                   U.S. Supreme Court 

     SOLDAL v. COOK COUNTY, 506 U.S. 56 (1992) 

                        506 U.S. 56 

     SOLDAL, ET UX. v. COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS ET AL. 
  CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                         FOR THE 
                    SEVENTH CIRCUIT 
                        No. 91-6516 

                   Argued October 5, 1992 
                  Decided December 8, 1992 

While eviction proceedings were pending, Terrace Properties and Margaret 
Hale forcibly evicted petitioners, the Soldal family, and their mobile home 
from a Terrace Properties' mobile home park. At Hale's request, Cook County, 
Illinois, Sheriff's Department deputies were present at the eviction. 
Although they knew that there was no eviction order and that Terrace 
Properties' actions were illegal, the deputies refused to take Mr. Soldal's 
complaint for criminal trespass or otherwise interfere with the eviction. 
Subsequently, the state judge assigned to the pending eviction proceedings 
ruled that the eviction had been unauthorized, and the trailer, badly 
damaged during the eviction, was returned to the lot. Petitioners brought an 
action in the Federal District Court under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that 
Terrace Properties and Hale had conspired with the deputy sheriffs to 
unreasonably seize and remove their home in violation of their Fourth and 
Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court granted defendants' motion for 
summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Acknowledging that what 
had occurred was a "seizure" in the literal sense of the word, the court 
reasoned that it was not a seizure as contemplated by the Fourth Amendment 
because, inter alia, it did not invade petitioners' privacy. 

Held: 

The seizure and removal of the trailer home implicated petitioners' Fourth
Amendment rights. Pp. 61-72.

     (a) A "seizure" of property occurs when "there is some
     meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests
     in that property." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109,
     113 . The language of the Fourth Amendment - which protects
     people from unreasonable searches and seizures of "their
     persons, houses, papers, and effects" - cuts against the novel
     holding below, and this Court's cases unmistakably hold that
     the Amendment protects property even where privacy or
     liberty is not implicated. See, e.g., ibid.; Katz v. United States,
     389 U.S. 347, 350 . This Court's "plain view" decisions also
     make untenable the lower court's construction of the
     Amendment. If the Amendment's boundaries were defined
     exclusively by rights of privacy, "plain view" seizures, rather
     than being scrupulously subjected to Fourth Amendment
     inquiry, Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 326 -327, would not
     implicate that constitutional provision at all. Contrary to the
     Court of Appeals' [506 U.S. 56, 57] position, the Amendment
     protects seizure even though no search within its meaning has
     taken place. See, e.g., Jacobsen, supra, at 120-125. Also
     contrary to that court's view, Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S.
     386 , does not require a court, when it finds that a wrong
     implicates more than one constitutional command, to look at
     the dominant character of the challenged conduct to determine
     under which constitutional standard it should be evaluated.
     Rather, each constitutional provision is examined in turn. See,
     e.g., Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 . Pp. 61-71. 

     (b) The instant decision should not foment a wave of new
     litigation in the federal courts. Activities such as repossessions
     or attachments, if they involve entering a home, intruding on
     individuals' privacy, or interfering with their liberty, would
     implicate the Fourth Amendment even on the Court of
     Appeals' own terms. And numerous seizures of this type will
     survive constitutional scrutiny on "reasonableness" grounds.
     Moreover, it is unlikely that the police will often choose to
     further an enterprise knowing that it is contrary to the law, or
     proceed to seize property in the absence of objectively
     reasonable grounds for doing so. Pp. 71-72. 

942 F.2d 1073, reversed and remanded.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

John L. Stainthorp argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners. 

Kenneth L. Gillis argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief
were Jack O'Malley, Renee G. Goldfarb, and Kenneth T. McCurry. [*] 

[ Footnote *] James D. Holzhauer, Timothy S. Bishop, John A. Powell, Steven 
R. Shapiro, Harvey M. Grossman, and Alan K. Chen filed a brief for the 
American Civil Liberties Union et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.

Richard Ruda, Carter G. Phillips, Mark D. Hopson, and Mark E. Haddad
filed a brief for the National League of Cities et al. as amici curiae urging
affirmance.

JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

                            I 

Edward Soldal and his family resided in their trailer home, which was 
located on a rented lot in the Willoway Terrace mobile [506 U.S. 56, 58] 
home park in Elk Grove, Illinois. In May 1987, Terrace Properties, the owner 
of the park, and Margaret Hale, its manager, filed an eviction proceeding 
against the Soldals in an Illinois state court. Under the Illinois Forcible 
Entry and Detainer Act, Ill.Rev.Stat., ch. 110,  9-101 et seq. (1991), a 
tenant cannot be dispossessed absent a judgment of eviction. The suit was 
dismissed on June 2, 1987. A few months later, in August 1987, the owner 
brought a second proceeding of eviction, claiming nonpayment of rent. The 
case was set for trial on September 22, 1987.

Rather than await judgment in their favor, Terrace Properties and Hale, 
contrary to Illinois law, chose to evict the Soldals forcibly two weeks 
prior to the scheduled hearing. On September 4, Hale notified the Cook 
County's Sheriff's Department that she was going to remove the trailer home 
from the park, and requested the presence of sheriff deputies to forestall 
any possible resistance. Later that day, two Terrace Properties employees 
arrived at the Soldals' home accompanied by Cook County Deputy Sheriff 
O'Neil. The employees proceeded to wrench the sewer and water connections 
off the side of the trailer home, disconnect the phone, tear off the 
trailer's canopy and skirting, and hook the home to a tractor. Meanwhile, 
O'Neil explained to Edward Soldal that "`he was there to see that [Soldal] 
didn't interfere with [Willoway's] work.'" Brief for Petitioner 6.

By this time, two more deputy sheriffs had arrived at the scene, and Soldal 
told them that he wished to file a complaint for criminal trespass. They 
referred him to deputy Lieutenant Jones, who was in Hale's office. Jones 
asked Soldal to wait outside while he remained closeted with Hale and other 
Terrace Properties employees for over 20 minutes. After talking to a 
district attorney and making Soldal wait another half hour, Jones told 
Soldal that he would not accept a complaint because "`it was between the 
landlord and the tenant ... [and] they were going to go ahead and continue 
to move [506 U.S. 56, 59] out the trailer.'" Id., at 8. 1 Throughout this 
period, the deputy sheriffs knew that Terrace Properties did not have an 
eviction order and that its actions were unlawful. Eventually, and in the 
presence of an additional two deputy sheriffs, the Willoway workers pulled 
the trailer free of its moorings and towed it onto the street. Later, it was 
hauled to a neighboring property.

On September 9, the state judge assigned to the pending eviction
proceedings ruled that the eviction had been unauthorized, and ordered
Terrace Properties to return the Soldals' home to the lot. The home,
however, was badly damaged. [2] The Soldals brought this action under 42
U.S.C. 1983, alleging a violation of their rights under the Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendments. They claimed that Terrace Properties and Hale
had conspired with Cook County deputy sheriffs to unreasonably seize and
remove the Soldals' trailer home. The District Judge granted defendants'
motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the Soldals had failed to
adduce any evidence to support their conspiracy theory and, therefore, the
existence of state action necessary under 1983. [3] 

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, construing the facts in 
petitioners' favor, accepted their contention that there was state action. 
However, it went on to hold that [506 U.S. 56, 60] the removal of the 
Soldals' trailer did not constitute a seizure for purposes of the Fourth 
Amendment or a deprivation of due process for purposes of the Fourteenth.

On rehearing, a majority of the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, reaffirmed 
the panel decision. [4] Acknowledging that what had occurred was a "seizure" 
in the literal sense of the word, the court reasoned that, because it was 
not made in the course of public law enforcement, and because it did not 
invade the Soldals' privacy, it was not a seizure as contemplated by the 
Fourth Amendment. 942 F.2d 1073, 1076 (1991). Interpreting prior cases of 
this Court, the Seventh Circuit concluded that, absent interference with 
privacy or liberty, a "pure deprivation of property" is not cognizable under 
the Fourth Amendment. Id., at 1078-1079. Rather, petitioners' property 
interests were protected only by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and 
Fourteenth Amendments. [5]  

We granted certiorari to consider whether the seizure and removal of the
Soldals' trailer home implicated their Fourth Amendment rights, 503 U.S.
918 (1992), and now reverse. [6]  [506 U.S. 56, 61] 

                            II 

The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth, Ker 
v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 30 (1963), provides in pertinent part that the 
"right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 
violated... ."

A "seizure" of property, we have explained, occurs when "there is some 
meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that 
property." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113 (1984). In addition, 
we have emphasized that "at the very core" of the Fourth Amendment "stands 
the right of a man to retreat into his own home." Silverman v. United 
States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 (1961). See also Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 
170, 178 -179 (1984); Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309, 316 (1971); Payton v. 
New York, 445 U.S. 573, 601 (1980).

