Young v. Harrison, 01-2792.

• Decision Date: 21 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-2792.,01-2792.
• Citation: 284 F.3d 863
• Parties: Steve W. YOUNG, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Officer Anthony HARRISON; Officer Wayne Asscherick; Defendants/Appellees, Officer Mark Widdoss; Officer Olson; Defendants, City of Rapid City; John Q. Hammons Hotels, Inc., doing business as Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn; Gerald Adcock, Defendants/Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

284 F.3d 863

Steve W. YOUNG, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Officer Anthony HARRISON; Officer Wayne Asscherick; Defendants/Appellees, Officer Mark Widdoss; Officer Olson; Defendants, City of Rapid City; John Q. Hammons Hotels, Inc., doing business as Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn; Gerald Adcock, Defendants/Appellees.

No. 01-2792.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: March 13, 2002.

Filed: March 21, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Kenneth R. Dewell, argued, Rapid City, SD, for appellant.

Donald P. Knudsen, argued, Rapid City, SD (James S. Nelson, Rodney W. Schlauger, on the brief), for appellee.

Before FAGG and BEAM, Circuit Judges, and GOLDBERG,¹ Judge.

PER CURIAM.

Steve W. Young appeals from the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of Officers Harrison and Asscherick, the City of Rapid City, John Q. Hammons Hotels, Inc. (doing business as the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn), and Gerald Adcock in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On December 31, 1998, appellant Young and three of his friends rented a suite at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn in Rapid City, South Dakota. Following several hours of drinking and bar-hopping, Young and his friends returned to the hotel and Young passed out in the bedroom of the suite. Young's friends stayed outside the suite and continued the evening's festivities. Hotel security officer Gerald Adcock informed Young's friends on three separate occasions that they needed to go to their room or to one of the hotel's common areas to avoid disturbing the other guests. The men ignored Adcock's request. Adcock claims that at around 3:00 a.m., he told the men he was evicting them from the hotel for refusing to return to their room and informed them that they had ten minutes to gather their things and exit the premises. Young was so intoxicated he does not recall the events of the evening. Young's friends claim that Adcock never told them they were evicted. In any event, when it appeared to Adcock that the men were not going to leave the hotel, he called the police. Undaunted, Young's friends left their belongings in the suite and went to the hotel restaurant while Young slept in the bedroom. Several minutes later, the police officers arrived at the hotel and accompanied Adcock to Young's room. Adcock knocked on the door, which was propped open, yelled out that he was hotel security and asked if anyone was in the room. Getting no reply, Adcock and the officers entered the suite. Once in the suite, but still outside the bedroom, Adcock could see that someone (Young) was in the bed in the bedroom and he announced his presence once again. After getting no reply, Officers Harrison and Asscherick entered the bedroom and tried to awaken Young by a technique known as a "sternum rub."² Young woke up, but apparently was disoriented and attempted to return to sleep on the bed. When Officer Harrison executed another sternum rub, Young reacted violently and shoved Harrison against the wall. The officers placed Young under arrest as a result of his violent outburst. The charges against Young were ultimately dismissed by the prosecutor.

Young then brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated by Officers Harrison and Asscherick because they illegally entered his hotel room and used excessive force against him. Young also sued the City of Rapid City, claiming that it maintains an unconstitutional policy regarding officer involvement in "self-help" evictions. Finally, Young alleges that John Q. Hammons Hotel, Inc. and Adcock conspired with the police to violate his rights.

II. DISCUSSION

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Wilson v. Spain, 209 F.3d 713, 716 (8th Cir.2000). Summary judgment is properly granted when, viewing the facts and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, it is clear no genuine issue of material fact remains and the case may be decided as a matter of law. Greeno v. Little Blue Valley Sewer Dist., 995 F.2d 861, 863 (8th Cir.1993).

A. Officers Harrison and Asscherick

Young claims that when Harrison and Asscherick entered his hotel suite and arrested him they violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches, seizures and excessive force. Section 1983 affords redress against a person who, under color of state law, deprives another person of any federal constitutional or statutory right. City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 816, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985). But, public officials are entitled to qualified immunity and shielded from liability when their conduct does not "violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982).

