II. Government Official as Shooter As egregious as it is when a neighbor unjustifiably shoots a client’s dog, it is often even more shocking when government officials, such as police officers, abuse their power while acting under the color of legal authority. The good news is that in these cases, the plaintiff can bring all the state claims that can be raised for ordinary citizens as well as certain federal claims. United States Code Section 1983 (42 U.S.C. 1983) provides a cause of action to sue government employees who have violated a person’s constitutional rights, a valuable opportunity for recovery not available at the state level. It is important to note that if the lawsuit is brought in federal court, all state claims must also be raised at that time or the pet owner may lose the right to raise them at a later time. A. Federal Claims Fourth Amendment Constitutional Claim/ 1983 Federal Statutory Claim In all states, pets are defined as personal property under state law (federal law does not provide for any classification of pets). Thus, the injury or killing of pets can be a federal violation of the pet owner’s constitutional Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures of their property. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that an unreasonable meaningful interference with or destruction of personal property is a violation of the Fourth Amendment even when an officer is acting pursuant to a warrant, Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56 (1992) , and even when there has been no search (“ Seizures of property are subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny even though no search within the meaning of the Amendment has taken place.” Newsome v. Erwin 137 F.Supp.2d 934 (S.D. Ohio 2000) , citing Soldal v. Cook County , 506 U.S. 56, 65 (1992) ). Normally, only government entities can be sued for constitutional violations. However, a federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , provides plaintiffs with a means of suing individual officials when they have acted under government authority to deprive people “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and the laws.” However, all government officials enjoy qualified immunity, which plaintiffs must defeat to prevail.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 06:46:09 +0000
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