Charles Freeman and Rosalyn Brown, Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants v. City of Dallas, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee

242 F.3d 642, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 2594, 2001 WL 125324

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: February 22, 2001
• Docket: 97-10907
• Status: Published

Opinions

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:

The City of Dallas served notices on the owners of two vacant, deteriorated apartment houses, warning them to repair or demolish the structures. The owners fought the order according to City procedures but lost. After the City tore down the condemned buildings, the owners filed suit in federal court alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause. A divided panel of this court held that although the City procedures complied with due process, the City must also obtain a pre-demolition warrant of some sort in order to satisfy the Fourth Amendment. This court, sitting en banc, disagrees with the panel majority’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment and denies relief to the property owners. A warrant is unnecessary when a municipality seizes property that has been declared a nuisance by means of established police power procedures.

I.

Between December 1992 and April 1993, Rosalyn Brown acquired two vacant, eight-unit apartment buildings in Dallas, Texas located at 2621 and 2611 Meyers Street. Brown paid $10.00 for the first building and $1.00 for the second, which had suffered fire damage prior to purchase. On August 11, 1994, Brown transferred a one percent undivided interest in both buildings to her brother, Charles Freeman. The buildings remained vacant during the entire period of plaintiffs’ ownership.

Brown intended to rent the apartment units after making repairs. To this end, she asked Freeman to be the general contractor in charge of renovating the apartments. Freeman was neither a registered engineer or architect, nor did he possess a general contractor’s license or trade license from the State of Texas. No construction company or crew worked for him.

In April and July of 1993, inspectors from the Dallas Department of Housing and Neighborhood Services (the “Department”) cited the plaintiffs’ two apartment buildings for non-compliance with the City’s Minimum Urban Rehabilitation Standards Code (the “Code”). According to the Department’s inspectors, the buildings together needed nearly $200,000 in repairs to comply with the Code. When the Code violations were not corrected, the Department referred the matter to the Urban Rehabilitation Standards Board (“URSB”) and recommended demolition.

The URSB was established by the City of Dallas to determine whether property condition reports filed by city inspectors identify violations of the City’s building codes. The URSB comprises thirty private citizen members (and eight alternates) who are appointed by the Dallas City Council. The URSB may determine, after a hearing, whether a given structure is an “urban nuisance” and take various remedial measures. The URSB is authorized by city ordinance to order repairs, receivership, the closing and vacating of buildings, demolition, and civil penalties of up to two thousand dollars a day against property owners who fail to repair or demolish a structure after the beard has issued a valid determination and remedial order. Dallas, Tex., Code ch. 27, art. II, § 27-8.

The URSB functions through hearing panels composed of members of the URSB. The Dallas City Code establishes the procedure to be used by the panels. At a hearing, “an owner, lessor, occupant, or lienholder may present witnesses in his own behalf and is entitled to cross-examine any witnesses appearing against him.” Dallas, Tex., Code ch. 27, art. II, § 27-9(c). The decision of the hearing panel is final except that rehearings may be granted in certain instances. The code also gives an affected property owner an absolute right to appeal the panel decision to state district court. Dallas, Tex., Code ch. 27, art. II, § 27-9(e). Under state law, the court considers whether the landowner’s substantial rights have been prejudiced because the URSB decision violates constitutional or statutory law; exceeds URSB’s authority; is based on unlawful procedure or any other error of law; is unsupported by substantial evidence; or is arbitrary or capricious or an abuse of discretion. TEXAS GOV’T CODE § 2001.174(2).

After receiving the Department’s reports on plaintiffs’ properties, the URSB conducted a title search and mailed a notice of hearing on each of the properties to the owner of record.¹ The notice announced that the URSB might order demolition to remedy the Code offenses. It further stated that the property owner would “be given an opportunity to present evidence and witnesses if so desired.”

In preparation for the hearings, Department staffers briefed the panel of URSB members assigned to decide the fate of the Meyers Street properties. They provided the panel members with information on the properties, including repair cost estimates, and accompanied some of them on a tour of the premises.

