Anne DURNEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. C. Duval DOSS; Travis Dooms; Doug Gowen; L.J. Ayers, III, Sheriff, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 03-1975.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: May 6, 2004. Decided: July 28, 2004.
Before MOTZ and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and PASCO M. BOWMAN, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.
OPINION
PER CURIAM:
Anne Durney, the plaintiff below, appeals the District Court‘s grant of summary judgment against her on her
Durney‘s claims arise from her arrest in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Amherst County, Virginia on May 4, 2001. Appellee Travis Dooms, a deputy in the Amherst County Sheriff‘s Department, was called to the lot after Karla Jones, a Wal-Mart customer, reported that a pick-up truck had backed into her parked car and had dented its front bumper. Jones had attempted to track down the truck‘s owner to no avail. Dooms arrived, observed the damage to Jones‘s car, and asked dispatch to run the truck‘s Wyoming license plate number in order to determine the identity of the vehicle‘s owner. Dispatch reported that the license plate number had been issued to a blue car, rather than to a green pick-up truck. Puzzled by this inconsistency, Dooms then asked dispatch to run the truck‘s VIN number, which came back as not on file. Dooms became suspicious because unrecorded VIN numbers are often associated with criminal activity. Dooms then asked dispatch to contact the Wyoming Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV“) to see if they could determine who owned the truck. The DMV indicated that the truck belonged to Durney. Dooms had Wal-Mart page Durney in the store to no avail. After an hour of attempting to locate the driver of the truck, Dooms opened a toolbox contained in the truck‘s bed in the hope that it might yield information as to the driver‘s identity.
Immediately upon Dooms‘s opening the toolbox, Durney and her husband approached. Durney began yelling that Dooms had no right to search the toolbox and was violating her constitutional rights. Dooms explained that Jones had reported damage to her car and that he was simply
Durney then filed this
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, Love-Lane v. Martin, 355 F.3d 766, 775 (4th Cir. 2004), examining the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Id. Summary judgment is appropriate when the record “show[s] that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
Durney first argues that the warrantless search of the toolbox found in the bed of her pickup truck was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We reject this argument. The District Court determined that exigent circumstances, notably the fact that the car could easily be moved while Dooms attempted to secure a warrant to search the truck and the conflicting information as to the ownership and licens-
As noted by the Supreme Court, “[l]ocal police officers ... frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no claim of criminal liability and engage in what ... may be described as community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.” Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973). Dooms‘s investigation of this minor “fender-bender” was undertaken in furtherance of this community-caretaking function. Dooms was on the scene not to investigate the accident but merely to aid Karla Jones gain the information required for her to submit an insurance claim. See also
Durney next argues that she was unreasonably seized in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights when Dooms and Gowen would not let her leave without providing them with the requested information. The Supreme Court has long recognized that “interrogation relating to one‘s identity or a request for identification by the police does not, by itself, constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure.” INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216 (1984). Dooms‘s initial requests for Durney‘s name did not implicate any of her Fourth Amendment rights. See Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt County, 542 U.S. 177, 185 (2004) (“In the ordinary course a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment.“). Furthermore, officers with a reasonable suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity may detain individuals in order to investigate this suspicion. United States v. Perkins, 363 F.3d 317, 321 (4th Cir. 2004) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)). In stopping Durney from leaving the parking lot, Dooms and Gowen were, at most, con-
Durney also claims that her warrantless arrest was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the officers lacked probable cause to arrest her. A warrantless arrest is permissible under the Fourth Amendment if, at the time of the arrest, the officer had probable cause to believe that the arrestee had committed or was committing a crime. See United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224, 227 (4th Cir.1990). At the time of the arrest, the deputies had probable cause to believe that Durney had violated numerous laws, including probable cause to believe that she was obstructing justice in violation of
Durney further argues that she was arrested in retaliation for exercising her First Amendment rights. This claim is meritless. As noted above, the deputies arrested Durney because they had probable cause to believe that she had committed a crime in their presence. There is no evidence whatsoever that she was arrested for exercising her right to free speech.
Finally, Durney argues that defendants’ claim of qualified immunity should have been denied in its entirety. Law-enforcement officers are entitled to qualified immunity unless they violate clearly established constitutional rights. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Because, as discussed above, appellees did not violate any of Durney‘s constitutional rights, they would, of course, have been entitled to qualified immunity had the District Court not granted summary judgment against Durney on the merits of her claims. We therefore agree with the District Court‘s alternative holding that Dooms‘s brief search of the toolbox for the purpose of obtaining information that would help identify the driver of the truck was objectively reasonable under existing law. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641 (1987). Even assuming arguendo that the search of the toolbox was not a permissible exercise of Dooms‘s community-caretaking powers, he is nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity and to summary judgment on this claim.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.