The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
________________________________________
JOSHUA SEIDMAN and CHRISTOPHER HANOLD,
Plaintiffs,
v. No. 1:18-cv-202
(TJM/CFH)
STATE TROOPER JOSEPH COLBY and STATE
TROOPER JOHN DOE,
Defendants.
_________________________________________
THOMAS J. McAVOY,
Senior United States District Judge
DECISION & ORDER
Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, which the Court granted in part
and denied in part. See dkt. #s 51, 59. The Court concluded that, on one issue,
Defendant Colby may be entitled to qualified immunity. The parties had not briefed that
issue, and the Court directed them to supplement their briefing with reference to whether
qualified immunity applied. The parties have supplied that briefing.
I. Background
This case concerns the arrests of Plaintiffs Joshua Seidman and Christopher Hanold
after a traffic stop on January 24, 2016. They allege that aspects of the stop and their
subsequent arrests and prosecutions violated their constitutional rights. They raise their
claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the two New York State Troopers who arrested
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them, Defendants Joseph Colby and David Dworkin.1
The issue presently before the Court concerns the arrest of Plaintiff Hanold. That
arrest occurred in the driveway of his home. The parties agree that the arrest was
warrantless. Plaintiffs allege that this arrest violated Hanold’s Fourth Amendment rights
because the officers who arrested him did not possess an exception to the warrant
requirement and the arrest occurred in the curtilage of his home. The Court found that
there was a question of fact about whether the place where the arrest occurred constituted
the curtilage and denied the motion for summary judgment. Because the Second Circuit
Court of Appeals has directed courts to resolve issues of qualified immunity as early in the
litigation as possible, and because the Court suspected the question of whether the warrant
requirement applied in the curitlage was unsettled in this Circuit, the Court directed the
parties to brief the issue of qualified immunity.
II. Legal Standard
At issue here is qualified immunity. “Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense that
shields government officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not
violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
would have known.’” Stephenson v. Doe, 332 F.3d 68, 76 (2d Cir. 2003) (quoting McCardle
v. Haddad, 131 F.3d 43, 50 (2d Cir. 1997)). Qualified immunity also applies when “‘it was
‘objectively reasonable’ for [the officer] to believe that [his or her] actions were lawful at the
time of the challenged act.’” Betts v. Shearman, 751 F.3d 78, 83 (2d Cir. 2014) (quoting
Jenkins v. City of New York, 478 F.3d 76, 87 (2d Cir. 2007)).
1Plaintiffs named Dworkin as “John Doe” in the case caption.
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Hl. Analysis
“Qualified immunity shields government officials from civil damages liability unless
the official violated a statutory or constitutional right that was clearly established at the time
of the challenged conduct.” Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012). “[CJourts may
grant qualified immunity on the ground that a puported right was not ‘clearly established’ by
the prior case law, without resolving the more difficult question whether the purported right
exists at all.” Id. “Clearly established’ means that, at the time of the officer’s conduct, the
law was ‘sufficiently clear’ that every ‘reasonable official would understand that what he is
doing’ is unlawful.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018) (quoting
Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011)). As such, “existing law must have placed
the constitutionality of the officer's conduct ‘beyond debate.” Id. (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S.
at 741). “This demanding standard protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who
knowingly violate the law.” Id. (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986)). “To
determine whether a right is clearly established,” a court will “generally look to Supreme
Court and Second Circuit precedent existing at the time of the alleged violation.” Vasquez
v. Maloney, 990 F.3d 232, 238 (2d Cir. 2021) (quoting Garcia v. Doe, 779 F.3d 84, 92 (2d
Cir. 2015)). This inquiry should look at the “the specific context of the case,” an
examination “especially important in the Fourth Amendment context, where . . . it is
sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine . . . will apply
to the factual situation the officer confronts.” Id. (quoting Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12
(2015)). A reviewing court need not identify “a case directly on point . . . but existing
precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Id.
(quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741). “[T]here must be ‘a case where an officer acting under
similar circumstances . . . was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment’. . . such that
the unlawfulness of the defendant officer’s conduct would ‘follow immediately.” Id. (quoting,
in turn, White v. Pauly, 137 S.Ct. 548, 552 (2017), and Wesby, 138 S.Ct. 577, 590) (internal
citations omitted)).
The question here is whether the arrest of Hanold in the driveway of his home, if the
driveway is part of the curtilage, violated a clearly established Fourth Amendment right.