Freeman appeared at the hearings, identifying himself as the “attorney-in-fact for Brown” and as an owner of 2611 and 2621 Meyers Street. The panel looked at pictures of the structures, questioned Freeman about his plans for repair, and asked whether he had the funds for repair. Freeman testified that he lacked funds at present and asked for more time to make repairs. Expressing doubt about Freeman’s ownership and his ability to finance repairs, the panel unanimously voted to demolish each apartment building as an urban nuisance.²

Following the hearing, Freeman signed notices of demolition for both apartment buildings. He then asked for and received a rehearing from the URSB. Two panel members visited the properties before the rehearings. They examined the exterior of the apartment building at 2611 Meyers Street. At 2621 Meyers Street, they ran into Freeman. He showed them repairs he had made inside that property, and they told him to bring pictures of these repairs to the rehearings.

At the rehearing, the Department showed pictures of the apartment buildings’ exteriors. In response, Freeman testified that he thought he could acquire most of the repair materials at little or no cost. He further stated that he hoped to finance repairs through a loan from the City; he had received a commitment from relatives in the construction business to help him make repairs if he received a City loan.

Freeman also submitted pictures of one unit in the 2621 Meyers Street building that he had repaired, and he presented a list of repair materials that he had already collected. He further testified that he could renovate each unit at 2621 Meyers Street for $2000. Though panel members reacted skeptically and reminded him of the Department’s repair cost estimates, Freeman did not inquire about the basis for these estimates nor did he ask to question the Department officials responsible for them.

The panel again voted to demolish plaintiffs’ buildings. The vote was unanimous on the 2611 Meyers Street property and was split five to two on the 2621 Meyers Street property. Freeman received a notice of demolition for each property at the end of the rehearing, and he signed them. The notice advised that the panel’s decision could be appealed within twenty days to state district court for review. Freeman and Brown did not appeal the URSB decision to state district court.³

When Brown and Freeman faded to demolish the buildings within thirty days, the City hired a contractor to do the work. The two vacant structures were demolished in late December 1994, and the costs of the demolition were assessed against Freeman and Brown in the total amount of about $16,000.

A year and a half later, Freeman and Brown filed suit against the City of Dallas under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They alleged that the demolition of their apartment buildings without first obtaining a judicial warrant constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They also alleged that the URSB’s procedure for condemning and demolishing their apartment buildings and for imposing hens on the remaining realty denied them procedural due process in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Freeman and Brown moved for summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim while the City moved for summary judgment on all claims. The district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion on the Fourth Amendment claim and granted the City’s motion on the Due Process claims. Following a one-day trial on damages for the Fourth Amendment violation, the district court accepted the jury’s verdict and entered final judgment against the City of Dallas in the amount of $20,000 plus interest.

A divided panel of this Court affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for the property owners with respect to the Fourth Amendment claim, while also affirming the rejection of the plaintiffs’ Due Process claims.⁴ See Freeman v. City of Dallas, 186 F.3d 601 (5th Cir.1999), reh’g en banc granted, 200 F.3d 884 (5th Cir.2000). We granted rehearing en banc to reconsider the Fourth Amendment ruling.

II. DISCUSSION

The panel majority reasoned toward a violation of the Fourth Amendment in three steps. First, the demolition of the Freemans’ apartment houses was a “seizure” for Fourth Amendment purposes. Second, the seizure had to be preceded by a warrant. Third, a warrantless seizure, even if it occurred following constitutionally adequate local condemnation procedures, is unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. While we agree that the City seized the Freemans’ real property for demolition,⁵ we do not accede to the panel majority’s inflexible warrant requirement in this context or its supplanting of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry with such a requirement. The text of the Fourth Amendment conspicuously fails to require a warrant for every government search or seizure. And the controlling caselaw emphasizes reasonableness, a balancing of governmental versus private interests, as the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment.

Since the relevant facts are undisputed, summary judgment was granted on the merits as a matter of law, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). We review the district court’s decision de novo. See United States v. Johnson, 160 F.3d 1061, 1063 (5th Cir.1998).

The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 30, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1628, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963), declares:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This provision contains two separate and independent clauses. The first proscribes “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and the second prescribes the narrow conditions under which a warrant may issue. Nothing in the text suggests that warrants are required for every search or seizure, nor is the existence of a warrant a sine qua non for a reasonable search or seizure. While the text plainly mandates reasonableness in the seizure, it does not instruct whether a warrant is necessary to ensure the reasonableness of the City’s demolition order.