As a result of the state action in this case, the Soldals' domicile was not 
only seized, it literally was carried away, giving new meaning to the term 
"mobile home." 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 invoking the protection of the Fourth Amendment. 
Whether the Amendment was in fact [506 U.S. 56, 62] violated is, of course, 
a different question that requires determining if the seizure was 
reasonable. That inquiry entails the weighing of various factors, and is not 
before us.

The Court if Appeals recognized that there had been a seizure, but concluded 
that it was a seizure only in a "technical" sense, not within the meaning of 
the Fourth Amendment. This conclusion followed from a narrow reading of the 
Amendment, which the court construed to safeguard only privacy and liberty 
interests, while leaving unprotected possessory interests where neither 
privacy nor liberty was at stake. Otherwise, the court said,

     "a constitutional provision enacted two centuries ago [would]
     make every repossession and eviction with police assistance
     actionable under - of all things - the Fourth Amendment[,
     which] would both trivialize the amendment and gratuitously
     shift a large body of routine commercial litigation from the state
     courts to the federal courts. That trivializing, this shift, can be
     prevented by recognizing the difference between possessory
     and privacy interests." 942 F.2d, at 1077. 

Because the officers had not entered Soldal's house, rummaged through his 
possessions, or, in the Court of Appeals' view, interfered with his liberty 
in the course of the eviction, the Fourth Amendment offered no protection 
against the "grave deprivation" of property that had occurred. Ibid.

We do not agree with this interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. The 
Amendment protects the people from unreasonable searches and seizures of 
"their persons, houses, papers, and effects." This language surely cuts 
against the novel holding below, and our cases unmistakably hold that the 
Amendment protects property as well as privacy. [7] This much [506 U.S. 56, 
63] was made clear in Jacobsen, supra, where we explained that the first 
Clause of the Fourth Amendment

     "protects two types of expectations, one involving "searches,"
     the other "seizures." A "search" occurs when an expectation of
     privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is
     infringed. A "seizure" of property occurs where there is some
     meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests
     in that property." 466 U.S., at 113 (footnote omitted). 

See also id., at 120; Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 133 (1990); 
Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 328 (1987); Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 
469 (1985); Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 747 -748 (1983) (STEVENS, J., 
concurring in judgment); United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 91 , n. 6 
(1980). Thus, having concluded that chemical testing of powder found in a 
package did not compromise its owner's privacy, the Court in Jacobsen did 
not put an end to its inquiry, as would be required under the view adopted 
by the Court of Appeals and advocated by respondents. Instead, adhering to 
the teachings of United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983), it went on to 
determine whether the invasion of the owners' "possessory interests" 
occasioned by the destruction of the powder was reasonable under the Fourth 
Amendment. Jacobsen, supra, at 124-125. In Place, although we found that 
subjecting luggage to a "dog sniff" did not constitute a search for Fourth 
Amendment purposes because it did not compromise any privacy interest, 
taking custody of Place's suitcase was deemed an unlawful seizure, for it 
unreasonably infringed "the suspect's possessory interest in his luggage." 
462 U.S., at 708 . 8 Although lacking a privacy component, the property 
rights in both instances nonetheless were not [506 U.S. 56, 64] disregarded, 
but rather were afforded Fourth Amendment protection.

Respondents rely principally on precedents such as Katz v. United States, 
389 U.S. 347 (1967), Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 
(1967), and Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583 (1974), to demonstrate that the 
Fourth Amendment is only marginally concerned with property rights. But the 
message of those cases is that property rights are not the sole measure of 
Fourth Amendment violations. The Warden opinion thus observed, citing Jones 
v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 (1960), and Silverman v. United States, 365 
U.S. 505 (1961), that the "principal" object of the Amendment is the 
protection of privacy, rather than property, and that "this shift in 
emphasis from property to privacy has come about through a subtle interplay 
of substantive and procedural reform." 387 U.S., at 304 . There was no 
suggestion that this shift in emphasis had snuffed out the previously 
recognized protection for property under the Fourth Amendment. Katz, in 
declaring violative of the Fourth Amendment the unwarranted overhearing of a 
telephone booth conversation, effectively ended any lingering notions that 
the protection of privacy depended on trespass into a protected area. In the 
course of its decision, the Katz Court stated that the Fourth Amendment can 
neither be translated into a provision dealing with constitutionally 
protected areas nor into a general constitutional right to privacy. The 
Amendment, the Court said, protects individual privacy against certain kinds 
of governmental intrusion, "but its protections go further, and often have 
nothing to do with privacy at all." 389 U.S., at 350 .

