Kozel v. Duncan ( 2011 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
April 27, 2011
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
PAUL KOZEL, an individual, d/b/a
The Wranglers Club,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 10-7065
v. (D.C. No. 6:08-CV-00471-FHS)
(E.D. Okla.)
JIM DUNCAN,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HOLMES and McKAY, Circuit Judges, PORFILIO, Senior
Circuit Judge.
In this civil-rights action, Defendant-Appellant Jim Duncan, the Sheriff of
Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, interlocutorily appeals from the district court’s
order rejecting his qualified-immunity defense and partially denying his summary
judgment motion. We reverse.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent
with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
B ACKGROUND 1
Plaintiff-Appellee Paul Kozel owns and operates the Wranglers Club, a
dance club and pool hall in Pushmataha County that sells low-point beer to its
patrons. Wranglers admits persons under the legal drinking age, but it excludes
them from a designated bar area. Nevertheless, all patrons are permitted to leave
with a cup and to re-enter with that cup. Local law enforcement agencies have
received complaints of underage drinking in Wranglers. Mr. Kozel recognizes
that eliminating Wranglers’ liberal cup policy could reduce the risk of underage
drinking. Aplt. App., Vol. 1 at 135.
In January 2007, Mr. Kozel complained to the district attorney’s office
about a sheriff’s deputy who had begun parking his patrol car nightly in the
Wranglers parking lot to watch for illegal activity. The following weekend, more
patrol cars showed up in the Wranglers lot, as well as on the street in front of the
club. Additionally, Sheriff Duncan and his deputies began entering Wranglers
during its hours of operation. According to Mr. Kozel, they “confront[ed]
1
Preliminarily, we note that on appeal from the denial of qualified immunity,
our jurisdiction is limited to “the purely legal question of whether the facts
alleged by the plaintiff support a claim of violation of clearly established law.”
Zia Trust Co. ex rel. Causey v. Montoya, 597 F.3d 1150, 1152 (10th Cir. 2010)
(quotation omitted). “Accordingly, those facts explicitly found by the district
court, combined with those that it likely assumed, form the universe of facts upon
which we base our legal review.” Id. at 1152-53 (quotation and alterations
omitted). “Our jurisdiction also extends to situations where a defendant claims on
appeal that accepting the plaintiff’s version of the facts as true, he is still entitled
to qualified immunity.” Buck v. City of Albuquerque, 549 F.3d 1269, 1276-77
(10th Cir. 2008) (quotation omitted).
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customers, check[ed] their identification cards and perform[ed] sobriety checks.”
Aplee. Br. at 29. They also “shin[ed] their flashlights in” patrons’ faces. Aplt.
App., Vol. 2 at 271, 273. And on at least one occasion, they turned the lights on
inside Wranglers, turned off the music, and “line[d] everyone up for sobriety
tests,” preventing some patrons from using the restroom for over an hour. Id.Alleging “the harassment of his patrons” and his business, Mr. Kozel sued
Sheriff Duncan, several deputies, and other law enforcement personnel in federal
district court. Id., Vol. 1 at 42, 50. He advanced claims under the federal
Constitution and state common law. The district court granted the deputies and
other law enforcement personnel summary judgment. But as to Sheriff Duncan,
the district court granted only partial summary judgment, leaving in place
Mr. Kozel’s official-capacity claims for First Amendment retaliation, Fourth
Amendment unlawful entry, and Fourteenth Amendment harassment, and two
state-law claims for assault and battery. And, while the district court found that
Sheriff Duncan in his individual capacity had qualified immunity from the
Fourteenth Amendment claim, the court denied Sheriff Duncan immunity in his
individual capacity from the First and Fourth Amendment claims.
Sheriff Duncan now appeals from the denial of immunity on those two
federal claims.
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D ISCUSSION
I. Standards of Review
Qualified immunity shields “government officials from liability for civil
damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson
v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 815 (2009) (quotation omitted). “We review de novo
a district court’s decision to deny a summary judgment motion that asserts
qualified immunity.” Eidson v. Owens, 515 F.3d 1139, 1145 (10th Cir. 2008).
Summary judgment is appropriate when “the movant shows that there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). 2 “Because of the underlying purposes of
qualified immunity, we review summary judgment orders deciding qualified
immunity questions differently from other summary judgment decisions.”
Bowling v. Rector, 584 F.3d 956, 964 (10th Cir. 2009) (quotation omitted).