To determine the necessity of a warrant here, we might consider common law at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted, see Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 299, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 1300, 143 L.Ed.2d 408 (1999), but, contrary to plaintiffs’ assertions, the quest would be fruitless. Confusing the demands of due process with the warrant clause, plaintiffs’ historical argument observes that, at common law, apart from cases where a nuisance posing an imminent danger could be summarily abated by self-help, structures were ordinarily determined to be nuisances in criminal or civil abatement actions. Because the courts at the time of the framing of the Constitution oversaw nuisance law, plaintiffs assume that they must continue constitutionally to play a role under the aegis of the Warrant Clause. There are two serious flaws in this argument. First, none of the cases cited by the plaintiffs deals with warrants.⁶ Instead, cases from the nineteenth century involved judicial review to determine whether structures or activities were in fact injurious under state and local police power.⁷ Other cases evaluated nuisance determinations by the standards of procedural and substantive due process.⁸ Whatever these cases may imply about the historical view of the reasonableness of particular nuisance decisions, they say nothing about employing the Warrant Clause to review those decisions.

Second, the plaintiffs theorize that because nuisance determinations historically involved judicial procedures, such determinations can only be “reasonable” today if they are subject to plenary court review. This theory is fundamentally at odds with the development of governmental administrative agencies. Characteristically, agency decisions are deferred to by the courts. Plaintiffs apparently seek, however, to broaden courts’ involvement in nuisance decision-making contrary both to the deferential standard of judicial review of administrative decisions and to the broad standards for issuance of warrants. None of the decisions produced by plaintiffs justifies reverting to the 18th century judicial role in nuisance abatement. This court’s comment in rejecting, over twenty-five years ago, a similar argument for reinstituting common law judicial review of nuisance determinations bears repeating:

[F]or the purposes of marking the limits of federal constitutional due process the common law of nuisance must be considered a jurisprudential artifact, interesting but not controlling.

Traylor v. City of Amarillo, 492 F.2d 1156, 1159 (5th Cir.1974) (Goldberg, J.). Even more emphatically, the common law of nuisance affords no basis for creating a per se judicial warrant requirement that is redundant of procedural and substantive safeguards inherent in modern administrative law and explicit municipal nuisance ordinances.

Where history yields no firm answer, a search or seizure must be evaluated under traditional standards of reasonableness. Wyoming, 526 U.S. at 300, 119 S.Ct. at 1300. There is no Supreme Court caselaw directly on point. Still, the Court has expressed an overarching test of reasonableness that is antagonistic to an inflexible warrant requirement. Thus, the reasonableness standard is one that reflects a “ ‘careful balancing of governmental and private interests.’” Soldal, 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. at 549, (quoting New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 341, 105 S.Ct. 733, 742, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985)). More recently, the Court reiterated, “as the text of the Fourth Amendment indicates, the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a government search is reasonableness.” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 2390, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995).⁹ Vernonia also clearly distinguishes between the reasonableness of government searches and the warrant requirement:

Where a search is undertaken by law enforcement. officials to discover evidence of criminal wrongdoing, this Court has said that reasonableness generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant. Warrants cannot be issued, of course, without the showing of probable cause required by the Warrant Clause. But a warrant is not required to establish the reasonableness of all government searches; and when a warrant is not required (and the Warrant Clause therefore not applicable), probable cause is not invariably required either.¹⁰

Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 653, 115 S.Ct. at 2390-91 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Under these decisions, the fundamental inquiry, which we will address in detail later, is the reasonableness of the City’s seizure.

The property owners contend, however, and this court’s panel opinion held that, the seizure of their property was per se unreasonable unless the City obtained a warrant to enforce its demolition order. In support of this position, plaintiffs and the panel majority rely on a handful of cases. Their reliance is misplaced.

In companion cases, the Court did extend a warrant requirement of a sort to administrative inspections of private homes and business properties, the purpose of which was to verify compliance with municipal health and safety codes. Camara v. Municipal Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967). Evidence of code violations uncovered by the warrantless searches might lead to fines or other penalties. Balancing the need for searches against the property owners’ privacy, the Court concluded that warrants were necessary to check the unfettered discretion code enforcement officers had in the field. A property owner had “no way of knowing whether enforcement of the municipal code involved requires inspection of his premises, no way of knowing the lawful limits of the inspector’s power to search, and no way of knowing whether the inspector himself is acting under proper authorization.” Camara, 387 U.S. at 532, 87 S.Ct. 1727. Only with the protection of an administrative warrant would property owners avoid capricious or overbroad searches.