As for Cardwell, a plurality of this Court held in that case that the Fourth 
Amendment did not bar the use in evidence of paint scrapings taken from and 
tire treads observed on the defendant's automobile, which had been seized in 
a parking lot and towed to a police lockup. Gathering this evidence was not 
deemed to be a search, for nothing from the [506 U.S. 56, 65] interior of 
the car and "no personal effects, which the Fourth Amendment traditionally 
has been deemed to protect" were searched or seized. 417 U.S., at 591 
(opinion of BLACKMUN, J.). No meaningful privacy rights were invaded. But 
this left the argument, pressed by the dissent, that the evidence gathered 
was the product of a warrantless, and hence illegal, seizure of the car from 
the parking lot where the defendant had left it. However, the plurality was 
of the view that, because, under the circumstances of the case, there was 
probable cause to seize the car as an instrumentality of the crime, Fourth 
Amendment precedent permitted the seizure without a warrant. Id., at 593. 
Thus, both the plurality and dissenting Justices considered the defendant's 
auto deserving of Fourth Amendment protection even though privacy interests 
were not at stake. They differed only in the degree of protection that the 
Amendment demanded.

The Court of Appeals appeared to find more specific support for confining 
the protection of the Fourth Amendment to privacy interests in our decision 
in Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984). There, a state prison inmate sued, 
claiming that prison guards had entered his cell without consent and had 
seized and destroyed some of his personal effects. We ruled that an inmate, 
because of his status, enjoyed neither a right to privacy in his cell nor 
protection against unreasonable seizures of his personal effects. Id., at 
526-528, and n. 8; id., at 538 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). Whatever else the 
case held, it is of limited usefulness outside the prison context with 
respect to the coverage of the Fourth Amendment.

We thus are unconvinced that any of the Court's prior cases supports the 
view that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures of 
property only where privacy or liberty is also implicated. What is more, our 
"plain view" decisions make untenable such a construction of the Amendment. 
Suppose, for example, that police officers lawfully enter a house, by either 
complying with the warrant requirement or satisfying one of its recognized 
exceptions - [506 U.S. 56, 66]   e.g., through a valid consent or a showing 
of exigent circumstances. If they come across some item in plain view and 
seize it, no invasion of personal privacy has occurred. Horton, 496 U.S., at 
133 -134; Brown, supra, at 739 (opinion of REHNQUIST, J.). If the boundaries 
of the Fourth Amendment were defined exclusively by rights of privacy, 
"plain view" seizures would not implicate that constitutional provision at 
all. Yet, far from being automatically upheld, "plain view" seizures have 
been scrupulously subjected to Fourth Amendment inquiry. Thus, in the 
absence of consent or a warrant permitting the seizure of the items in 
question, such seizures can be justified only if they meet the probable-
cause standard, Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 326 -327 (1987), 9 and if 
they are unaccompanied by unlawful trespass, Horton, 496 U.S., at 136 -137. 
10 That is because, the absence of a privacy interest notwithstanding, "[a] 
seizure of the article ... would obviously invade the owner's possessory 
interest." Id., at 134; see also Brown, 460 U.S., at 739 (opinion of 
REHNQUIST, J.). The plain-view doctrine "merely reflects an application of 
the Fourth Amendment's central requirement of reasonableness to the law 
governing seizures of property." Ibid.; Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 
443, 468 (1971); id., at 516 (WHITE, J., concurring and dissenting). 

The Court of Appeals understandably found it necessary to reconcile its 
holding with our recognition in the plain-view cases that the Fourth 
Amendment protects property as such. In so doing, the court did not 
distinguish this case on the ground that the seizure of the Soldals' home 
took place in a [506 U.S. 56, 67] noncriminal context. Indeed, it 
acknowledged what is evident from our precedents - that the Amendment's 
protection applies in the civil context as well. See O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 
U.S. 709 (1987); New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 334 -335 (1985); 
Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 504 -506 (1978); Marshall v. Barlow's, 
Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 312 -313 (1978); Camara v. Municipal Court of San 
Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967). 11

