Bevan v. Smartt

316 F. Supp. 2d 1153, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9813, 2004 WL 985254
CourtDistrict Court, D. Utah
DecidedApril 9, 2004
Docket2:02-cv-00660
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 316 F. Supp. 2d 1153 (Bevan v. Smartt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bevan v. Smartt, 316 F. Supp. 2d 1153, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9813, 2004 WL 985254 (D. Utah 2004).

Opinion

ORDER

BENSON, Chief Judge.

Before the Court are Plaintiffs Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and for’Attorneys’ Fees. Plaintiff moves for a judgment as to liability on her Fourth Amendment claims, which are brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants move for summary judgment as to all Plaintiffs claims against all Defendants. At a hearing on December 23, 2003 this Court granted Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment with respect to Defendants Steven Parkin, Mike Davis, and South Salt Lake City Corporation, and took Plaintiffs and Defendants’ motions as to the remaining Defendants under advisement. 1 Having considered the parties’ arguments, briefs, and the relevant law, the Court now issues the following Order.

BACKGROUND

This case arises out of a search conducted by the South Salt Lake City Police on July 1, 2002 at American Bush, a dancing establishment subject to a South Salt Lake City ordinance regulating sexually-oriented businesses (South Salt Lake City Code § 5.56; the “Ordinance”). (Plaintiffs Memo ISO Motion for Partial Summary Judgment at 3.) Defendant Police Officer Jennifer Smartt entered American Bush on July 1 as part of an effort to ensure compliance with the Ordinance. 2 (Defendants’ Combined Memo at ¶ 20.) Upon entering, Officer Smartt observed a dancer walking off the stage and toward the dancers’ dressing room. 3 (Id.) Smartt called out “Police,” but the dancer continued to walk away from the stage and entered the dressing room, which was already occupied by Plaintiff. 4 (Id. at ¶ 21.) Officer Smartt followed the dancer into the dressing room, Officer Richman joined Officer Smartt shortly thereafter, and after an exchange with the officers, Plaintiff was arrested for obstruction of justice, providing false information to police officers, and violation of the employee permit requirements of the Ordinance. (Id. at ¶¶ 21-22, 26, 30.) Plaintiff brought suit, alleging a *1156 violation of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. 5

LEGAL STANDARD

“Summary judgment is proper ‘if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ ” Bower v. Stein Eriksen Lodge Owners Ass’n, Inc., 201 F.Supp.2d 1134, 1137 (D.Utah 2002) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)). “In applying this standard, the court must construe all facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmov-ing party.” Id. (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); Pueblo of Santa Ana v. Kelly, 104 F.3d 1546, 1552 (10th Cir.1997)).

ANALYSIS

Defendant Officers contend they “executed a valid warrantless administrative search in an area where Ms. Bevan had no reasonable expectation of privacy.” (Defendants’ Combined Memo at 2.) This contention combines two potential justifications for the search, each of which must be assessed under a different rubric.

Warrantless Administrative Searches

A warrantless administrative search of business premises subject to close regulation 6 is valid if the search is conducted pursuant to a regulatory scheme that satisfies three requirements:

First, there must be a “substantial” government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made... Second, the warrantless inspections must be “necessary to further [the] regulatory scheme” ... Finally, “the statute’s inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, [must] pro-vid[e] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a. warrant.” In other words, the regulatory statute must perform the two basic functions of a warrant: it must advise the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting officers.

New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 702-03, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987) (internal citations omitted). While the Burger test articulates the standards that must be met by an ordinance authorizing war-rantless administrative searches of closely-regulated industries if it is to pass constitutional muster, implicit in Burger is the assumption that a particular search must comply with the ordinance purporting to authorize it in order to be valid under the Fourth Amendment. It would make very little sense to require ordinances authoriz *1157 ing warrantless administrative searches to comply even with an attenuated version of the Fourth Amendment’s requirements, only to bless particular searches which exceed the scope of the ordinances authorizing them.

The Ordinance makes it unlawful for any sexually-oriented business licensee or employee knowingly to

refuse to permit officers or agents of the City of South Salt Lake who are performing functions connected with the enforcement of this Chapter to inspect the portions of the sexually oriented business premises where patrons are permitted, for the purpose of ensuring compliance with this Chapter, at any time the sexually oriented business is occupied by patrons or open for business.

South Salt Lake Code § 5.56.310(h) (emphasis added). Defendants in this case entered the dancers’ dressing room, which is not an area of American Bush in which patrons are permitted. 7 The Court assumes, arguendo, that the Ordinance passes constitutional muster, 8 but the search in question remains invalid. Defendants’ actions on July 1, 2002, exceeded the authority granted by the Ordinance, and the search therefore cannot be characterized as a valid warrantless administrative search.

Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Dressing Room

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People v. Galvadon
103 P.3d 923 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2005)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
316 F. Supp. 2d 1153, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9813, 2004 WL 985254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bevan-v-smartt-utd-2004.