Plaintiffs, in part, contend that the Court’s finding that a question of fact “probably” existed
as to whether the arrest occurred in the curtilage of the home precludes a finding that
qualified immunity applies. Plaintiffs are mistaken in this respect. The Court found that,
assuming that a warrantless arrest in the curtilage violated the Fourth Amendment, a
question of fact existed as to whether the arrest occurred in the curtilage. The ability of a
jury to decide that fact has no bearing on whether “every reasonable official would
understand” that making an arrest in the curtilage violated the Fourth Amendment.” Wesby,
“Plaintiffs cite to Thomas v. Roach, 165 F.3d 137 (2d Cir. 1999), for the proposition
that “[s]ummary judgment on qualified immunity grounds is not appropriate when there are
facts in dispute that are material to a determination of reasonableness.” Thomas, 165
F.3d at 143. In Thomas, the plaintiff alleged that officers used excessive force when they
shot him. The Court of Appeals found that “the trial court should not have granted
summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds unless it concluded that the only result
a fair jury could reach is that reasonable police officers could disagree about whether the
force used against Thomas was excessive. The district court could not properly reach this
conclusion if any material facts were in dispute.” Id. The Court then pointed out the
material facts that were in dispute: “(1) whether Thomas was armed at the time of the
shooting; (2) whether Thomas attempted to harm Officer Roach before the first volley of
shots; (3) whether it was feasible for the officers to warn Thoams before shooting him; and
(4) whether Thomas lunged at Roach before the first volley of shots such that Roach had
to shoot Thomas three more times.” Id. Since “the district could not determine whether
the officers reasonably believed that their force was not excessive when several material
facts were still in dispute, summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity was
precluded.” Id. at 144. The same situation does not exist here. While there may be a
(continued...)
138 S.Ct. at 589 (internal citation omitted).
“Because a person’s right to be free from ‘unreasonable government intrusion’ in his
home ‘stands at the very core of the Fourth Amendment, . . . searches and seizures inside a
home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551,
559 (2004). “[I]n the absence of exigent circumstances, the Amendment prohibits law
enforcement officials from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a □□□□□□□□□
home to arrest him.” United States v. Allen, 813 F.3d 76, 77 (2d Cir. 2016). As a general
matter “driveways that are readily accessible to visitors are not entitled to the same degree
of Fourth Amendment protection as are the interiors of defendants’ houses.” United States
v. Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 465 (2d Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Reilly, 76 F.3d 1271,
1279 (2d Cir. 1996)). Courts have therefore concluded that “a law enforcement officer’s
presence on an individual’s driveway when that officer was in pursuit of legitimate law
enforcement business” does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. Recent cases in this
Circuit have concluded that doing such police business in a homeowner's driveway does not
violate the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Lilly v. Hall, No. 16-cv-242, 2019 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 10152, at *15 (W.D.N.Y. Jan. 22, 2019) (finding no Fourth Amendment violation
when police officers issued a ticket in the driveway because “[t]hat is precisely the sort of
police purpose for which officers may enter areas reasonably accessible to visitors without
implicating the Fourth Amendment.”); Marom v. Town of Hempstead, No. 14-cv-3005, 2017
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217330 at *18-19 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 22, 2017) (no Fourth Amendment
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question of fact about whether the arrest occurred in the curtilage, whether the arrest
actually occurred in the curtilage is not material to the question of whether an arrest in the
curtilage violated a clearly established right.
violation for serving valid summons in driveway); Jackson v. Waterbury Police Dep’t, No.
11-cv-442, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119771 at *15 (D. Conn. Sept. 8, 2015) (police officers
did not violate Fourth Amendment by engaging in police business in a driveway after
making a traffic stop).
Following this logic, an arrest without a warrant or exigent circumstances in the
driveway would likely not violate the Fourth Amendment. Here, however, the Court has
found that a question of fact exists of whether the arrest occurred in an area of the driveway
entitled to more Fourth Amendment protection. “The curtilage–that is, the area adjacent to
the home and to which the activity of home life extends–is considered part of a person’s
home and enjoys the same protection against unreasonable searches as the home itself.”
United States v. Alexander, 888 F.3d 628, 631 (2d Cir. 2018). A search of the curtilage not
authorized by a warrant or some exception to the warrant requirement violates the Fourth
Amendment. Id. At the same time, the Fourth Amendment does not apply to “that portion
of private property that extends outside a home’s curtilage–what the caselaw terms an
‘open field.’” Id. (quoting Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013)).
Pointing to caselaw that extends Fourth Amendment protection to the curtilage,
particularly to Florida v. Jardines, Plaintiffs argue that “Defendants were aware that (1) a
warrantless, exigent-less, and non-consensual seizure of a person within a protected
premises violates the Fourth Amendment; and (2) the curtilage is a protected premises in
that it is part of the home itself and afforded the same protections under the Fourth
Amendment.” They do not point, however, to any cases that find that an arrest, as opposed
to a search, in the curtilage constitutes a Fourth Amendment violation. From Plaintiffs’
argument, Defendants would have had to draw a conclusion from existing case law that a
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warrantless arrest in the curtilage violated the Fourth Amendment because a warrantless
search in the curtilage does. Defendants have not pointed to any Supreme Court or
Second Circuit case that reaches this conclusion. Under these circumstances, the Court
cannot find that the right that the officers allegedly violated—arresting a person in the part of
their driveway that constituted the curtilage—was clearly established under the relevant
precedent. Summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds is appropriate on this claim.
IV. CONCLUSION
Having considered the issues before the Court, the Court concludes that qualified
immunity is appropriate for the Defendants on Plaintiff Hanold’s claim in Count 2 of
Plaintiffs’ complaint. The Court will therefore amend its earlier order on Defendants’ motion
for summary judgment, dkt. # 51, to grant Defendants’ motion on that claim as well.
IT IS SO ORDERED. aT
Thomas J. pe
Senior, U.S. District Judge
Dated: January 14, 2022