Nor did the Court of Appeals suggest that the Fourth Amendment applied 
exclusively to law enforcement activities. It observed, for example, that 
the Amendment's protection would be triggered "by a search or other entry 
into the home incident to an eviction or repossession," 942 F.2d, at 1077. 
12 Instead, the court sought to explain why the Fourth Amendment protects 
against seizures of property in the plain-view context, but not in this 
case, as follows:

     "[S]eizures made in the course of investigations by police or
     other law enforcement officers are almost always, as in the
     plain view cases, the culmination of searches. The police
     search in order to seize, and it is the search [506 U.S. 56, 68] and
     ensuing seizure that the Fourth Amendment, by its reference to
     "searches and seizures," seeks to regulate. Seizure means one
     thing when it is the outcome of a search; it may mean
     something else when it stands apart from a search or any other
     investigative activity. The Fourth Amendment may still
     nominally apply, but, precisely because there is no invasion of
     privacy, the usual rules do not apply." Id., at 1079 (emphasis
     in original). 

We have difficulty with this passage. The court seemingly construes the 
Amendment to protect only against seizures that are the outcome of a search. 
But our cases are to the contrary, and hold that seizures of property are 
subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny even though no search within the 
meaning of the Amendment has taken place. See, e.g., Jacobsen, 466 U.S., at 
120 -125; Place, 462 U.S., at 706 -707; Cardwell, 417 U.S., at 588 -589. 13 
More generally, an officer who happens to come across an individual's 
property in a public area could seize it only if Fourth Amendment standards 
are satisfied - for example, if the items are evidence of a crime or 
contraband. Cf. Payton v. New York, [506 U.S. 56, 69] 445 U.S., at 587 . We 
are also puzzled by the last sentence of the excerpt, where the court 
announces that the "usual rules" of the Fourth Amendment are inapplicable if 
the seizure is not the result of a search or any other investigative 
activity "precisely because there is no invasion of privacy." For the plain-
view cases clearly state that, notwithstanding the absence of any 
interference with privacy, seizures of effects that are not authorized by a 
warrant are reasonable only because there is probable cause to associate the 
property with criminal activity. The seizure of the weapons in Horton, for 
example, occurred in the midst of a search, yet we emphasized that it did 
not "involve any invasion of privacy." 496 U.S., at 133 . In short, our 
statement that such seizures must satisfy the Fourth Amendment and will be 
deemed reasonable only if the item's incriminating character is "immediately 
apparent," id., at 136-137, is at odds with the Court of Appeals' approach.

The Court of Appeals' effort is both interesting and creative, but, at 
bottom, it simply reasserts the earlier thesis that the Fourth Amendment 
protects privacy, but not property. We remain unconvinced, and see no 
justification for departing from our prior cases. In our view, the reason 
why an officer might enter a house or effectuate a seizure is wholly 
irrelevant to the threshold question whether the Amendment applies. What 
matters is the intrusion on the people's security from governmental 
interference. Therefore, the right against unreasonable seizures would be no 
less transgressed if the seizure of the house was undertaken to collect 
evidence, verify compliance with a housing regulation, effect an eviction by 
the police, or on a whim, for no reason at all. As we have observed on more 
than one occasion, it would be "anomalous to say that the individual and his 
private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the 
individual is suspected of criminal behavior." Camara 387 U.S., at 530 ; see 
also O'Connor, 480 U.S., at 715 ; T.L.O., 469 U.S., at 335 . [506 U.S. 56, 
70] 

The Court of Appeals also stated that, even if, contrary to its previous 
rulings, "there is some element or tincture of a Fourth Amendment seizure, 
it cannot carry the day for the Soldals." 942 F.2d, at 1080. Relying on our 
decision in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), the court reasoned that 
it should look at the "dominant character of the conduct challenged in a 
section 1983 case [to] determine the constitutional standard under which it 
is evaluated." 942 F.2d, at 1080. Believing that the Soldals' claim was more 
akin to a challenge against the deprivation of property without due process 
of law than against an unreasonable seizure, the court concluded that they 
should not be allowed to bring their suit under the guise of the Fourth 
Amendment.