"[T]o withstand a motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, a civil rights plaintiff must (1) assert a violation of a constitutional right; (2) demonstrate that the alleged right is clearly established; and (3) raise a genuine issue of fact as to whether the official would have known that his alleged conduct would have violated plaintiff's clearly established right." Habiger v. City of Fargo, 80 F.3d 289, 295 (8th Cir.1996). We think it is unlikely that Young has proven a violation of his constitutional rights. In any event, if the officers did violate Young's rights, they were not clearly established and the officers acted reasonably.

Young claims that when the officers entered his suite without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances, they violated his Fourth Amendment rights. It is clear, he says, that the protections against warrantless intrusions into the home apply equally to a properly rented hotel room during the rental period. See, e.g., United States v. Morales, 737 F.2d 761, 765 (8th Cir.1984); United States v. Baldacchino, 762 F.2d 170, 175-76 (1st Cir.1985). Young argues, and it appears that he is correct, that South Dakota statutes do not distinguish between the status given to various leasehold interests in real property based upon whether the lease is for a house, apartment or hotel room.³ Young argues that South Dakota law does not provide for the summary eviction of a hotel guest and, therefore, his eviction was illegal because the hotel and the officers did not follow the procedures set out in South Dakota's Forcible Entry and Detainer statute.⁴ Using this logic, Young's rental period at the hotel did not end when Adcock told him and his friends to leave, and so it follows that the police could not simply enter his room absent a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances.

The officers cite United States v. Rambo, 789 F.2d 1289, 1296 (8th Cir.1986), for the proposition that Young cannot assert an expectation of privacy in a hotel room from which he has been justifiably expelled. Rambo, however, relied directly on a Minnesota statute that authorized innkeepers to summarily evict guests for cause. Id. at 1295. Rambo reasoned, correctly, that once a guest has been justifiably expelled, the guest is without standing to contest an officer's entry into his hotel room on Fourth Amendment grounds. Id. at 1296. But, in Rambo, the justification for the expulsion came from a state statute authorizing the expulsion. As indicated, South Dakota does not have a statute governing hotel evictions and, therefore, reliance on Rambo is misplaced unless the officers can otherwise succeed in proving that Young's eviction was justified.

As noted, Young argues that his eviction was not justified because the hotel and officers did not follow the procedures for evicting a tenant provided by South Dakota's Forcible Entry and Detainer statute. This position is untenable. To comply with the requirements of South Dakota's statute, a landlord must give a tenant at least three days notice that eviction is planned. In addition, the statute allows for a jury trial to determine if the eviction is justified. These requirements are obviously nonsensical in the context of a hotel guest, especially one that is only lodging for one night. Although South Dakota appears to have never faced or decided the issue of whether a hotel guest is a tenant or something less, like a licensee, we think that if faced with the issue, South Dakota would join many other jurisdictions in concluding that a hotel guest is not a tenant and is subject to self-help eviction. If Young's eviction was justified, Rambo's holding applies, and Young's claim that the officers unconstitutionally entered his hotel suite must fail.

Many jurisdictions draw a distinction between a tenant and a hotel guest by reasoning that the tenant acquires an interest in the real estate and has the exclusive possession of the leased premises, whereas the guest acquires no estate and has mere use without the actual or exclusive possession. See, e.g., Coggins v. Gregorio, 97 F.2d 948, 950 (10th Cir.1938); Marden v. Radford, 229 Mo.App. 789, 84 S.W.2d 947, 955 (1935); Green v. Shoemaker & Co., 111 Md. 69, 73 A. 688 (1909); Linwood Park Co. v. VanDusen, 63 Ohio St. 183, 58 N.E. 576, 581 (1900); White v. Maynard, 111 Mass. 250, 1872 WL 9054 (1872). In fact, the New York Supreme Court, following English common law, held that a hotel guest was not considered a tenant. "When one contracts with the keeper of a hotel or boarding-house for rooms and board, whether for a week or a year, the technical relation of landlord and tenant is not created between the parties. The lodger acquires no interest in the real estate." Wilson v. Martin, 17 Conn. 142, 1845 WL 441 (1845).

Recently the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was faced with the issue of whether a hotel owner may evict a guest using self-help as the means of eviction. Harkins v. WIN Corp., 771 A.2d 1025 (D.C.Ct.App.2001). Harkins held, despite a D.C.Code that required judicial process for eviction,...