CA1: Rooming house owner had REP in common areas of whole building

The First Circuit held that the renter of a large building who allowed others to live somewhat communally had a reasonable expectation of privacy [as they all would] in what would otherwise be common area. Is it an apartment house or a rooming house? If the latter, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common areas. This was the latter. United States v. Werra, 638 F.3d 326 (1st Cir. 2011):

Thus, we agree with the district court that, unlike the typical expectation-of-privacy inquiry, which focuses solely on the particular location in which the evidence the defendant seeks to suppress was found, see, e.g., United States v. Bucci, 582 F.3d 108, 116 (1st Cir. 2009) (front of home, as viewed by video camera); Rheault, 561 F.3d at 59 (third-floor landing of the front stairway); United States v. Meada, 408 F.3d 14, 22 (1st Cir. 2005) (gun case), we must conduct a broader examination of Werra’s and the other tenants’ living arrangements throughout 63 Menlo Street. If they lived separately — like apartment dwellers — they could not claim the common areas of the house, including the foyer, as their private space vis-a-vis outsiders. However, if they did not live in individualized “residences” within the house — and were thus more like the occupants of a single-family home — their right to privacy vis-a-vis outsiders would begin at 63 Menlo Street’s front door. Under the latter scenario, the officers would have violated Werra’s reasonable expectation of privacy by forcibly entering the house. We thus also agree with the district court that the relevant considerations for our inquiry include whether the building contains “recognizably separate living units,” the residents’ right to exclude others from parts of the building, the number of residents, and the “formal legal relationship” among them. Werra, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68790, 2008 WL 4280035, at *4-5. Other facts that shed light on how the tenants viewed the dwelling, including the tenants’ customary use of various spaces within the premises, also are pertinent in evaluating their subjective expectation of privacy.

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In sum, based on the facts of record, we conclude that Werra has met his burden to show that he possessed a subjective expectation of privacy in the foyer of 63 Menlo Street — or, more specifically, that he believed the entire house, and not just the third floor, served as his home and, hence, that he could prevent the entry of anyone whom he and his housemates wished to keep out. We further conclude that, on this record, Werra’s expectation of privacy was reasonable. A resident of a single-family structure who shares living arrangements as did the tenants of 63 Menlo Street could reasonably expect that his right to privacy begins at the front door. See Titus, 707 So. 2d at 708 (holding that, “just like private homeowners, rooming house residents have an actual expectation of privacy in the common areas of the rooming house” and that “given the sanctity of the home, society is prepared to recognize that expectation as reasonable”).