Specifically, when the defendant asserts “the qualified immunity defense, the
burden shifts to the plaintiff, who must meet a strict two-part test by showing
(1) that the defendant violated a constitutional or statutory right, and (2) that this
2
Amendments to Rule 56 that took effect on December 1, 2010, moved the
summary judgment standard from subsection (c) to subsection (a), changed
genuine “issue” to genuine “dispute,” and changed “[t]he judgment sought should
be rendered if” to “[t]he court shall grant summary judgment if.” See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56 advisory committee’s note (2010 Amendments). But the “standard for
granting summary judgment remains unchanged.” Id.-4-
right was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s conduct.” Id.(quotations omitted). A plaintiff’s failure to meet either requirement requires
reversal of the district court’s order. See Swanson v. Town of Mountain View,
577 F.3d 1196, 1199 (10th Cir. 2009).
II. First Amendment 3
Mr. Kozel contends that Sheriff Duncan retaliated against him for
complaining about the deputy who was conducting surveillance from Wranglers’
parking lot. “Even if an official’s action would be unexceptionable if taken on
other grounds, when retaliation against Constitutionally-protected speech is the
but-for cause of that action, this retaliation is actionable and subject to recovery.”
Howards v. McLaughlin, 634 F.3d 1131, 1143 (10th Cir. 2011) (quotations
omitted). Accordingly, “[t]o establish a First Amendment retaliation claim, a
plaintiff must show that (1) he was engaged in constitutionally protected activity,
(2) the government’s actions caused him injury that would chill a person of
ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that activity, and (3) the
government’s actions were substantially motivated as a response to his
3
In relevant part, the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make
no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” U.S. Const. amend I. “By their
terms, the provisions of the Bill of Rights curtail only activities by the Federal
Government, but the Fourteenth Amendment subjects state and local governments
to the most important of those restrictions,” including the First and Fourth
Amendments. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 186 n.3 (1984) (citation
omitted).
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constitutionally protected conduct.” Nielander v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 582 F.3d
1155, 1165 (10th Cir. 2009).
The district court recognized the applicability of this three-pronged test, but
engaged in only a summary analysis:
[Mr. Kozel] complained about [Sheriff] Duncan and his deputies to
the Pushmataha County District Attorney’s Office and the next
weekend officers began parking their patrol units in the parking lot
of Wranglers. The court finds this is an adequate showing to deny
summary judgment as to this claim. The temporal proximity of the
conduct justifies a permissible inference as to [Sheriff Duncan’s]
intent or failure of supervision. [4]
4
“To establish a violation of § 1983 by a supervisor, as with everyone else,
then, the plaintiff must establish a deliberate, intentional act on the part of the
defendant to violate the plaintiff’s legal rights.” Porro v. Barnes, 624 F.3d 1322,
1327-28 (10th Cir. 2010) (quotations and alteration omitted). Sheriff Duncan
appears to argue that there is insufficient evidence to infer his involvement in the
increased law enforcement presence at Wranglers. But at the qualified-immunity
stage, we may not “review a district court’s factual conclusions, such as the
existence of a genuine issue of material fact for a jury to decide, or that a
plaintiff’s evidence is sufficient to support a particular factual inference.” Zia
Trust Co., 597 F.3d at 1152 (quotation omitted).
Also, Sheriff Duncan argues in his reply brief that Mr. Kozel’s First
Amendment retaliation claim was not pleaded in the complaint. Because Sheriff
Duncan’s immunity defense can be resolved without addressing his pleading
argument, we do not consider it. We note, however, that the argument has
jurisdictional and prudential problems. See Bryson v. Gonzales, 534 F.3d 1282,
1285 (10th Cir. 2008) (“The only issues that properly belong in an interlocutory
appeal for qualified immunity are the existence of a constitutional violation and
whether it was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s conduct.”); Lauck
v. Campbell Cnty., 627 F.3d 805, 810 n.2 (10th Cir. 2010) (“We decline to
consider arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief.” (quotation omitted)).
Because we do not consider Sheriff Duncan’s pleading argument, Mr. Kozel’s
motion to strike is denied as moot.
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Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 534 (quotation and citation omitted). Further, the district
court did not address whether the constitutional right purportedly violated was
clearly established.
We have “the discretion to decide which of the two prongs of the qualified
immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the
particular case at hand.” Swanson, 577 F.3d at 1199 (quotation omitted).
Accordingly, we focus our attention on whether Sheriff Duncan violated a clearly
established constitutional right.
“Ordinarily, in order for the law to be clearly established, there must be a
Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established
weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the
plaintiff maintains.” Zia Trust Co., 597 F.3d at 1155 (quotation omitted). While
there does not need to be a “prior case[ ] with precisely the same facts,” Pierce v.
