Civil Rights Opinion Affirms Privacy in Commercial Property
In Mimics, Inc. v. The Village of Angel Fire, 03-2214 (January 3, 2005), the Tenth Circuit denied qualified immunity to an officer for his intentional, warrantless entry into a commercial property for the alleged purpose of enforcing the state and local building code. The Tenth Circuit also permitted the plaintiffs to proceed with claims for First Amendment retaliation and Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection, alleging they were "a class of one".
The Mimics' business was computer software. The owners ran the business out of a condominium. The business was not open to the public. Shortly after arriving in Angel Fire, the Mimics' owners became embroiled in a local political dispute. The building inspector was on the other side of the dispute. The building inspector entered twice into the condominium in search of building code violations. The building inspector trumped up violations. The business and its owners sued.
The decision is notable for its recognition that a plaintiff can state a claim for an equal protection violation when he alleges that the government's action was motivated by an animus against the plaintiff as an individual rather than the plaintiff as a member of a protected class. The plaintiff must prove that he was targeted because of some animosity and that others, similarly situated, were treated differently.
The Court also rejected a defense claim that the actions of the building inspection in "just looking around" was a de minimis violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court distinguished Artes-Roy v. City of Aspen, 31 F.3d 958, 962-63 (10th Cir. 1994)by noting that the entry into the Mimics was intentional and purposeful and not inadvertent.
The Court allowed the plaintiff's First Amendment claim to proceed as well. The Court placed the burden on defendants to show that their conduct was reasonable:
"[P]roof of an official's retaliatory intent rarely will be supported by direct evidence of such intent." Poole v. County of Otero, 271 F.3d 955, 962 (10th Cir. 2001) (quotation omitted). In the context of a summary judgment motion on a qualified immunity defense to a claim involving the defendant's state of mind, the defendant must first show that the challenged conduct was objectively reasonable. Gehl Group v. Koby, 63 F.3d 1528, 1535 (10th Cir. 1995), implicitly overruled on another issue by Currier v. Doran, 242 F.3d 905, 916 (10th Cir. 2001). Because this court has determined that there is evidence Hasford's entries into MIMICS on December 20, 1996 and January 16, 1997 were not objectively reasonable, we need not conduct any further analysis.(6) Construing the evidence in the Wildgrubes' favor, as we must do on summary judgment, Hasford has failed, at least at this point in the proceedings, to establish that he is entitled to qualified immunity on the Wildgrubes' First Amendment claim.
The case has settled on remand.