Camara and See are distinguishable from this case. First, since searches to gather evidence of regulatory noncompliance invade citizens’ privacy “without particularized suspicion of misconduct,”¹¹ they need only satisfy standards of administrative reasonableness. Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 320, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1824, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978) (requiring only administrative reasonableness for regulatory searches); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 877 n. 4, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 3170 n. 4, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987) (requiring only administrative reasonableness for regulatory searches). Here, the evidence of municipal code violations had already been obtained by means unchallenged by the landowners, and the administrative adjudication of noncompliance has occurred. The landowners availed themselves of two hearings resulting in a decision of the seven-member panel of the URSB, and after these proceedings, there remained a possibility of state court judicial review. What is sought by these plaintiffs is not protection against an unregulated search for evidence of wrongdoing, but additional protection to forestall the result of already-determined wrongdoing.

Second, the URSB, unlike the field code inspectors in Camara and See, could not operate with unbridled discretion. The municipal code specifies grounds on which a building may be determined to be a public nuisance.¹² The property owners’ right to defend the case against their apartment buildings was procedurally secure. Only by impugning the institutional integrity of the URSB can one arrive at the conclusion, unsupported in this record, that it exercised standardless discretion and either arbitrarily enforced the municipal code or failed to consider the property owners’ evidence. The nature of the URSB’s adjudicative function¹³ imposes more numerous and more transparent constraints on the URSB than did the evidence-gathering function performed by field officers randomly inspecting private buildings in Camara and See.

Third, it is hard to understand what protection the Camara-approved administrative warrant would provide for these plaintiffs. Camara relaxed the probable cause standard for issuance of such warrants, requiring only a more general determination that “legislative or administrative standards for conducting an area inspection” be reasonable. Camara, 387 U.S at 538, 87 S.Ct. at 1735-36. Camara-style administrative search warrants need not be issued by judicial officers. See Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 877 and n. 5, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 3170 and n. 5, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987). Plaintiffs also admit that administrative search warrants may be issued ex parte. While the Court’s standards may meaningfully constrain officials who enter private property for inspection purposes, they are obviously ill-suited to regulate completed administrative condemnation proceedings. If a warrant of some type is to be imposed in lieu of state judicial review, it must be on terms different from the Camara warrants in order to assist these landowners. But if the terms are different, then a different justification is necessary.

Camara and See thus doubly fail to support the plaintiffs’ argument. Those cases imply either that seizure of the apartment buildings was preceded by reasonable, rigorous procedures that protected the property owners’ rights, or they mandate an ex parte, possibly nonjudicial administrative warrant shorn of probable cause, which does the property owners no good. While useful in their sphere, these cases fail to support a warrant following a completed nuisance abatement procedure.

The landowners have also cited Soldal in support of their warrant argument, but Soldal is not even a warrant case. The only issue decided by Soldal was whether the nonjudicial eviction-by-relocation of the tenants’ mobile home, with sheriffs’ deputies assisting, constituted a seizure within the Fourth Amendment. The Court refused to consider whether the seizure was constitutionally reasonable, as it stated:

Whether the [4th] Amendment was in fact violated is, of course, a different question that requires determining if the seizure was reasonable. That inquiry entails the weighing of various factors and is not before us.

Soldal, 506 U.S. at 62,113 S.Ct. at 543.

In the final case offered by plaintiffs, the Supreme Court held that the IRS must obtain a warrant to search private premises to locate property that may be seized to enforce a valid federal tax lien. GM Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U.S. 338, 97 S.Ct. 619, 50 L.Ed.2d 530 (1977). More significantly for present purposes, the Court distinguished a search for unidentified nonexempt property from a seizure, and it rejected requiring a warrant for seizures of the taxpayer’s vehicles from property where the seizures “did not involve any invasion of privacy.” 429 U.S. at 351, 97 S.Ct. at 628. Similarly in this case, the plaintiffs retained little or no reasonable expectation of privacy in their dilapidated, uninhabited rental properties after the URSB had entered orders declaring them an urban nuisance, and the owners had failed to abate the code violations.

GM Leasing also states that where seizures are sustainable under the Due Process Clause, constitutional analysis of the same acts under the Fourth Amendment “is similar and yields a like result.” Id. at 352 n. 18, 97 S.Ct. 619. Texas’s administrative condemnation procedures have withstood due process challenge. Traylor v. City of Amarillo, 492 F.2d 1156 (5th Cir.1974). Far from supporting the plaintiffs, GM Leasing thus forecasts, even if it does not compel, that a balancing of the public and private interests at stake will favor the public interest in nuisance abatement after the conclusion of adequate administrative proceedings.