Gilchrist, 359 F.3d 1279, 1298 (10th Cir. 2004), “[o]ur inquiry . . . must be
undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general
proposition,” Bowling, 584 F.3d at 964 (quotations omitted). The pertinent
question is “whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was
unlawful in the situation.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Even if Sheriff Duncan violated the First Amendment by increasing the law
enforcement presence at Wranglers because Mr. Kozel complained about that
presence in the first place, we conclude that “the law did not put [Sheriff Duncan]
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on notice that his conduct would be clearly unlawful.” Id. (quotation omitted). In
arguing that the law was clearly established, Mr. Kozel cites only the general
proposition that the “‘First Amendment bars retaliation for protected speech.’”
Aplee. Br. at 25 (quoting Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 592 (1998)). But
that general proposition alone would not place a reasonable officer on notice that
he would violate the law by increasing the law enforcement presence at a bar that
has generated complaints of underage drinking, that maintains a policy of
allowing patrons to exit and re-enter with cups (which may in fact facilitate
underage drinking), and that has complained of the presence of law enforcement
personnel.
Further, our own independent survey of the case law reveals no sufficiently
analogous Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit case. And there is no clear weight of
authority from other courts showing the unlawfulness of conduct similar to
Sheriff Duncan’s. Indeed, there is authority that arguably supports Sheriff
Duncan’s conduct. See, e.g., Moles v. Griffy, No. 00-2147, 2001 WL 1152984, at
*4 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 18, 2001) (rejecting the plaintiff bar owner’s First Amendment
retaliation claim because, among other things, “[i]ncreased police presence, the
verification of patrons’ ages upon entering the bar, and issuance of citations for
violations of the law are appropriate functions of the police when dealing with an
establishment that is the subject of so many complaints”).
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Because First Amendment retaliation law was not so clearly established
that a reasonable officer standing in Sheriff’s Duncan’s shoes would have
recognized the unlawfulness of his conduct, qualified immunity applies.
III. Fourth Amendment 5
The district court analyzed Mr. Kozel’s Fourth Amendment claim under the
criteria for warrantless inspections of closely-regulated industries. See United
States v. Johnson, 408 F.3d 1313, 1320 (10th Cir. 2005) (observing that such an
inspection is constitutional if there is “a substantial government interest that
informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made”; the
inspection is “necessary to further the regulatory scheme”; and “the statute’s
inspection program . . . provide[s] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a
warrant”). In denying Sheriff Duncan summary judgment, the district court stated
that there was no regulatory scheme that justified the entries into Wranglers, and
that they “seem to have been based upon whim.” Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 535. The
district court did not address whether Sheriff Duncan violated clearly established
law.
We conclude that the district court erred in applying the closely-regulated
industries exception to the warrant requirement. The entries into Wranglers were
not “administrative inspections designed to enforce regulatory statutes.” New
5
In relevant part, the Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” U.S. Const. Amend IV.
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York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 700 (1987). Rather, given the reports of underage
drinking in Wranglers, officers entered in a traditional investigatory capacity for
“gathering . . . criminal evidence” and enforcing the penal laws. Id.; see also id.
at 712-13 (stating that “[a]dministrative statutes and penal laws may have the
same ultimate purpose of remedying the social problem, but they have different
subsidiary purposes and prescribe different methods of addressing the problem”).
Consequently, because this case does not involve administrative inspections, “the
well-established exception to the warrant requirement for administrative
inspections of ‘closely regulated’ businesses,” id. at 712, does not apply. Cf.
Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 83 n.21, 86 (2001) (holding that
hospital’s administration of urine tests to detect cocaine use by pregnant women
implicated the Fourth Amendment, and noting that the tests were not analogous to
administrative inspections because they were “specifically designed to gather
evidence of violations of penal laws”).
The appropriate analysis of the warrantless entries at issue here concerns
whether Mr. Kozel “ha[d] a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of
privacy” in Wranglers. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211 (1986)
(quotation omitted). While “[t]he Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s
reasonable expectation of privacy in commercial premises,” United States v. Bute,
43 F.3d 531, 536 (10th Cir. 1994), “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the
public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment
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protection,” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). Thus, law
enforcement officers do not need a warrant to enter, during normal hours of
operation, a business that invites the general public inside. See Maryland v.
Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 469 (1985); United States v. Sandoval-Vasquez, 435 F.3d
739, 743 (7th Cir. 2006); Bute, 43 F.3d at 537; United States v. Berkowitz, 429
F.2d 921, 925 (1st Cir. 1970).
Mr. Kozel argues that the law enforcement entries into Wranglers were
unlawful because, unlike the general public, the officers did not pay the cover fee.
