Wagner v. Sprague

489 F. App'x 500

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: November 29, 2012
• Docket: 11-5277-cv
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiffs-Appellants appeal from the district court’s grant of summary judgment, dated November 17, 2011, dismissing their claims that the motorcycle checkpoint program violated the Fourth Amendment. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

“We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and drawing all reasonable inferences in that party’s favor.” Kuebel v. Black & Decker, Inc., 643 F.3d 352, 358 (2d. Cir.2011). “Summary judgment is appropriate only if the moving party shows that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir.2003).

While a “search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing[,] ... certain regimes of suspicionless searches” have been upheld “where the program was designed to serve ‘special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.’ ” City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000). The motorcycle checkpoint program in this case is exactly this sort of suspicionless search. Defendants advanced proof that the primary purpose of the program was to increase motorcycle safety. Plaintiffs have not proffered evidence sufficient to show that there is a genuine issue to be tried as to that fact. As we have previously noted, “the special needs doctrine applies to any program of searches whose ‘primary purpose’ is a government interest other than crime control, and the mere fact that crime control is one purpose — but not the primary purpose — of a program of searches does not bar the application of the special needs doctrine.” Lynch v. City of New York, 589 F.3d 94, 102 (2d Cir.2009) (internal citation omitted).

Thus, we apply the special needs balancing test outlined in Brown v. Texas, which “involves a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.” Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50-51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). Applying this balancing test, we conclude that the well catalogued public interest in highway safety, see, e.g., Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 658, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), is well served by the safety checkpoint program and outweighs the interference with individual liberty in this case. Accordingly, the district court did not err in concluding that there was no constitutional violation.

We find the Appellants’ remaining arguments to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.