Gaetjens v. Winnebago County, No. 20-1295 (7th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this Case
Justia Opinion Summary
Want to stay in the know about new opinions from the Seventh Circuit US Court of Appeals?
Sign up for free summaries delivered directly to your inbox. Learn More ›
You already receive new opinion summaries from Seventh Circuit US Court of Appeals. Did you know we offer summary newsletters for even more practice areas and jurisdictions? Explore them here.
Gaetjens bred cats in her Loves Park home.. Her doctor told her to go to the hospital because of high blood pressure. Later that day, the doctor couldn’t locate Gaetjens and phoned Eads, Gaetjens’s neighbor. Eads could not locate Gaetjens. The next day, Gaetjens was still missing. Eads called the police, stating that Gaetjens might be experiencing a medical emergency. Officers went to Gaetjens’s home but could not see anyone inside. They saw packages on the porch, untended garbage, and a full mailbox. . Eads provided a key. The police went into the home but immediately left because of intense odors, "urine, feces, and maybe a decomposing body." The police called the Fire Department to enter with breathing devices. The Fire Chief temporarily condemned the home as not fit for habitation. Firefighters went inside to look for Gaetjens but found 37 cats. They summoned Animal Services to round up the cats because Gaetjens was not allowed inside the condemned house. The cats were impounded for nine days. Four cats died.
Gaetjens, who had been in the hospital, sued under section 1983. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The Fourth Amendment ordinarily prohibits such conduct without a warrant but emergencies breed exceptions. The defendants had reason to believe that Gaetjens was experiencing a medical emergency and found her home so noxious that it posed a public safety risk.
Download PDF
In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 20 1295 SALLY GAETJENS, Plaintiff Appellant, v. CITY OF LOVES PARK, et al., Defendants Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. No. 16 cv 50261 — John Robert Blakey, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED MAY 27, 2021— DECIDED JULY 13, 2021 ____________________ Before KANNE, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. KANNE, Circuit Judge. Plainti Sally Gaetjens sued various local government o cials for entering and condemning her home and confiscating her thirty seven cats, all without a warrant. She’s right that the Fourth Amendment would usu ally prohibit such conduct. But emergencies breed excep tions—and this case is littered with emergencies. 2 No. 20 1295 Namely, Gaetjens went missing in action, and Defendants had reason to believe that she was experiencing a medical emergency. Plus, when Defendants attempted to check her home, they deemed it so noxious that it posed a public safety risk. Given these exigencies, the Fourth Amendment did not require Defendants to wait for judicial approval before acting. We thus a rm the decision of the district court granting sum mary judgment to Defendants. I. BACKGROUND The following facts are undisputed and stated in the light most favorable to Gaetjens as the nonmoving party. Wonsey v. City of Chicago, 940 F.3d 394, 399 (7th Cir. 2019) (citing Dayton v. Oakton Cmty. Coll., 907 F.3d 460, 465 (7th Cir. 2018)). Gaetjens bred cats in her home in Loves Park, Illinois. On December 4, 2014, she visited her doctor and was told to go to the hospital because of high blood pressure. Later that day, the doctor couldn’t locate Gaetjens, so she phoned Rosalie Eads (Gaetjens’s neighbor who was listed as her emergency contact) to ask for help finding her. Eads called Gaetjens and knocked on her front door but got no response. The next day, Gaetjens was still missing, so Eads called the Loves Park police and told them that Gaetjens might be expe riencing a medical emergency. Defendant Sergeant Allton and another o cer went to Gaetjens’s Loves Park home but could not see anyone inside. They did, though, notice pack ages on the porch, untended garbage, and a full mailbox. The police then met up with Eads, who said she had a key to the Loves Park house and confirmed what she had said on the phone. With these facts before them, the police asked Eads for the key so that they could enter to see if Gaetjens was in No. 20 1295 3 danger. Eads obliged but also said that she thought perhaps Gaetjens was at her other home in Rockford. The police went into the home but didn’t get far. After making it about ten feet, intense odors forced them back out. Allton described the smell as a mix of urine, feces, and maybe a decomposing body. The police then called on the Loves Park Fire Department to enter the home with breathing devices. Defendant Fire Chief Foley arrived first, and Allton told him the whole tale. So Foley approached the cracked front door for himself and got a whi of something that could “gag a maggot.” Foley thus temporarily condemned the home as not fit for human or animal habitation by placing a placard on the front door that read: “CONDEMNED[.] This Structure is Unsafe and Its use or occupancy has been prohibited by the code administra tor. It shall be unlawful for any person to enter such structure except for the purpose of making the required repairs or re moval.” More firefighters soon arrived and went into the home to look for Gaetjens. But instead of Gaetjens, they found thirty seven cats. At