This same argument was rejected by the Seventh Circuit in Andree v. Ashland
County, 818 F.2d 1306 (7th Cir. 1987). In that case, sheriff’s deputies entered the
grounds of an outdoor music festival to check for liquor-law violations, but they
refused to pay the admissions price. The court held that the deputies’ gratuitous
entry was at most a common-law trespass, but it did not “make a constitutional
difference” to whether the festival owners had an objectively reasonable
expectation of privacy in the festival, which was held in a field, open to the
general public, and involved the sale of alcohol. Id. at 1314-15. We agree with
the Seventh Circuit that payment of an entry fee is generally not relevant to the
Fourth Amendment analysis.
Mr. Kozel also argues that Sheriff Duncan and his deputies exceeded the
scope of Wranglers’ public invitation by “confronting customers, checking their
identification cards[,] and performing sobriety checks.” Aplee. Br. at 29. The
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fact that a law enforcement entry is motivated by an investigatory purpose does
not render the entry unlawful. See Macon, 472 U.S. at 469. But when officers
exceed the limits of consent afforded the general public in the premises, the
Fourth Amendment will be violated. See Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S.
319, 329 (1979) (rejecting “the notion that because a retail store invites the public
to enter, it consents to wholesale searches and seizures that do not conform to
Fourth Amendment guarantees”). For instance, in Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton,
568 F.3d 181, 196-97 (5th Cir. 2009), the Fifth Circuit held that law enforcement
officers exceeded the scope of a nightclub’s public invitation “by entering with
weapons drawn in a S.W.A.T. team raid,” searching the club, its attic and a
separate apartment, and seizing and searching the club’s patrons and employees in
an attempt to undercover evidence of narcotics possession, fire-code violations,
and alcohol sales to minors.
While the law enforcement intrusions into Wranglers were not as
substantial as those that occurred in Club Retro, at least one of the intrusions here
was protracted and involved an assertion of law enforcement authority over the
entire establishment. Officers turned the lights on and the music off. They seized
patrons for over an hour and lined them up for sobriety checks. This conduct falls
outside the limits of consent afforded the general public and violates the Fourth
Amendment.
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To the extent, however, that there were lesser intrusions, limited in scope to
sheriff’s deputies observing patrons for signs of illegal behavior in the public
areas of Wranglers—including using a flashlight in the darkened areas in order to
visually inspect patrons’ identification—the parameters of the public invitation
were not exceeded. Indeed, even Wranglers’ employees “closely monitor” the
patrons for indications of underage drinking. Aplee. Br. at 7. And, even without
reasonable suspicion, officers may approach individuals in a public place, ask
them questions, and request identification. United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S.
194, 200-01 (2002).
Although we have determined that there was a constitutional violation in
the prolonged sobriety detention, we must still consider whether a reasonable
officer in Sheriff Duncan’s position would have been on notice that his conduct
was unlawful. Mr. Kozel has not met his burden in this regard. Specifically, his
reliance on Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594 (1981), is misplaced. There, the
Supreme Court declared that commercial property cannot be “searched for
contraband or evidence of crime” unless there are exigent circumstances, consent,
or a warrant. Id. at 598 n.6. As noted above, however, there is simply no search
for Fourth Amendment purposes when officers, “albeit motivated by an
investigative purpose,” enter a business that is open to the public and examine
what is readily accessible to the public. 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure
§ 2.4(b), at 627, 629 (4th ed. 2004) (collecting cases).
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While the proscription against warrantless “wholesale searches and
seizures” of a business open to the public is well established, see Lo-Ji Sales,
Inc., 442 U.S. at 329, it is too general to provide notice that officers violate a bar
owner’s constitutional rights by detaining patrons for sobriety checks after
receiving reports of underage drinking in a bar with a cup policy that may
facilitate underage drinking. Granted, “a general constitutional rule already
identified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific
conduct in question, even though the very action in question has not previously
been held unlawful.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002) (quotations and
alteration omitted). But where, as here, that general rule would not have placed a
reasonable official “on fair notice that the described conduct was
unconstitutional,” it will not defeat immunity. Casey v. City of Fed. Heights,
509 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir. 2007) (quotations omitted).
Thus, even though there was a Fourth Amendment violation in detaining
Wranglers’ patrons for sobriety checks, because Fourth Amendment law did not
clearly establish the illegality of that conduct, Sheriff Duncan is entitled to
qualified immunity.
C ONCLUSION
The judgment of the district court is REVERSED, and this matter is
REMANDED with instructions that Sheriff Duncan’s summary judgment motion
be further granted to the extent he asserts qualified immunity in his individual
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capacity against Mr. Kozel’s First and Fourth Amendment claims. Mr. Kozel’s
motion to strike is DENIED as moot.
Entered for the Court
Jerome A. Holmes
Circuit Judge
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