CA9: Gated front yard clearly curtilage by common experience and applying Dunn

Plaintiffs’ gated front yard was curtilage, and the officer had to know it. Kicking open the gate hitting plaintiff was unreasonable. Sims v. Stanton, 706 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2012), amended January 16, 2012:

Sims’s small, enclosed, residential yard is quintessential curtilage. “[A] small, enclosed yard adjacent to a home in a residential neighborhood [] is unquestionably such a ‘clearly marked’ area ‘to which the activity of home life extends,’ and so is ‘curtilage’ subject to the Fourth Amendment protection.” Struckman, 603 F.3d at 739 (quoting Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12). Because Sims’s front yard obviously meets the definition of curtilage, the district court did not need to analyze it under the factors announced by the Supreme Court in United States v. Dunn. 480 U.S. at 294. These factors serve as “useful analytical tools” to ensure that Fourth Amendment protections extend to areas that are much further from the house but that still should be “treated as the home itself.” Id. at 300-01. Here, however, the factors are unnecessary because it is “easily understood from our daily experience” that Sims’s yard is curtilage.⁴ Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12; see also Struckman, 603 F.3d at 739.

4 Of course, applying the Dunn factors to Sims’s yard leads to the same result. The first factor, “the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home,” id. at 301, is met because her front yard is adjacent to her home and extends only a short distance. The second factor, whether the area is “included within an enclosure surrounding the home,” id., is met because a tall wooden fence encloses both her front yard and her home. Sims meets the third factor, “the nature of the uses to which the area is put,” id., because Sims stated that she enjoyed a high degree of privacy in her front yard, that she used it to store her wheelchair, and that she entertains guests there. The final factor, “steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by,” id., is met because the gate that Stanton kicked in was a “sturdy, solid wood,” six-foot-high fence with narrow slats between the planks of wood.