Not only does plaintiffs’ theory lack support in Supreme Court caselaw, but it enjoys only minority support among the federal circuits. The Eighth and Sixth Circuits have found no Fourth Amendment bar to warrantless condemnation and eviction proceedings, where satisfactory administrative procedures preceded them. Samuels v. Meriwether, 94 F.3d 1163 (8th Cir.1996); Hroch v. City of Omaha, 4 F.3d 693 (8th Cir.1993); Flatford v. City of Monroe, 17 F.3d 162, 170 (6th Cir.1994). On the other hand, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit held that a warrant was necessary before city officials could enter private property to seize previously-condemned automobiles. Conner v. City of Santa Ana, 897 F.2d 1487, 1495 (9th Cir.1990). We disagree with Conner for reasons stated in Judge Trott’s dissent, 897 F.2d at 1494-98, and based on our evaluation of Fourth Amendment reasonableness.

Although the City did not have to obtain a warrant to effectuate a valid seizure and demolition of the nuisance structures, the fundamental Fourth Amendment question of reasonableness remains, a question decided by balancing the public and private interests at stake.

As the Supreme Court has acknowledged, “the public interest demands that all dangerous conditions be prevented or abated.” Camara, 387 U.S. at 537, 87 S.Ct. at 1735. Regulation of nuisance properties is at the heart of the municipal police power.¹⁴ It is eminently reasonable for a city to prescribe minimum property maintenance standards to protect the public and to maintain adjacent land values. Nevertheless, a city may not arbitrarily enter abatement orders or declare the existence of nuisances with no underlying standards. Texas law forbids such actions,¹⁵ and the City’s ordinance exemplifies the state statutes’ criteria. Contrary to the landowners’ argument, Dallas’s minimum standards for property owners assure structural soundness, public health and safety and human habitability. The Dallas ordinance is not concerned with aesthetic or non-functional values. The ordinance falls well within the City’s police power and thus within a sphere that courts have traditionally been reluctant to invade.

Prescription of standards necessitates their enforcement, and it is also reasonable that nuisance abatement be one of the enforcement mechanisms available to the City. While abatement is permissible, however, the City ordinance affords property owners the opportunity to contest the determination of non-compliance, to repair them property, or to seek other remedies. Dallas’s procedures include reasonable notice to and time limits upon landowners’ actions, multiple hearing possibilities, flexible remedies, and judicial review in state court under typical criteria for review of administrative actions.¹⁶ That these standards comport with due process suggests the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of the IJRSB’s final remedial orders.

With regard to the landowners’ interests, the Fourth Amendment protects only those expectations of privacy that society recognizes as “legitimate”. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 338, 105 S.Ct. 733, 741, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1984). “What expectations are legitimate varies, of course, with context ... [and] ... may depend upon the individual’s legal relationship with the State”. Vemonia, 515 U.S. at 654, 115 S.Ct. at 2391. Because the Dallas nuisance standards are straightforward and the administrative procedure is adequate, these property owners’ expectation of privacy in the nuisance structures after the remedial orders became final was severely diminished. As vacant commercial properties, the structures were not subject to the same degree of privacy protection as non-business property. New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 700, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 2642, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987); O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 725, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 1501, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987). Further, nearly a year had passed since the plaintiffs were informed of their structures’ non-compliance. While they did defend themselves before the URSB, they made no significant progress in remedying violations whose total repair cost was nearly $200,000. Whereas the landowners in Soldal were the victims of non-judicial eviction without prior notice, these plaintiffs had ample notice and a full panoply of administrative remedies. Finally, since the rent properties were uninhabited, the demolition, unlike the eviction carried out in Soldal, did not invade anyone’s personal privacy.

Requiring an administrative warrant of some sort after the URSB proceedings would not have enhanced the landowners’ security or privacy. A Camara warrant could be sought ex parte; it could be obtained solely on the basis of the completed administrative record; no requirements of pre- or post-warrant notification of the City’s intended actions were necessary. If the purpose of a warrant is to obtain some neutral review of the URSB orders, this procedure is less protective of the landowners than existing judicial review in state court.

