4A 4C 2006: Not-So-Happy Trail Over Private Property Was An Unreasonable Seizure

PRESLEY v. CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE, 464 F.3d 480 (4th Cir. 2006), No. 05-2344, 2006 U.S.App. LEXIS 24048, on appeal from USDC-VAWD, before USCJs Motz, Traxler, Shedd, opinion by Motz, concurrence in part and dissent in part by Traxler, filed 22 Sep 2006.

LONG STORY SHORT: A city's official map showing a public walking trail over a nonconsenting, uncompensated person's property, resulting in numerous trespasses and significant damage, amounted to an unreasonable seizure and violated the Fourth Amendment, even if it was also a possible taking under the Fifth Amendment. Binding in MD, NC, SC, VA, WV.

FACTS: In 1998, the Rivanna Trails Foundation published a map showing a walking trail over Plaintiff's land, and the City of Charlottesville posted the map on its official website. Plaintiff was mostly occupied with caring for her husband in a rest home, and did not realize the extent of the problem until her husband died in 2001. She came home to find hikers constantly trespassing on her land of less than one acre, destroying property, and sometimes setting up overnight campsites. Plaintiff posted many "no trespassing" signs, regularly called the police, and eventually installed razor wire. The City passed an ordinance outlawing razor wire and prosecuted Plaintiff for breaking it, but the charges were dismissed. By 2005, Rivanna Trails Foundation had not changed the trail map, and it was still posted on the City's website.

PROCDEDURE: Plaintiff sued the City and RTF in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia per 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the facts above and arguing that Defendants had conspired to violate her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure and her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. The trial court had to take the facts alleged in the complaint as true for purposes of the motion, and acknowledged that under those facts there might have been a Fifth Amendment taking, but no violation of either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment. MOTION TO DISMISS GRANTED; case closed. Plaintiff appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

DECISION: Motions to dismiss test only the legal sufficiency of the complaint's alleged facts. Defenses, evidence, and witness credibility are not a factor. Civil rights complaints are entitled to special care in the Fourth Circuit, and may be dismissed only if the facts suggest no plausible legal theory at all. Some government actions may violate more than one constitutional right at the same time. Unless a specific constitutional provision overrides another general principle, plaintiffs may sue for as many violations as the facts support.

The Fourth Amendment protects some real property--at least a home and its curtilage--against unreasonable seizure. As it happens, a seizure may sometimes also be a taking, and subject to Fifth Amendment regulation as well. The key difference is that a seizure must be unreasonable to violate the Fourth Amendment, and a taking must be without just compensation to violate the Fifth Amendment. Some seizures are not takings at all, such as civil forfeitures. However, a seizure need not be a complete deprivation of possession, but only a meaningful interference with possessory interests.

Only governments can violate constitutional rights, but here, a private foundation acted as a government agent or with the participation and knowledge of government officials to publish a knowingly erroneous map that encouraged people to walk over Plaintiff's land at will. This resulted in a veritable army of trespassers who annoyed Plaintiff and damaged her property, and sometimes camped out overnight, all of which was certainly a meaningful interference with possessory interests.

The Fourteenth Amendment due process claim could not stand because Virginia state law provided an inverse condemnation procedure whereby Plaintiff could have tried to obtain compensation. Neither could Plaintiff claim deprivation of substantive due process, because it fell under the rule that specific protections in the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments cover more general notions of substantive due process. In the end, though, she did sufficiently allege a Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure. DISMISSAL AFFIRMED IN PART as to the Fourteenth Amendment claims; DISMISSAL REVERSED IN PART as to the Fourth Amendment claims; cause remanded for further proceedings.

The dissent held that Plaintiff at most stated a Fifth Amendment takings claim and to allow a simultaneous Fourth Amendment seizure claim would undercut well-established jurisprudence under both Amendments. Also, governments would now be exposed to significantly more liability for what traditionally would have been no more than an inverse condemnation proceeding. The concurrence agreed that Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment claims could not survive.

EDITORIAL: This poor lady comes home, newly widowed, to find a parade of enviro-whackos so dedicated to disrespect for private property that not even a hundred No Trespassing signs will dissuade them. The City of Charlottesville not only won't prosecute them, but prosecutes HER for putting up razor wire (which is normal in Fayetteville) because they love the enviro-whackos so much. Yeah, it's sue time.

Unless, of course, maybe things are not as they seem. Remember, this is a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, and we all have to put our blinders on, or hold our noses, and pretend that all but the most utterly schizophrenic parts (like black helicopters mutilating cattle and spreading AIDS by mosquito) rank right up there with the Sermon on the Mount. Now I'll admit that governments are capable of astonishingly stupid constitutional violations, but I'll hold my opinion on this one until some more facts come out.

If this case is indeed somewhat as bad as it looks now, then I agree with the Fourth Circuit. If governments are now going to be looking at punitive damages for screwing with peoples' homes and curtilages, then that should discourage them from doing so. In the age where the Supremes think it's a "public purpose" for governments to confiscate private property and give it to developers so they can build subsidized for-profit establishments, we need all the punishment we can get to keep governments in line.