# WALDE v. MEURER

> District Court, N.D. Florida · April 21, 2022

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10116573

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, N.D. Florida
- **Decided:** April 21, 2022
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

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.
___________________________/

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

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10116573. Public record. Not legal advice.