But we see no basis for doling out constitutional protections in such 
fashion. Certain wrongs affect more than a single right, and, accordingly, 
can implicate more than one of the Constitution's commands. Where such 
multiple violations are alleged, we are not in the habit of identifying, as 
a preliminary matter, the claim's "dominant" character. Rather, we examine 
each constitutional provision in turn. See, e.g., Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 
517 (1984) (Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause); 
Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977) (Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth 
Amendment Due Process Clause). Graham is not to the contrary. Its holding 
was that claims of excessive use of force should be analyzed under the 
Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard, rather than the Fourteenth 
Amendment's substantive due process test. We were guided by the fact that, 
in that case, both provisions targeted the same sort of governmental conduct 
and, as a result, we chose the more "explicit textual source of 
constitutional protection" over the "more generalized notion of `substantive 
due process.'" 490 U.S., at 394 -395. Surely, Graham does not bar resort in 
this case to the Fourth Amendment's specific protection for "houses, papers, 
[506 U.S. 56, 71] and effects," rather than the general protection of 
property in the Due Process Clause.

                           III 

Respondents are fearful, as was the Court of Appeals, that applying the 
Fourth Amendment in this context inevitably will carry it into territory 
unknown and unforeseen: routine repossessions, negligent actions of public 
employees that interfere with individuals' right to enjoy their homes, and 
the like, thereby federalizing areas of law traditionally the concern of the 
States. For several reasons, we think the risk is exaggerated. To begin, our 
decision will have no impact on activities such as repossessions or 
attachments if they involve entry into the home, intrusion on individuals' 
privacy, or interference with their liberty, because they would implicate 
the Fourth Amendment even on the Court of Appeals' own terms. This was true 
of the Tenth Circuit's decision in Specht, with which, as we previously 
noted, the Court of Appeals expressed agreement.

More significantly, "reasonableness is still the ultimate standard" under 
the Fourth Amendment, Camara, supra, at 539, which means that numerous 
seizures of this type will survive constitutional scrutiny. As is true in 
other circumstances, the reasonableness determination will reflect a 
"careful balancing of governmental and private interests." T.L.O., supra, at 
341. Assuming, for example, that the officers were acting pursuant to a 
court order, as in Specht v. Jensen, 832 F.2d 1516 (CA10 1987), or Fuentes 
v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 , (1972), and, as often would be the case, a showing 
of unreasonableness on these facts would be a laborious task indeed. Cf. 
Simms v. Slacum, 3 Cranch 300, 301 (1806). Hence, while there is no 
guarantee against the filing of frivolous suits, had the ejection in this 
case properly awaited the state court's judgment, it is quite unlikely that 
the federal court would have been bothered with a 1983 action alleging a 
Fourth Amendment violation. [506 U.S. 56, 72] 

Moreover, we doubt that the police will often choose to further an 
enterprise knowing that it is contrary to the law, or proceed to seize 
property in the absence of objectively reasonable grounds for doing so. In 
short, our reaffirmance of Fourth Amendment principles today should not 
foment a wave of new litigation in the federal courts.

                           IV 

The complaint here alleges that respondents, acting under color of state 
law, dispossessed the Soldals of their trailer home by physically tearing it 
from its foundation and towing it to another lot. Taking these allegations 
as true, this was no "garden variety" landlord-tenant or commercial dispute. 
The facts alleged suffice to constitute a "seizure" within the meaning of 
the Fourth Amendment, for they plainly implicate the interests protected by 
that provision. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, accordingly, 
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with 
this opinion.

     So ordered. 



Footnotes

[1] Jones' statement was prompted by a district attorney's advice that no 
criminal charges could be brought because, under Illinois law, a criminal 
action cannot be used to determine the right of possession. See 
Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 110,  9-101 et seq. (1991); People v. Evans, 163 Ill.App. 
3d 561, 114 Ill.Dec. 662, 516 N.E.2d 817 (1st Dist. 1987).

[2] The Soldals ultimately were evicted per court order in December 1987.

[3] Title 42 U.S.C. 1983 provides that:

     "Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
     regulation, custom or usage, of any State ... subjects, or
     causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to
     the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured
     by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured
     in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding
     for redress." 

[4] The court reiterated the panel's conclusion that a conspiracy must be 
assumed on the state of the record and, therefore, that the case must be 
treated in its current posture "as if the deputy sheriffs themselves seized 
the trailer, disconnected it from the utilities, and towed it away." 942 
F.2d 1073, 1075 (CA7 1991) (en banc).

[5] The court noted that, in light of the existence of adequate judicial 
remedies under state law, a claim for deprivation of property without due 
process of law was unlikely to succeed. Id., at 1075-1076. See Parratt v. 
Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981). In any event, the Soldals did not claim a 
violation of their procedural rights. As noted, the Seventh Circuit also 
held that respondents had not violated the Soldals' substantive due process 
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Petitioners assert that this was 
error, but, in view of our disposition of the case, we need not address the 
question at this time.

