WALDE v. MEURER

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

GAINESVILLE DIVISION

PAUL DONOVAN WALDE,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No.: 1:21cv123-MW/GRJ

OFFICER JOSHUA MEURER,

Defendant.

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ORDER ACCEPTING IN PART AND REJECTING IN PART

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This Court has considered, without hearing, the Magistrate Judge's Report and

Recommendation. ECF No. 23. This Court accepts the recommendation insofar as

it recommends dismissal without prejudice as to Plaintiff’s “false arrest claims.”

However, this Court rejects the recommendation to dismiss with prejudice Plaintiff’s

“search and seizure” claims. This is so, because, construing Plaintiff’s complaint in

the light most favorable to him and taking his factual allegations therein as true,

Plaintiff has plausibly alleged that an illegal seizure occurred when Defendant

“open[ed] the Plaintiff[‘s] passenger door of vehic[le] [and] ordered Plaintiff to

show ID.” See ECF No. 1 at 5.

To be clear, this Court agrees with the Magistrate Judge that during traffic

stops, officers can require a driver’s license to run a check, and that officers can

engage in consensual encounters with individuals—even individuals in cars—by

approaching them in public to ask questions. However, this Court does not agree

that, when construing Plaintiff’s allegations as true and all inferences therefrom in

the light most favorable to him, Defendant’s alleged action of opening the car door

while Plaintiff was asleep in the car did not amount to an unreasonable search and

seizure.

Other courts have considered analogous facts and recognized that an officer’s

decision to open someone’s car door arguably amounts to a seizure in some

circumstances. See United States v. Brown, 334 F.3d 1161, 1169 (D.C. Cir. 2003)

(concluding that, although the “opening of the car door constituted both a stop and

a search for Terry purposes,” officers did not violate Fourth Amendment, but noting

that “we do not suggest that whenever the police approach a car in the course of

investigating a shooting late at night . . . the police may intrude on the personal

security of the occupant of a car based on a person’s mere presence in a high-crime

neighborhood”); United States v. Mestre, 362 F. Supp. 3d 1175, 1180 (M.D. Ala.

2019) (“The court finds that the seizure occurred the moment Officer Hughes opened

the car door and began asking Defendants questions.”); United States v. Greene,

2020 WL 2747281, 5:19cr153-GFVT-MAS, *2 (E.D. Ken. May 27, 2020) (noting

that while the Government conceded the officer’s “action of opening the driver side

door constituted at least a seizure, if not also a search,” the action was reasonable

under the “community-caretaker exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant

requirement”); United States v. Parker, No. 3:09-CR-148 JD, 2010 WL 2943649,

*5–*6 (N.D. Ind. July 21, 2010) (explaining that officers who opened car doors

effected a seizure of the defendant, however the seizure as reasonable in light of the

totality of the circumstances). In so stating, this Court recognizes that this is merely

the motion-to-dismiss stage, and the record may develop further in this case

shedding light on the reasonableness of Defendant’s actions, particularly with

respect to any exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, such as

the community-caretaking exception. But at this juncture, and upon consideration,

no objections having been filed by the parties,

IT IS ORDERED:

The report and recommendation, ECF No. 23, is accepted in part and

rejected in part. Defendant’s motion to dismiss, ECF No. 7, is GRANTED in part

and DENIED in part. Plaintiff’s complaint, ECF No. 1, is dismissed with leave to

amend on or before Thursday, May 12, 2022. This case is remanded to the Magistrate

Judge for all further proceedings.

SO ORDERED on April 21, 2022.

s/Mark E. Walker ____

Chief United States District Judge