that point, the responders summoned Winnebago County Animal Services to round up the cats because Gaet jens was not allowed inside the condemned house to care for the clowder herself. Some of the felines proved more di cult to catch than others. In particular, the male stud, Calaio, looked ready to attack the workers. So they pulled out metal “cat grabbers” to trap him. 4 No. 20 1295 In the end, Animal Services impounded the cats from De cember 4 to December 13, 2014. Sadly, four cats, including Calaio, died as a result of the impoundment. Based on these events, Gaetjens—who unbeknownst to the o cers had been in the hospital all along—sued the City of Loves Park, Winnebago County, and various employees of each under 28 U.S.C. § 1983. Relevant to this appeal, she al leged that the individual Defendants (Allton, Foley, and three Animal Services employees) violated her Fourth Amendment rights by (1) entering her home, (2) condemning her home, and (3) seizing her cats. She also alleged that the City of Loves Park and Winnebago County are liable for these violations under Monell v. Department of Social Services of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). The district court granted summary judgment to all De fendants on all claims. Gaetjens now appeals. II. ANALYSIS We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Wonsey, 940 F.3d at 399 (citing Dayton, 907 F.3d at 465). In this case, the district court determined that Gaetjens’s Fourth Amendment claims fail because the individual de fendants are entitled to qualified immunity. We agree that Gaetjens’s claims fail, but for a more basic reason—the indi vidual defendants did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and e ects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. This protection exists in both the criminal and civil contexts. Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 67 (1992). No. 20 1295 5 “[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.’” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (citing Flippo v. West Virginia, 528 U.S. 11, 13 (1999); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)). “[S]earches and sei zures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively un reasonable.” Id. (quoting Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 559 (2004)). But this “warrant requirement is subject to certain ex ceptions.” Id. (citing Flippo, 528 U.S. at 13; Katz, 389 U.S. at 357). One such exception arises when “‘the exigencies of the sit uation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search [or seizure] is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394 (1978) (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456 (1948)) (citing Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14– 15 (1948)). In these situations, one principle governs—“[t]he need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is jus tification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exi gency or emergency.” Id. at 392–93 (quoting Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir. 1963)). To determine whether an exigency permitted a warrant less search or seizure in a home, we “conduct[] an objective review, analyzing whether the government met its burden to demonstrate that a reasonable officer had a ‘reasonable belief that there was a compelling need to act and no time to obtain a warrant.’” United States v. Andrews, 442 F.3d 996, 1000 (7th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Saadeh, 61 F.3d 510, 516 (7th Cir. 1995)). This objective review looks at “the totality of facts and circumstances ‘as they would have appeared to a reason able person in the position of the ... officer—seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard.’” Bogan v. City of Chicago, 644 F.3d 563, 6 No. 20 1295 572 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting Mahoney v. Kesery, 976 F.2d 1054, 1057 (7th Cir. 1992)). The exigent circumstances doctrine applies equally to warrantless searches of a home, seizures of a home, and sei zures of private property within a home. See Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, 751 F.3d 542, 558 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Shrum, 908 F.3d 1219, 1231 (10th Cir. 2018) (“[T]he warrantless seizure of a home … ‘is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of exceptions based on the presence of “exigent circum stances.”’” (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 474–75 (1971)) (citing Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403)); Siebert v. Severino, 256 F.3d 648, 657 (7th Cir. 2001) (“Exigent circum stances may justify a warrantless seizure of animals.” (citing DiCesare v. Stuart, 12 F.3d 973, 977 (10th Cir. 1993))). Here, all parties agree that Allton “searched” the Loves Park home by entering it to look for Gaetjens. Likewise, all agree that Foley “seized” the Loves Park home by placing a condemnation placard on it and that the Animal Services workers “seized” Gaetjens’s cats by capturing them. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113 (1984) (“A ‘seizure’ of prop erty occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.”). Fi nally, all agree that Defendants did not obtain warrants or any other judicial or administrative approval before conducting these searches and seizures. So, to satisfy the Fourth Amendment, Defendants’ war rantless searches and seizures needed to fall into an exception to the warrant requirement. They all did—each was justified by an exigent circumstance. No. 20 1295 7 First, Allton (who searched the house) had an objectively reasonable basis for believing that Gaetjens was experiencing a medical emergency that required immediate action. Second, Foley (who seized the house) had an objectively reasonable basis on which to believe that the Loves Park home posed a safety threat that required immediate attention. Third, the An imal Services employees (who seized the cats) reasonably de termined that the cats were in imminent danger because they could not be cared for in the home. Last, because none of the individual defendants violated Gaetjens’s Fourth Amendment rights, her Monell claims fail as well. A. The Home Entry In an exigent circumstance often referred to as an “emer gency aid” situation, government o cials may enter a home without a warrant “to ‘render assistance or prevent harm to persons or property within.’” Sutterfield, 751 F.3d at 558 (quot ing Sheik–Abdi v. McClellan, 37 F.3d 1240, 1244 (7th Cir. 1994)). In a recent concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh provided “[a] few (non exhaustive) examples [that] illustrate” “some heartland emergency aid situations.” Caniglia v. Strom, 141 S. Ct. 1596, 1604 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). The follow ing example is particularly apt for this appeal: Suppose that an elderly man is uncharacteristi cally absent from Sunday church services and repeatedly fails to answer his phone throughout the day and night. A concerned relative calls the police and asks the o cers to perform a well ness check. Two o cers drive to the man’s 8 No. 20 1295 home. They knock but receive no response. May the o cers enter the home? Of course. Id. at 1605 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring); accord United States v. Tepiew, 859 F.3d 452 (7th Cir. 2017) (permitting police o cers’ warrantless entry into a home on the basis of a report from a child in the home that her one year old brother had sustained a head injury and had a pu y face). The home entry in this case likewise falls into the heart land of emergency aid situations. It is undisputed that Allton knew that (1) Eads and Gaetjens’s doctor were unable to get in touch with Gaetjens; (2) the doctor’s o ce called Eads be cause she was Gaetjens’s emergency contact; (3) Eads was concerned that Gaetjens was experiencing a medical emer gency; and (4) Gaetjens’s mail and garbage were piling up. If, as Justice Kavanaugh posits, failing to come to church and answer a phone provides an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant needs emergency assistance, then this litany of concerning circumstances facing Allton more than provided him with the same. His warrantless entry of the Loves Park home thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In response, Gaetjens makes much of the fact that Eads told Allton that she believed Gaetjens was at her Rockford home, not her Loves Park home. But that statement just gave Allton a reason to also look for Eads in her Rockford house; it in no way contradicted the above facts that gave Allton an ob jectively reasonable basis to enter the Loves Park home. B. The Condemnation “The exigent circumstances doctrine [also] allows o cers to enter a home without a warrant … to address a threat to the No. 20 1295 9 safety of law enforcement o cers or the general public … .” Caniglia, 141 S. Ct. at 1603 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (citing, among other cases, Michigan v. Cli ord, 464 U.S. 287, 293 & n.4 (1984)). Two precedents guide our analysis of whether Foley had an objectively reasonable basis for believing that a safety threat required him to condemn the Loves Park home without a warrant. First, in Wonsey, building inspectors found thirty two building code violations in the plainti ’s home. 940 F.3d at 398. Based on the “dangerous conditions” that those viola tions presented, the inspectors asked the police to help them with “emergency evacuations.” Id. The police did so, and then faced a § 1983 suit from an evacuee for violating her Fourth Amendment rights. Id. We rejected that claim because the “police entered her house … to help with an evacuation given an immediate safety concern.” Id. at 401. Second, the Sixth Circuit addressed a similar scenario in Flatford v. City of Monroe, 17 F.3d 162 (6th Cir. 1994), which we find persuasive. There, police officers evacuated a residential apartment building after inspectors determined that it “posed an immediate danger to its occupants and the public” because of its dilapidated wooden structure and faulty electrical sys tem. Id. at 171. The court determined that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity for this warrantless evacuation because they reasonably believed that their entry was justified by exigent circumstances. Id. And the court noted that “[t]he very point of the exigency exception under these circum stances is to allow immediate effective action necessary to protect the safety of occupants, neighbors, and the public at large.” Id. at 170. 