Icon Desert Logistics v. City of Blythe

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: August 31, 2023
• Docket: 22-55500
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 31 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ICON DESERT LOGISTICS, a California No. 22-55500 limited liability company; et al., D.C. No. Plaintiffs-Appellants, 5:20-cv-02225-CAS-JC

v. MEMORANDUM* CITY OF BLYTHE, a government entity; et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Christina A. Snyder, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted August 14, 2023 Pasadena, California

Before: WARDLAW, CHRISTEN, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiffs Icon Desert Logistics, Thomas Lawson, Xiaotong Liu, and Keyao

Yu appeal the district court’s order granting summary judgment to Officer Rudy

Moreno of the City of Blythe Police Department, Deputy Devin Hedge of the

County of Riverside Sheriff’s Department, and their respective local governments.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. We affirm. We review de novo the district court’s order granting summary

judgment and may affirm on any ground supported by the record. Richards v. Cnty.

of San Bernardino, 39 F.4th 562, 569 (9th Cir. 2022). Summary judgment is

appropriate when, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the

nonmoving party, there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is

entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Anderson v. Liberty

Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986).

Plaintiffs allege that Officer Moreno and Deputy Hedge violated their Fourth

Amendment rights by using an administrative inspection of Plaintiffs’ property as a

pretext for a criminal investigation. The evidence, viewed in the light most

favorable to Plaintiffs, does not establish that Officer Moreno and Deputy Hedge

violated the Fourth Amendment. Even assuming the officers had a criminal

investigatory motive for assisting with the administrative search, no reasonable

trier of fact could find that: (1) the search “would not have occurred in the absence

of an impermissible reason,” United States v. Orozco, 858 F.3d 1204, 1213 (9th

Cir. 2017); or (2) the improper motive had an “impact on the intrusiveness of the

search,” United States v. Grey, 959 F.3d 1166, 1183 (9th Cir. 2020). The presence

of an impermissible motive does not, by itself, establish that the administrative

search was pretextual, Orozco, 858 F.3d at 1213, and here, the record shows the

presence of a valid motive: the city inspector obtained the administrative search

2 warrant, requested police assistance, and ultimately issued a notice and order to

abate based on violations of city ordinances discovered during the search.

Additionally, there is no evidence that the officers exceeded the scope of the search

as authorized by the facially valid warrant or that they conducted the search in an

excessively intrusive manner. Plaintiffs point to the number of officers who

assisted with the search, but there is no evidence that the number of officers was

excessive under the circumstances presented here.

Because we find no genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the

officers violated the Fourth Amendment, we do not reach the issue of qualified

immunity. Moreland v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 159 F.3d 365, 371 n.4 (9th

Cir. 1998), as amended (Nov. 24, 1998). Further, because we conclude that there

is no claim for a Fourth Amendment violation against Officer Moreno or Deputy

Hedge, there cannot be any claims against the City of Blythe or the County of

Riverside.

AFFIRMED.