motion for leave to amend the complaint, Judge Andre R. Borrello suggested Plaintiffs' exclusive remedy was to seek “return of the weapons through [forfeiture].” ECF No. 11-2 at PageID.1114 . Judge Borrello also explained that Plaintiffs could initiate “the expedited [forfeiture] hearing to which [they are] entitled under state law,” avoiding “the more cumbersome and expensive process” for a civil cause of action for claim and delivery. Id. at PageiD.1117.
Then in a January 2021 order granting summary judgment for Defendant Judge Borrello (1) denied Plaintiffs' claim-and-delivery action on the merits, (2) briefly elaborated on the statutory forfeiture proceedings, (3) again suggested that Plaintiffs file a motion to initiate forfeiture proceedings in the district court of Heinrich's criminal case because “a claim and delivery action in the Circuit Court is an improper mechanism to recover th[e] firearm[s],” and then (4) dismissed the case “without prejudice to Plaintiffs' ability to bring their claims in the...
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