The ultimate test of reasonableness is fulfilled in this case by the City’s adherence to its ordinances and procedures as a prelude to ordering the landowners to abate their nuisance structures.¹⁷ The Supreme Court originally extended an administrative warrant requirement to civil investigations because “the basic purpose of [the Fourth] Amendment ... is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.” Camara, 387 U.S. at 528, 87 S.Ct. at 1730 (emphasis added); see also Marshall, 436 U.S. at 312, 98 S.Ct. at 1820. Whatever else the City’s enforcement of its municipal habitation code might be, it is sufficiently hedged about by published standards, quasi-judicial administrative proceedings, and flexible remedies that it is not arbitrary. In the context of reviewing civil administrative and regulatory enforcement of laws enacted pursuant to the traditional police power, Fourth Amendment reasonableness means non-arbitrariness. The Fourth Amendment was not violated here.¹⁸

CONCLUSION

For all these reasons, we conclude that the seizure and demolition of the plaintiffs’ apartment buildings, after those structures were condemned according to City ordinance and state law, were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The judgment against the City is REVERSED.

1 . Freeman did not get notice because he had no interest in either property at this time. Brown received a notice on 2621 Meyers Street, the property of which she was the owner of record. Brown did not receive notice on the 2611 Meyers Street property because, although she had purchased the property by this date, she had not yet filed a warranty deed. Instead, the notice on 2611 Meyers Street was sent to the owner of record, Robert Burkhead.

2 . The Code defines an "urban nuisance” as the following:

[A] premises or structure that:

(A) is reasonably dangerous to the physical health or safety of an occupant or other person; or

(B) because of violations of [the Code] ..., its state of disrepair is such that it could reasonably cause injury, damage, harm, or inconvenience to a considerable portion of the community in the use and enjoyment of property, materially interfering with the proper use or comfort and enjoyment of surrounding property, taking into consideration the nature and use of the properties in the area and the character of the community in which they are situated, which condition would be substantially offensive and annoying to persons of ordinary sensibilities, tastes, and habits living in the community.

Dallas, Tex., Code ch. 27, art. I, § 27-3(23).

The Code goes on to prescribe with specificity the minimum structural, health and utility standards whose breach may result in the declaration of an urban nuisance. Dallas, Tex., Code ch. 27, Art. Ill, § 27-11.

3 .The URSB also sent notice of the order to demolish the building at 2611 Meyers Street to Freeman and notice of the order to demolish the building at 2621 Meyers Street to Freeman and Brown. The notices stated, in part:

If you do not demolish the structure(s) within the time above indicated [30 days], the city will arrange to have this work done and the expense of that demolition performed under contract with the city will constitute a lien on the real property on which the structure(s) were located, and that lien will run with the land.

These notices were sent to the same addresses at which Brown and Freeman had received mail about earlier hearings, but they were returned as "Unclaimed.”

4 . This court reinstates the panel opinion concerning the Due Process claims.

5 . "Seizure” of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property, United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 1656, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984), and a "seizure” may occur in both civil and criminal contexts. There can be no question that the city's actions against the Freeman's apartment buildings constituted a “seizure”. See Soldal v. Cook County, Ill., 506 U.S. 56, 62 & n. 7, 113 S.Ct. 538, 544 & n. 7, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992), (holding that the forcible removal of a mobile home, leaving the owners dispossessed, constituted a "seizure” under the Fourth Amendment).

6 . The federal government lacked authority over nuisances at and after the time of the framing, and the Fourth Amendment was not first applied to the states until 1961. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 646-47, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1686-87, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).

7 . See Yates v. Milwaukee, 10 Wall. 497, 77 U.S. 497, 505, 19 L.Ed. 984 (1870)("It is a doctrine not to be tolerated in this country, that a municipal corporation, without any general laws either of the city or of the State, within which a given structure can be shown to be a nuisance, can, by its mere declaration that it is one, subject it to removal by any person supposed to be aggrieved, or even by the city itself.”); Hennessy v. St. Paul, 37 F. 565, 566 (C.C.D.Minn.1889)("[U]nless a nuisance, as defined by the common law or by statute, exists, the act of the common council cannot make it one by a mere resolution. Such a doctrine might place the property of the people, no matter what in fact might be its real condition and character, at the disposal of the common council, without compensation.”); Underwood v. Green, 42 N.Y. 140 (N.Y.1870); J.E. Macy, Annotation, Constitutional Rights of Owner as Against Destruction of Building by Public Authorities, 14 A.L.R.2d 73, *8 (1950) ("[N]either at common law nor under such express power can it, by its mere declaration that specified property is a nuisance, make it one when in fact it is not.”).

