Williamson v. Bernalillo County Sheriff's Dept.

• Decision Date: 29 November 1993
• Citation: 125 F.3d 864
• Parties: NOTICE: Although citation of unpublished opinions remains unfavored, unpublished opinions may now be cited if the opinion has persuasive value on a material issue, and a copy is attached to the citing document or, if cited in oral argument, copies are furnished to the Court and all parties. See General Order of
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 864

125 F.3d 864

NOTICE: Although citation of unpublished opinions remains unfavored, unpublished opinions may now be cited if the opinion has persuasive value on a material issue, and a copy is attached to the citing document or, if cited in oral argument, copies are furnished to the Court and all parties. See General Order of November 29, 1993, suspending 10th Cir. Rule 36.3 until December 31, 1995, or further order.

John S. WILLIAMSON and Nancy L. Williamson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BERNALILLO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; Bernalillo COUNTY;

DUGGER'S TOWING; and R. JONES, in his capacity as

a Deputy Sheriff of Bernalillo County,

and Individually, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 97-2038.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Sept. 17, 1997.

Before ANDERSON, BARRETT, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT ^*

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.

Plaintiffs brought this action to redress alleged constitutional and state law violations arising out of the impoundment of a truck by the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department. They now appeal from an order dismissing the county and the sheriff's department as improper parties, granting summary judgment on the constitutional claims asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and dismissing the lone state claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1673(c). We affirm.

On October 21, 1995, two Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies stopped a truck in which plaintiffs John and Nancy Williamson were driver and passenger. Mr. Williamson was unable to produce a driver's license, registration, certificate of insurance, or proof of ownership. ¹ License and registration checks revealed both were expired. The deputies cited Mr. Williamson for several violations and impounded the truck. Thereafter, the wrecker refused to release the truck unless plaintiffs paid towing and storage charges. Ultimately, Mr. Williamson was found guilty of operating a vehicle without liability insurance, failing to exhibit a valid driver's license, and failing to exhibit a valid registration. Nevertheless, the truck was eventually released, without condition, to plaintiffs.

In the meantime, plaintiffs commenced this action, alleging that defendants had seized the truck without authorization, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and withheld it without requisite procedural protections, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court rejected these federal claims, holding that plaintiffs, particularly Mrs. Williamson, lacked standing to assert them and/or that defendants had satisfied the controlling constitutional standards. The court also noted that the county and sheriff's office were not entities subject to suit. Finally, with the federal claims gone, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state replevin claim against the wrecker.

I

Before reaching the constitutionality of the impoundment, we address two broad, preliminary contentions advanced by defendants. First, they argue that our analysis of the impoundment must proceed exclusively under the reasonableness standard of the Fourth Amendment, which they assert predominates whenever the government seizes private property. However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected such attempts to attribute primary, preemptive status to one of multiple independent constitutional guarantees. See, e.g., United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S. 43, 49-50 (1993); Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 70-71 (1992) (distinguishing Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), which assessed excessive force claim under standard of Fourth Amendment instead of substantive due process because latter was not distinct constitutional command, but only alternate, less specific source for same proscription). Here, the Fourth Amendment determines whether the sheriff's deputies were substantively authorized to seize plaintiffs' truck, while the Due Process Clause independently prescribes plaintiffs' attendant procedural rights. ²

Second, defendants contend plaintiffs lack standing to invoke either Fourth Amendment or due process guarantees because they did not prove ownership of the truck. However, possessory interests are protected by both the Fourth Amendment, see Soldal, 506 U.S. at 61; see, e.g., Winters v. Board of County Comm'rs, 4 F.3d 848, 853 (10th Cir.1993), and the Due Process Clause, see Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 86 (1972); see, e.g., Wolfenbarger v. Williams, 774 F.2d 358, 362 (10th Cir.1985). ³ Indeed, when the claimed injury involves loss of use--here, over five months without a vehicle allegedly necessary to a business requiring transportation of heavy equipment--rather than loss of title, possession is in a practical sense the truly burdened interest.

Further, defendants' contention that Mrs. Williamson has special standing problems because she was just a passenger, misconceives the operative interest here. The passenger/driver distinction may be significant for privacy expectations, as the search cases relied on by defendants indicate, but the seizure claim pursued here turns on property, not privacy, interests:

[T]he Fourth Amendment protects two types of expectations, one involving "searches," the other "seizures." A "search" occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed. A "seizure" of property occurs where there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property.

Soldal, 506 U.S. at 63 (quotation omitted) (rejecting Seventh Circuit's view that possessory interest in seized property is unprotected by Fourth Amendment where privacy or liberty interest is not also at stake). Since Soldal clarified this point, circuits have recognized that the lack of a privacy interest sufficient to challenge a search does not undermine standing with respect to the seizure of property in which one has a possessory interest. See, e.g., Lenz v. Winburn, 51 F.3d 1540, 1550 n. 10 (11th Cir.1995); Bonds v. Cox, 20 F.3d 697, 701-02 (6th Cir.1994). We note in this regard that Mrs. Williamson's property interest in the truck is, on our record, apparently no less significant than her husband's. ⁴

II

We turn, then, to the viability of plaintiffs' constitutional claims on summary judgment. On de novo consideration thereof, see Wolf v. Prudential Ins. Co., 50 F.3d 793, 796 (10th Cir.1995), we affirm summary judgment in favor of defendants for the reasons that follow.

A

The framework for our Fourth Amendment analysis was set out in United States v. Ibarra, 955 F.2d 1405 (10th Cir.1992). There we identified two sources of authority for the warrantless removal of stopped, parked, or abandoned vehicles: specific state (or local) motor vehicle laws, and the general interest in public safety recognized in South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369 (1976) ("The [inherent] authority of police to seize and remove from the streets vehicles impeding traffic or threatening public safety and convenience is beyond question") (plurality opinion). See Ibarra, 955 F.2d at 1408-10. Put simply, if one of these sources applies, impoundment is reasonable, see, e.g., United States v. Rios, 88 F.3d 867, 869-72 (10th Cir.1996); if neither does, it is not, see, e.g., Ibarra, 955 F.2d at 1410.

On the present record, we cannot say with any confidence that a particular statute or ordinance specifically authorized the impoundment of plaintiffs' truck. However, given that it was concededly left on a highway "only two lanes wide, with no shoulder," R.I. doc. 6, at 3 (First Amended Complaint), and thus "caused [a] traffic impediment by [blocking] the middle of a road which had no place to pull off of," ⁵ Opening Br. for Appellant at 17 n. 5, impoundment was justified, as a matter of law, in the interest of safety under Opperman. Cf. United States v. Griffin, 729 F.2d 475, 480 (7th Cir.1984) (where occupants could not lawfully drive vehicle off emergency lane of highway, impoundment was prudent exercise of community caretaking function and therefore proper under Opperman ).

B

Circuit precedent also provides ample guidance regarding the dictates of due process in the present context.

[Our] cases make it clear that vehicle impoundment and the imposition of attendant penalty charges prior to any hearing may be appropriate provided the aggrieved party is afforded adequate notice of a post-deprivation hearing in which the validity of the impoundment can be disputed, either directly or by way of a challenge to the underlying violation, and, if successful, the party may recover any fees or penalties assessed.

Summers v. Utah, 927 F.2d 1165, 1169 (10th Cir.1991). Plaintiffs do not dispute the availability of a timely post-deprivation hearing, but argue that the hearing was inadequate for two reasons.

First, plaintiffs...