CA6: Police destruction of plaintiff’s garage was a “meaningful interference,” and a trial question remains on reasonablenss

Plaintiffs’ claim against defendants for executing a search warrant unreasonably survived summary judgment on qualified immunity. Officers got a search warrant for plaintiff’s property to search for a person missing since 1997. They drilled holes in plaintiff’s concrete garage floor, and a cadaver dog allegedly alerted. They emptied the garage and started digging. They piled dirt on plaintiff’s belongings considering it “junk.” Their digging down 15′ undermined the structure, and they supported it on their own. They found nothing and left, and they felt unobliged to do anything to restore the condition of the property. Ground water from rain created a pond in plaintiff’s garage. This was a “meaningful interference” with plaintiffs’ property and fact questions remain on whether it was reasonable [and it certainly seems from the opinion that it was not], and this right was clearly established at the time. Spangler v. Wenninger, 388 Fed. Appx. 507 (6th Cir. 2010) (unpublished):

. . . The destruction of property is a “meaningful interference” with personal property and constitutes a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 124-25. The manner in which the seizure is conducted is reviewed for “reasonableness, and in a § 1983 action the District Court must determine not whether the destruction was ‘reasonably necessary to effectively execute the search warrant’ but whether the plaintiff has raised factual issues to be submitted to a jury on this point.” Hill v. McIntyre, 884 F.2d 271, 278 (6th Cir. 1989) (quoting Tarpley v. Greene, 684 F.2d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 1982)).

Photographs of the property following the search show that the property was left in complete disarray with piles of dirt placed all over Plaintiffs’ vehicles and property. While Defendants claim that they had no choice but to pile dirt on Plaintiffs’ personal property, there was evidence that there were other areas of the property where the dirt or personal property could have been placed. Defendants could have sought to expand the search warrant to allow for the placement of the extracted dirt in these other areas, but they did not. They have failed to identify any exigent circumstances that explain their failure to do so although Plaintiffs’ two-acre property could have easily accommodated this. Wenninger was at the site on several occasions, operating a Bobcat and piling dirt on Plaintiffs’ property. The officers were aware that doing this would damage Plaintiffs’ property. Additionally, Defendants failed to fill the hole that they dug during the search, leaving a hole that was up to fifteen feet deep in the garage that became filled with water. Defendants fail to explain why they did not fill the hole, and merely argue that they believed that they were not required to do so. However, Wenninger testified that the officers were aware that the hole could become filled with water upon conclusion of the search. The totality of the circumstances did not warrant the knowing destruction of Plaintiffs’ personal property by unnecessarily piling dirt on it, and failing to fill the large hole that remained in the garage. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving parties in this case, Plaintiffs, we find that genuine issues of material fact remain concerning the reasonableness of Defendants’ conduct here.