8 .See, e.g., Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 141, 14 S.Ct. 499, 502, 38 L.Ed. 385 (1894) ("If the property were of great value ... it would be putting a dangerous power in the hands of a custom officer to permit him to sell or destroy it as a public nuisance, and the owner would have good reason to complain of such act as depriving him of his property without due process of law.”); Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 8 S.Ct. 273, 301, 31 L.Ed. 205 (1887)("The exercise of the police power by the destruction of property which is itself a public nuisance, or the prohibition of its use in a particular way, whereby its value becomes depreciated, is very different from taking property for public use, or from depriving a person of his property without due process of law.”); Our House v. The State, 4 Greene 172, 1853 WL 221, *2 (Iowa 1853)(holding that a law declaring “dram shops” to be public nuisances, authorizing their abatement, and establishing certain procedures for notice and a hearing "does not deprive a person of his property without due process of law”). The notion of substantive due process survives in challenges to municipal zoning and nuisance decisions, as this court has recently held. John Corp. v. City of Houston, 214 F.3d 573, 581-86 (5th Cir.2000) (allegation that city deprived landowners of property by allowing demolition under unconstitutionally vague ordinance states cognizable substantive due process claim).

9 . See also City of Indianapolis v. Edmond,-U.S. -, 121 S.Ct. 447, 451, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) ("The Fourth Amendment requires that searches and seizures be reasonable.”); Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 39, 117 S.Ct. 417, 421, 136 L.Ed.2d 347 (1996)("the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness”) (internal quotations omitted); Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 817, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 1776, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996)("It is of course true that in principle every Fourth Amendment case, since it turns upon a reasonableness determination, involves a balancing of all relevant factors. "Xquotations omitted); Camara v. Municipal Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967)("[R]ea-sonableness is still the ultimate standard [under the Fourth Amendment].”); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 147, 45 S.Ct. 280, 283, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925)("The Fourth Amendment does not denounce all searches and seizures, but only such as are unreasonable.”).

10 . The Court goes on in the same paragraph of Vemonia to state that:

A search unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional, we have said, "when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable”.

515 U.S. at 653, 115 S.Ct. at 2391. By its terms, and by the Court's further explanation, the "special needs” caveat tends to expand rather than narrow exceptions to the warrant requirement. Further, "special needs” are relevant to relaxation of the probable-cause basis for a government search for evidence. Here, however, there is probable cause for the City’s seizure.

11 . City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 121 S.Ct. 447, 451, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000).

12 . See supra note 2.

13 . The Texas Local Government Code describes the agencies like the URSB as exercising "Quasi Judicial Enforcement of Health and Safety ordinances." Subchapter C, Texas Local Gov't.Code, Tit. 2, Subtitle D, Ch. 54 (§§ 54.032-54.042).

14 . While the Supreme Court has not specifically defined the scope of the police power, it has reaffirmed the "classic statement” of the rule:

"To justify the State in ... interposing its authority in behalf of the public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public ... require such interference; and, second, that the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive upon individuals.” Even this rule is not applied with strict precision, for this Court has often said that "debatable questions as to reasonableness are not for the courts but for the legislature....”

Goldblatt v. Town of Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590, 594-95, 82 S.Ct. 987, 990, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962) (citations omitted).

15 . See generally, Tex. Loe. Govt.Code, Tit. 2, Subtitle D, ch. 54.

16 . Indeed, the grounds for state court judicial review are nearly identical to those standards employed historically by courts in reviewing nuisance decisions, i.e. the decisions on which plaintiffs seek to build the edifice of their warrant requirement.

17 . In reaching this conclusion, we do not ignore Soldal's mandate that a particular government action m.ay‘ implicate more than one constitutional provision. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 70, 113 S.Ct. at 538. A particular nuisance determination might be reviewable under the Takings Clause or Substantive Due Process as well as the Fourth Amendment or Procedural Due Process standards. John Corp. v. City of Houston, 214 F.3d 573 (5th Cir.2000). But the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of a seizure and demolition of nuisance property will ordinarily be established when the substantive and procedural safeguards inherent in state and municipal property standards ordinances have been fulfilled. See Samuels, 94 F.3d at 1168.

18 . Cf. Soldal, 506 U.S. at 71, 113 S.Ct. at 549 (“Assuming ... that the [evicting] officers were acting pursuant to a court order ... a showing of unreasonableness would be a laborious task indeed.”). Likewise, we believe a showing of unreasonableness in the face of the City’s adherence to its ordinance is a “laborious task indeed.”