Kathy Bonds v. C.W. Cox H.J. Harris and D.R. Aldridge

20 F.3d 697, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 6465, 1994 WL 111350
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedApril 6, 1994
Docket92-6644
StatusPublished
Cited by77 cases

This text of 20 F.3d 697 (Kathy Bonds v. C.W. Cox H.J. Harris and D.R. Aldridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kathy Bonds v. C.W. Cox H.J. Harris and D.R. Aldridge, 20 F.3d 697, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 6465, 1994 WL 111350 (6th Cir. 1994).

Opinions

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

Kathy Bonds appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant police officers in this action, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violations of rights protected by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The district court found that Bonds did not have standing to assert these constitutional violations becausé she lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in premises searched pursuant to a warrant. Although we agree that Bonds lacks standing on this ground, we believe that she has standing to challenge the manner in which the search was conducted because her property was seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. For the following reasons, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

On February 6, 1991, police officers executed a search warrant at 4174 Dunn Avenue in Memphis, .Tennessee. The warrant, in addition to identifying the premises to be searched, also described a white male, five feet six inches tall, weighing two hundred and thirty pounds, with a dark beard. This individual and a white female were identified as being suspected of possessing marijuana. Upon executing the warrant, the police discovered a marijuana pipe and other drug paraphernalia.

Bonds is the owner of'the property at 4174 Dunn Avenue. According to the first of her two affidavits, however, she has not lived there since July 1990, when she began staying at her son’s house in Horn Lake, Mississippi. Bonds stated that her house at 4174 [700]*700Dunn Avenue was completely unoccupied from July 1990 through February 6, 1991, and that she granted permission only to her son and his fiancee to,enter the premises during that time. Bonds further stated in her initial affidavit that she had “never seen any such person” meeting the description of the man identified in the search warrant, and that such a person had never been at her home.

Bonds filed this action on February 4, 1992, alleging that the defendant police officers did more than $20,000 worth of damage to her house due to gross negligence in executing the warrant. She also asserted that the officers knowingly relied on false information in securing the warrant. The defendants moved for summary judgment on two grounds: (1) qualified immunity; and (2) failure to state a Section 1983 claim, because the search warrant was legally sufficient and Bonds failed to show more than ordinary negligence in the performance of the officers’ duties. In their reply to Bonds’ subsequent memorandum in opposition to summary judgment, the defendants raised a standing issue in a single sentence: “It would appear that Mr. Basham, and not the plaintiff, would be the person with standing to bring this action.” Along with their reply memorandum, the defendants submitted affidavits containing the following uncontroverted facts: (1) on May 31, 1989, the utilities at 4174 Dunn Avenue were turned on in the name of Irey Basham, Jr.; (2) the subsequent utility usage at 4174 Dunii Avenue was consistent with that of an occupied residence until at least March 1992; (3) Basham’s driver’s license, issued on June 20, 1989, listed 4174 Dunn Avenue as his residence as of April 1992; and (4) Basham’s license shows that he is a white male, five feet six inches tall, with a dark beard and blue eyes.

The district court found that the treatment of the standing issue in defendants’ reply memorandum was sufficient to put Bonds on notice that the issue was contested, and observed that Bonds failed to adduce any evidence to rebut the government’s standing argument for more than five months after the filing of the memorandum. The district court therefore granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that Bonds lacked standing.

Shortly thereafter, Bonds filed a motion to alter or amend judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). In this motion, Bonds contended that the standing issue was not properly raised before the court and, in the alternative, that she did have standing to raise her claims. Bonds supplied two additional affidavits to the court, from her and Irey Basham, in support of her motion. These affidavits stated that Bonds considered Irey Basham to be almost her child, that Bonds had the utilities at 4174 Dunn Avenue turned on in Basham’s name, that Basham had not lived at 4174 Dunn Avenue since 1989, and that the utility usage remained consistent with that of an occupied house because Bonds left the lights, air conditioning, television, and water on for “occasional” use and to deter burglars. The district court denied Bonds’ motion to alter or amend judgment, and Bonds filed this timely appeal.

Bonds argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for the defendants because: (1) she did not have proper notice of the standing issue; (2) she had standing based upon her reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises; (3) she had standing based on the unreasonable execution of the search warrant; and (4) she adduced evidence which created a genuine issue of material fact as to her standing.

First, we address whether Bonds had proper notice of the standing issue. As the district court observed, defendants raised this issue in their reply to Bonds’ memorandum in opposition to summary judgment. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), the court was authorized to consider “all pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits” in order to determine whether summary judgment was appropriate. Therefore, the standing issue was properly before the district court. We also note that Bonds had ample time to file supporting evidence on this issue after defendants submitted their affidavits and before the district court’s grant of summary judgment. Accordingly, we believe that Bonds had proper notice that [701]*701the question of her standing was to be litigated.'

We now turn to the merits of the court’s decision to grant summary judgment. Summary judgment is appropriate if “the-record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party[.]” Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1848, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). The nonmoving party must “set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). In determining whether there is a genuine issue for trial, we must draw all reasonable inferences from the facts in the light most favorable to Bonds, as the nonmoving party. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 587, 106 S.Ct. at. 1356. For these purposes we consider only the pleadings, the evidence submitted by the defendant, and the first affidavit submitted by Bonds, as Bonds’ subsequent affidavits were not tendered to the court until her Rule 59(e) motion was filed.

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20 F.3d 697, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 6465, 1994 WL 111350, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kathy-bonds-v-cw-cox-hj-harris-and-dr-aldridge-ca6-1994.