[6] Under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the Soldals were required to establish that the 
respondents, acting under color of state law, deprived them of a 
constitutional right, in this instance, their Fourth and Fourteenth 
Amendment freedom from unreasonable seizures by the State. See Monroe v. 
Pape, [506 U.S. 56, 61]   365 U.S. 167, 184 (1961). Respondents request that 
we affirm on the ground that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that 
there was sufficient state action to support a 1983 action. The alleged 
injury to the Soldals, it is urged, was inflicted by private parties for 
whom the county is not responsible. Although respondents did not cross-
petition, they are entitled to ask us to affirm on that ground if such 
action would not enlarge the judgment of the Court of Appeals in their 
favor. The Court of Appeals found that, because the police prevented Soldal 
from using reasonable force to protect his home from private action that the 
officers knew was illegal, there was sufficient evidence of conspiracy 
between the private parties and the officers to foreclose summary judgment 
for respondents. We are not inclined to review that holding. See Adickes v. 
S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 152 -161 (1970).

[7] In holding that the Fourth Amendment's reach extends to property as 
such, we are mindful that the Amendment does not protect possessory 
interests in all kinds of property. See, e.g., Oliver v. United States, 466 
U.S. 170, 176 -177 (1984). This case, however, concerns a house, which the 
Amendment's language explicitly includes, as it does a person's effects.

[8] Place also found that to detain luggage for 90 minutes was an
unreasonable deprivation of the individual's "liberty interest in proceeding
with his itinerary," which also is protected by the Fourth Amendment. 462
U.S., at 708 -710.

[9] When "operational necessities" exist, seizures can be justified on less
than probable cause. 480 U.S., at 327 . That in no way affects our analysis,
for even then it is clear that the Fourth Amendment applies. Ibid; see also
United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 , at 703 (1983).

[10] Of course, if the police officers' presence in the home itself entailed a
violation of the Fourth Amendment, no amount of probable cause to believe
that an item in plain view constitutes incriminating evidence will justify its
seizure. Horton, 496 U.S., at 136 -137.

[11] It is true that Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 
How. 272 (1856), cast some doubt on the applicability of the Amendment to 
noncriminal encounters such as this. Id., 18 How. at 285. But cases since 
that time have shed a different light, making clear that Fourth Amendment 
guarantees are triggered by governmental searches and seizures "without 
regard to the use to which [houses, papers, and effects] are applied." 
Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 301 (1967). Murray's 
Lessee's broad statement that the Fourth Amendment "has no reference to 
civil proceedings for the recovery of debt" arguably only meant that the 
warrant requirement did not apply, as was suggested in G.M. Leasing Corp. v. 
United States, 429 U.S. 338, 352 (1977). Whatever its proper reading, we 
reaffirm today our basic understanding that the protection against 
unreasonable searches and seizures fully applies in the civil context.

[12] This was the view expressed by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth 
Circuit in Specht v. Jensen, 832 F.2d 1516 (1987), remanded on unrelated 
grounds, 853 F.2d 805 (1988) (en banc), with which the Seventh Circuit 
expressly agreed. 942 F.2d, at 1076.

[13] The officers in these cases were engaged in law enforcement, and were 
looking for something that was found and seized. In this broad sense, the 
seizures were the result of "searches," but not in the Fourth Amendment 
sense. That the Court of Appeals might have been suggesting that the plain-
view cases are explainable because they almost always occur in the course of 
law enforcement activities receives some support from the penultimate 
sentence of the quoted passage, where the court states that the word 
"seizure" might lose its usual meaning "when it stands apart from a search 
or any other investigative activity." Id., at 1079 (emphasis added). And, in 
the following paragraph, it observes that, "[o]utside of the law enforcement 
area, the Fourth Amendment retains its force as a protection against 
searches, because they invade privacy. That is why we decline to confine the 
amendment to the law enforcement setting." Id., at 1079-1080. Even if the 
court meant that seizures of property in the course of law enforcement 
activities, whether civil or criminal, implicate interests safeguarded by 
the Fourth Amendment, but that pure property interests are unprotected in 
the non-law-enforcement setting, we are not in accord, as indicated in the 
body of this opinion. [506 U.S. 56, 73] 