10 No. 20 1295 This case aligns with both Wonsey and Flatford. Allton re ported to Foley that the home was so noxious that the police could not bear going in more than ten feet. Foley then probed the front door himself and smelled a stench that could “gag a maggot.” These circumstances gave Foley a reasonable basis on which to conclude that the home’s “conditions posed an immediate danger to its occupants and the public.” Id. at 171. Thus his reflex to temporarily condemn the home and “pro tect or preserve life” from such danger did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392–93 (quoting Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212). Gaetjens retorts that summary judgment on this claim is inappropriate because the condition of the home was put in dispute by the testimony of her friend, Joan Klarner, who tes tified that she did not believe the home posed a health risk when she visited it several hours before Defendants arrived. But Klarner’s testimony doesn’t directly dispute the state of the home as Defendants found it later on that day. More im portant, even if the home was not as bad as Allton made it out to be, Foley was nonetheless entitled to rely on Allton’s state ments about the condition of the home because Allton had su perior information after entering the home moments earlier. Cf. Flatford, 17 F.3d at 170 (“[R]equiring officers to second guess the more informed judgment of a building safety in spector would hinder effective and swift action. Officers should, therefore, have wide latitude to rely on a building safety official’s expertise where that expert determination ap pears to have some basis in fact.”). C. Confiscation of the Cats Last, “[e]xigent circumstances may justify a warrantless seizure of animals” when an o cial reasonably believes that No. 20 1295 11 the animals are in “imminent danger.” Siebert, 256 F.3d at 657 (citing DiCesare, 12 F.3d at 977); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Duncan, 7 N.E.3d 469, 471 (Mass. 2014) (finding exigent cir cumstances to seize dogs where the dogs were left out “in se verely inclement winter weather” and “extremely emaci ated”); Hegarty v. Addison Cnty. Humane Soc’y, 848 A.2d 1139, 1143 (Vt. 2004) (permitting the warrantless seizure of a horse where o cer reasonably believed that the horse’s “health was in jeopardy and that immediate action was required to protect her”). The imminent danger to animals here was plain—Gaet jens’s thirty seven cats could not be cared for in the Loves Park home because the condemnation placard prevented Gaetjens from entering the home for that purpose. Given this situation, the Animal Services o cials’ warrantless entry into the Loves Park home and the seizure of her cats did not vio late the Fourth Amendment. Gaetjens argues in rebuttal that regardless of whether An imal Services could seize her cats, they still violated the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force when doing so. Specifically, she alleges that the o cials used a “cat grabber” that injured and ultimately killed the stud Calaio. We have held before that “the use of deadly force against a household pet is reasonable only if the pet poses an imme diate danger and the use of force is unavoidable.” Viilo v. Eyre, 547 F.3d 707, 710 (7th Cir. 2008) (citing Brown v. Muhlenberg Township, 269 F.3d 205, 210–11 (3d Cir. 2001)). But that case, and the cases from this circuit applying its rule, involved of ficers shooting dogs with firearms. This case involved Animal Services o cials using a cat catching tool to catch a cat (which, according to indisputable testimony, looked ready to 12 No. 20 1295 “maul” the cat catcher). That Calaio died as a result of this manifestly reasonable tactic is unfortunate, but it does not an unreasonable seizure make. Gaetjens also argues that even if the initial seizure of her cats was lawful, Animal Services violated her Fourth Amend ment rights by retaining the cats longer than necessary. This argument fails because we have made clear that the Four teenth Amendment, not the Fourth Amendment, provides the appropriate basis for challenging post seizure procedures for the retrieval of property. Bell v. City of Chicago, 835 F.3d 736, 741 (7th Cir. 2016). As a final note, Gaetjens argues that the district court in correctly granted summary judgment sua sponte to the Animal Services o cials. While Gaetjens is correct that this procedure warrants caution, it is permissible when “the losing party is given notice and an opportunity to come forward with its ev idence.” Jones v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 302 F.3d 735, 740 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 326 (1986); Goldstein v. Fid. and Guar. Ins. Underwriters, Inc., 86 F.3d 749, 750 (7th Cir. 1996)). Gaetjens has not argued here that she re ceived inadequate notice, nor has she shown that she was de prived of an opportunity to marshal evidence to dispute the facts relied on in this opinion. We therefore conclude that the Animal Services workers, like the other individual defendants, did not violate Gaet jens’s Fourth Amendment rights. D. Monell Liability According to the Supreme Court’s decision in Monell, mu nicipalities are sometimes liable for the constitutional viola tions that their employees commit. 436 U.S. at 658. “But a No. 20 1295 13 municipality cannot be liable under Monell when there is no underlying constitutional violation by a municipal em ployee.” Sallenger v. City of Springfield, 630 F.3d 499, 504 (7th Cir. 2010) (citing King ex rel. King v. E. St. Louis Sch. Dist. 189, 496 F.3d 812, 817 (7th Cir. 2007); Jenkins v. Bartlett, 487 F.3d 482, 492 (7th Cir. 2007)). That’s the case here. Gaetjens’s con stitutional rights were not violated, and thus her Monell claim cannot succeed. III. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
