Thompson v. Ashe, Mayor

• Decision Date: 11 August 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-5757,99-5757
• Citation: 250 F.3d 399
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2001) Albert Thompson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Victor Ashe, Mayor, of the City of Knoxville; City of Knoxville; Phil Keith, Chief, Knoxville Police Department; Fred O. DeBruhl, In his capacity as Executive Director of the Knoxville Community Development Corporation; Knoxville Community Development Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 399

250 F.3d 399 (6th Cir. 2001)

Albert Thompson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Victor Ashe, Mayor, of the City of Knoxville; City of Knoxville; Phil Keith, Chief, Knoxville Police Department; Fred O. DeBruhl, In his capacity as Executive Director of the

Knoxville Community Development Corporation; Knoxville Community Development Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 99-5757

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: August 11, 2000

Decided and Filed: May 14, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville. No. 97-00838, R. Leon Jordan, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Douglas A. Blaze, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE LEGAL CLINIC, James H. Varner, Jr., ESHBAUGH, SIMPSON, VARNER & WATERS, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Ronald E. Mills, Michael S. Kelley, CITY OF KNOXVILE LAW DEPARTMENT, Knoxville, Tennessee, Mark C. Hartsoe, CITY OF KNOXVILLE LAW DEPARTMENT, Knoxville, Tennessee for Appellees.

G. Wendell Thomas, Jr., KENNERLY, MONTGOMERY & FINLEY, Mark C. Hartsoe. City of Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellees Fred O. Debruhl and Knoxville Community Development Corp.

Before: NELSON, SILER, and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

Albert Thompson filed a class-action complaint in the district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 naming as defendants the Knoxville Community Development Corporation, a public housing authority, and Fred O. DeBruhl, its Executive Director ("KCDC"); and the City of Knoxville, Victor Ashe, the City's mayor, and Phil Keith, the chief of police ("City defendants"). The complaint designated as members of the class all persons who had been, were presently or would in the future be on the KCDC's "no trespassing" list of individuals barred from the KCDC premises. The complaint alleged that the defendants' "no-trespass" program violated the class members' rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as their rights under Tennessee law. The defendants moved for summary judgment, and Thompson moved for partial summary judgment. The district court denied Thompson's motion, granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, denied Thompson's motion to certify the class and dismissed the action. Thompson timely appealed. Because we conclude that Thompson has not demonstrated any violation of his constitutional rights by the appellees, we will affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

KCDC is a public housing authority organized under the laws of Tennessee. KCDC manages twelve residential housing developments that provide housing to some 9,000 low-income individuals. As part of its statutory mandate, KCDC is required to provide its tenants with decent, safe, and sanitary places to live. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 13-20-102(15)(A), 413. To that end, residential leases at KCDC properties provide that any criminal activity by any member of a resident's household or by any guest is cause for termination of tenancy. The leases entitle residents to "provide reasonable accommodations for . . . guests who must follow KCDC rules during their visits."

To further address the problem of crime on its properties, KCDC has instituted a "no-trespass" policy. As a part of this policy, KCDC compiles a list of individuals who are prohibited from entering KCDC residential rental property. A recent version of the list included the names of 340 people.

KCDC's Vice President for Housing, William Crown, is primarily responsible for maintaining the no-trespass list. Crown employs no formal set of written criteria to determine who should be placed on the list. Rather, he acts when he receives "reliable information" that an individual has been involved in drug activities or violent criminal activities of a nature that pose a threat to KCDC's residents and property. Such information typically comes to Crown in the form of a request submitted by an officer of the Knoxville Police Department (KPD) or a KCDC housing manager. The request contains some summary information, and it may have an attached event report describing a subject's objectionable conduct. Crown routinely finds that the information contained in a request is sufficiently reliable to place an individual on the no-trespass list without further investigation. On some occasions, Crown has banned individuals after an in-person, verbal request by an officer of the KPD.

Banned individuals are notified of the decision to place them on the no-trespass list. Notification is usually made by personal service of a letter stating that if the person enters any KCDC property, he will be subject to arrest for criminal trespass, although notice is sometimes given verbally by officers of the KPD. The letters do not inform the individual of the reason for the ban, do not place a time limit on the ban, and do not advise the recipient how he or she may seek to be removed from the list.

KCDC properties are prominently posted with "no trespassing" signs. Pursuant to statutory authorization, the City of Knoxville has leased to KCDC certain interior streets and sidewalks within the housing developments for one dollar per year. See Tenn. Code Ann. 13-20-110. KCDC, in turn, contracts with the City to provide supplemental police services on KCDC properties. Pursuant to this lease-contract arrangement, the KPD enforces the no-trespass program; KPD officers are instructed by KCDC to arrest any individual found on KCDC property whose name is on the no-trespass list.

No established procedure exists to remove individuals from the no-trespass list. On occasion, however, officials from the KCDC and KPD meet and decide to remove persons from the list. Among the reasons for removal from the list are death, prolonged absence from the Knoxville area or information that the individual no longer presents a threat to KCDC's residents or property.

Albert Thompson has been on the no-trespass list for a number of years and has been arrested on KCDC property twenty-three times. One of these arrests--for possession of cocaine for resale--occurred during the pendency of these proceedings. The arrest prompting this case occurred when police, while looking for another man, discovered Thompson in the apartment of a KCDC tenant. Thompson claims that he had come into the KCDC development looking for his brother, and had asked the occupant of the apartment, an acquaintance of his, if he could enter the apartment to use the telephone; he claims that he explained to the police that he had been invited into the apartment, but the police arrested him for criminal trespass anyway.

Thompson then filed this action, claiming that by enforcing the no-trespass policy, KCDC violated the plaintiffs' rights to privacy and freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments; violated the plaintiffs' rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures protected by the Fourth Amendment; and violated the plaintiffs' rights to equal protection and due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. The complaint further claimed that these actions of the defendants violated the Tennessee Constitution, and that the defendants had maliciously harassed the plaintiffs in violation of Tennessee law.

The district court granted summary judgment to all of the defendants. The court held that Thompson's freedom of association claims were more properly analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause and that the complaint did not state a claim under the First Amendment; that the record clearly demonstrated probable cause to arrest Thompson for criminal trespass under the Tennessee Criminal Trespass statute and his arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment; that Thompson lacked standing to raise the argument--raised in his motion for partial summary judgment--that the tenants of KCDC had a right to invite guests to the premises without subjecting them to arrest for criminal trespass, and in enforcing the no-trespass policy, KCDC exceeded the authority of the Tennessee Criminal Trespass statute; that assuming Thompson could demonstrate a right, as an invited guest, to visit family and friends residing in KCDC housing developments, that right is not fundamental, and the "no-trespass" policy is rationally related to the legitimate governmental interest in providing a safe housing to the tenants of KCDC. The court further held that because the plaintiffs had not shown that the policy discriminates against any protected groups, the policy did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause; finally the court held that Thompson had no protected liberty interest in visiting his family and friends on KCDC premises and therefore, he had no right to procedural due process.

II. ANALYSIS

We review an order granting summary judgment de novo. Adams v. Metiva, 31 F.3d 375, 378 (6th Cir. 1994). Only where there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law may summary judgment be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986). In considering a motion for summary judgment the court must consider "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with the affidavits if any," in the light most favorable to the non-movant. Id. at 323. However, the party opposing the motion may not rely solely on the pleadings and must adduce more than a mere scintilla of evidence; if the nonmoving party fails to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of the case with respect to which the nonmovant has the burden, the moving party is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, (1986); Street v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 886 F.2d 1478-79 (6th Cir. 1989); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. at 322-23.

Before us, Thompson first argues that...