Justices Toughen Rules on Illegal Repossessions

In a potentially significant victory for tenants over their landlords, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids police from cooperating in an illegal seizure of a tenant’s property.

In a 9-0 ruling, the justices said that the Fourth Amendment not only shields citizens from an invasion of their privacy but also protects their property from being illegally repossessed.

“Our cases unmistakably hold that the (Fourth) Amendment protects property as well as privacy,” wrote Justice Byron R. White in a ruling that reversed the decision of a U.S. appeals court in Chicago.

The high court decision gives tenants and homeowners a new weapon to block illegal repossessions of their property.

In the case before the court, police were called in but stood idly by while a landlord illegally removed a tenant’s trailer. Tuesday’s decision revives a damage suit against the Cook County Sheriff’s Department for violating the tenant’s rights.

Perhaps equally important, the court’s opinion reaffirms what would appear to be obvious: that the Fourth Amendment forbids illegal seizures of property by government agents.

It says: “The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”

During the 1960s, the court in cases involving wiretaps and other police investigations expanded the reach of the Fourth Amendment by ruling that it protects a citizen’s “legitimate expectation of privacy,” even when police do not invade a person’s home. For example, officers cannot use a wiretap to pick up a conversation without entering a residence.

But recently, more conservative judges have declared that unless a person’s privacy is invaded the Fourth Amendment is not violated. By this logic, a blatantly illegal seizure of property is deemed not to violate the ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

In this case, Edward Soldal and the owner of a trailer park in Elk Grove, Ill., were locked in a dispute over rent and the frustrated park owner decided to have Soldal’s trailer carted away. Illinois law forbids such an eviction without a court order.

Nonetheless, Soldal’s protests to Cook County deputies were ignored and his trailer was pulled up from its moorings and carried away.

Soldal filed suit against Cook County, contending that its deputies had violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. But a federal judge and the appeals court threw out the suit and ruled that a “pure deprivation of property” does not violate the Constitution.

“There was no invasion of the Soldal’s privacy,” explained Judge Richard Posner for the 6-5 appeals court majority.

Writing for the court, White called this conclusion “both interesting and creative” but nonetheless wrong.

“We fail to see how being unceremoniously dispossessed of one’s home in the manner alleged to have occurred here can be viewed as anything but a seizure involving the protection of the (Fourth) Amendment,” White wrote in the case (Soldal vs. Cook County, 91-6516).

He said he doubts, however, that Tuesday’s ruling will “foment a wave of new litigation in the federal courts.” Rarely will officers “choose to further an enterprise knowing that it is contrary to the law” or allow the seizure of property without “reasonable grounds for doing so,” he said.